(New York Times) — A federal judge on Tuesday allowed the movie “Hangover Part II” to be released for the Memorial Day weekend, rejecting a request by a tattoo artist who says that the movie violates his copyright by using a face tattoo he made for Mike Tyson on a central character in the movie.  But even as Judge Catherine D. Perry of Federal District Court in St. Louis gave an important victory to Warner Brothers Entertainment, the studio that is releasing “Hangover Part II,” she made clear that her sympathies were entirely on the side of the artist, S. Victor Whitmill.  She said that Mr. Whitmill had a “strong likelihood of prevailing on the merits for copyright infringement” and that most of the arguments put forward by Warner Bros. were “just silly.” Mr. Whitmill made the Maori-inspired tattoo for Mr. Tyson in 2003 in Las Vegas. In testimony on the lawsuit, he described how he had spent four hours conferring with Mr. Tyson and then inking the tattoo face, steering him from a pattern he proposed with “hearts and diamonds around the eye area” to a creation inspired by tribal art.

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