Take-Two Interactive & Visual Concepts Sued By Tattoo Artists

[redsox4evur]

Quote: Originally Posted by ksuttonjr76

And 2K Sports doesn't claim the tattoos as "theirs", but as a recreation of the players to whom they have the RIGHTS to use their likeness in their video games.

Dude you are missing my point...my point is these guys aren't getting any exposure by having these tattoos in NBA 2K. They aren't mentioned by Take Two or Visual Concepts. And I have never seen a player say on Twitter that he got this tattoo from shop x in city Y. That's all I am trying to say. So Ksutton please tell me who did every tattoo on Birdman's body? This should be an easy question for you to answer because they get all this exposure from Birdman and the companies that create the 2K game.

And the only other thing I have said is that they need to get permission from the artist to use it, and after reading through the Kaepernick thread that may not even be true. I am going to do some more research on this before I say they need permission from the artists or not. But I will keep defending that these artists aren't getting exposure from Take Two and Visual Concepts.

[King_B_Mack]

Quote: Originally Posted by redsox4evur

What exposure? There isn't any because 2K does not say who created these tattoos? Nor do the players.

So you don't think tattoo artists have gotten any foot traffic from the celebrities they've inked? I couldn't tell you who inked up Paul George right now because I haven't researched it at all, but if someone sees his arm and decides they like one of his tattoos and want to get something similar or find out where he got it, as long as it wasn't in a jailhouse or one of his buddies did it in the basement and in an actual shop, I'm sure someone could find out. I'll give you an example. I don't know if it's still up, but for about five years at least on the route I used to take to work I had to look at DMX's smiling *** face on a billboard in one of the worst pictures of him I've ever seen as he was getting inked advertising the shop here in Chicago where he got one of his tattoos done.

Quote: Originally Posted by ChaseB

Pretty sure there's a difference between being broadcast on TV and selling an actual product based around the re-creation of said authentic player. EA got sued over this and took it on the chin, I'm more surprised it took this long than anything as it never made sense why one company was then super careful about this for a football game yet nobody else was trying to avoid the issue. That being said, Live has lots of tatts now too though doesn't it?

The NBA sells videos including those players tattoos and all on them. I would guess that since you can't simply include copyrighted music in those videos tattoos would be the same if people are really claiming copyrights on them.

[youvalss]

It's sad that this may be an issue in the future. But, oh well, I can live with players not having any tattoos.

[tril]

interesting.
I see this going beyond video games.
so basically a tattoo artist with a unique design can potentially sue someone who gets the same tattoo without permission.
and a question also arises; who owns the copy rights to these unique tattoos.
IF a player comes up with the concept for a tattoo, then that means the player could technically own the rights, not the artist. the artist who features his work in advertising obviously has to also seek permission to use said design.

1.1 million is alot of money. I could see 2k using generic tattoos in the future. these costs will obviously get higher with each new release.

[redsox4evur]

Alright so I said earlier I wanted to do a little research on this. And I have been reading the Kaepernick stuff. And there was an article posted by USA Today about the Madden Dev team. And one said this, "the NBA has a different licensing agreement with their players then the NFL does with theirs. In the NBA, if their tattoos are on their skin, they are technically owned by that player and can therefore be used in games and what not. In the NFL, they are owned by the artist."

So something must've changed in the year +.

And here's a good article about why you can't show your tats in a videogame without permission. http://hyperallergic.com/145999/why-...n-video-games/

[jaynral]

the only person who loses in this situation is the CUSTOMER.....video gaming has definitely gone to the next level...

[TheDuggler]

I'm not a lawyer so I have no real opinion, but I really hope they don't have to remove all the tats in game. The players finally look amazing (mostly) and that is going to really make the game stand out from reality when guys like JR will just be plain skinned

[Vni]

Quote: Originally Posted by youvalss

It's sad that this may be an issue in the future. But, oh well, I can live with players not having any tattoos.

Players will have dolphins and flowers on their arms in 2K17.