All Articles Tagged "s. victor whitmill"
Judge Rules for Warner But Sympathizes With Tyson Tattoo Artist
(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.
Mike Tyson's Tattoo Man Wants the Biters to Pay
(New York Times) — Hollywood is accustomed to lawsuits over salaries, movie credits, even half-baked concepts that become movies. And now a studio may be going to court over a tattoo — or at least over the original concept of the tattoo. In “The Hangover Part II,” the sequel to the very successful what-happened-last-night comedy, the character played by Ed Helms wakes up with a permanent tattoo bracketing his left eye. The Maori-inspired design is instantly recognizable as the one sported by the boxer Mike Tyson, which is part of the joke. (Mr. Tyson makes an appearance in both films, playing himself.) But S. Victor Whitmill, a tattoo artist formerly of Las Vegas and currently from rural Missouri, doesn’t quite see the humor. Mr. Whitmill designed the tattoo for Mr. Tyson, called it “tribal tattoo,” and claims it as a copyrighted work. He has gone to Federal District Court in St. Louis to ask a judge to stop Warner Brothers Entertainment from using the tattoo in its posters or in the movie, which would amount to stopping the film from being released, as well as to demand monetary damages for what he calls “reckless copyright infringement” by the studio. “Mr. Whitmill has never been asked for permission for, and has never consented to, the use, reproduction or creation of a derivative work based on his original tattoo,” argues the lawsuit, which was filed April 28, and will be taken up next week.
