In response to my Hearltess crest tattoo design, Biorequiem reader Alyssa asks:
As a huge (silent, lurking type) fan of your various artistic endeavors, this is really astounding for me. How do you feel about people other than the commissioner having your work tattooed on them?
A timely question! Since I’ve been on a tattoo commission kick lately, I’ve gotten lots of positive feedback from my readers. Awesome! I’ve also run into a curious ethical issue: folks asking if they can also get tattoos of art created specifically for others’ flesh. The short answer is a resounding “No”, and here is why.
When people ink my existing artwork -illustrations, art in the shop, paintings- onto their welcoming flesh, I’m absolutely honored and delighted, every time. By all means, get yourself a competent artist and go for it! Send pictures, too. As a matter of fact, someone’s getting one done right now.
But when I create a tattoo design for a specific person, it is theirs. We talk about placement, I often request photos of the body part the piece will go on, I find out about the client’s inspirations, I do research – all with that particular client in mind. And the clients, they pay me – let’s not forget this. They pay for an original design that’s just theirs to get tattooed. Unless otherwise arranged beforehand, I own the rights to my art, but, in tattoo form, the piece is the client’s alone.
At least that’s what I believe.
While I love sharing work online, I want my readers to respect their fellow art enthusiasts and what “commission” means. Is this a unrealistic aspiration, considering no technology can stop an unscrupulous person from yanking an image off the internet for their own shadowy purposes? My only option is to stop posting commission work, and I hope not to find myself feeling like I must. Instead, if you want something drawn just for you, I suggest you email me and we get started on a piece of your very own.
As someone who has paid an artist to use an existing piece of work for a tattoo, I wholeheartedly respect and get why artists charge. And to answer your question, yes – it’s probably an unrealistic aspiration of yours to want people to adhere to your particular form of ethics regarding image stealing. The internet is full of thieves who have either no concept of what copyright actually entails or don’t give a damn.
I suggest that when you want to post a commission piece, you show only portions of it. I know, that sucks balls. And to completely preserve the integrity of the piece, I don’t see any other option.
Keep fighting the good fight!
Christina, I’m inclined to agree. Though so far I’ve only posted low-res images, I know that if someone really wants to, they’ll find a way to work around that.
Posting fragments of a piece is great idea, actually – much better than slapping a big nasty watermark on my work, for example.
Not sure if you’d want to, but you could always post WIP pictures of commission pieces – I’m sure your rough sketches are awesome! I’d be pretty interested in seeing how you work and I’m sure other artists would too :)
I could never imagine getting a tattoo that was designed for someone else… I’m also aware of how you feel about your clients and I’m sure if they didn’t want the image reproduced online then you would’ve worked something out with them :-)
I think you are amazing and your work is something special.
I look forward to getting a good pic of your tart on my back I hope you will like the tattooist work as much as I do I can’t believe how he did it :-)
Long may you continue giving people something to enhance themselves with :-D
Personally, I am not sure why a person would want to get an exact tattoo that someone already has.
Being a tattoo enthusiast, I’d be mortified & humiliated to find that something on my body was blatantly ripped off of someone else. I’d cover it up or alter it, straight away! Thats why everything I have is custom. And I’d pity someone who went and got themselves a replica of anything I already have inked onto myself.
I’m really sorry that people are doing this, Zo. Especially since, a good tattoo artist is not cheap. It’s not fair that a person pays you, then their artist, just so someone else can rip off the design for free. I hope its stopped at people simply asking you, if it’s ok, rather than people actually doing this.
Paula – thanks! Also [obviously]dying to see the Tart, finished and shimmying across your back.
Anonymer – fortunately no one has actually done it, but the fact that it was even mentioned in passing on my FB page made me want to address the topic here, preemptively.
I completely agree with the overall point, but I think this is a problematic example.
As far as I know, the Heartless logo is copyrighted by Square, and there was an original artist who was commissioned to produce it for them.
As an interesting ethical question, does you calling out others for “borrowing” your work also mean that they should be calling you out for “borrowing” theirs?
K, I would guess that 30% of tattoos, at minimum, are unaltered replicas of existing art, be it characters from films, cartoon tributes, famous paintings, etc. And though the Heartless logo may be a lesser-known symbol, I reworked it completely, start to finish. Unless you are prepared to say that everyone who has Frankenstein or Bugs Bunny inked on them ought to pay a few to the originals, I see no problem with my example here.
Unfortunately it’s not me that’s prepared to say it, it’s copyright law. (For the record, I’d prefer a much less strict definition of fair use, particularly in the UK where we don’t really have it).
What I was interested in was how this kind of scenario compares to, say, sampling in music, and the way that the “underground” culture develops its own rules for permissability, which then come into conflict with the mainstream strict copyright rules, etc.
But that comes with the recognition that, even if some people consider it permissable, that it might, rightly or wrongly, be illegal.
(I’m also not totally up on the transformative work rules in the US. At the very least, it would be a looong discussion with lawyers to work it out)