Written on the Body: Intellectual Property Rights in Tattoos, Makeup, and Other Body Art

Abstract

This essay, published in the UCLA Entertainment Law Review in 2003, was the first law review article to discuss a set of issues that has arisen just recently in litigation involving the movie The Hangover 2: the extent to which intellectual property rights may subsist in tattoos and other body art. The authors discuss the possibly unsettling consequences of applying standard copyright, trademark, and right of publicity doctrine to this type of subject matter; and they argue that, when called upon to do so, courts should interpret the governing legal standards relating to issues such as ownership, infringement, remedies, and fair use with sensitivity to the competing interests of IP owners, body artists, and the human subjects who display body art.

Keywords: copyright, trademark, right of publicity, tattoos, body art, fair use