Boxer lit up in both parts of the American comedy, in which he played himself. In the second part of one of the protagonists of the film I had the exact same tatuha. This fact caused a scandal when the author Tyson tattoo saw this as copyright infringement, demanding to cancel the release of the film and pour him kilogram bags of money in the bargain.
“Listen, the other day, I was thinking about just getting a tattoo. I’m in such good physical condition. I was just thinking about getting my whole body inked up,” Tyson said during an interview earlier in the year.
Sein wohl auffälligstes Tattoo hat er aber in seinem Gesicht – ganz genau über, unter und links von seinem linken Auge. 2003, unmittelbar vor einem Kampf gegen Clifford Etienne, ließ er sich dort ein Kriegssymbol der neuseeländischen Maori stechen.
Am 20. Juni sollte in Arlington (Texas) ein ganz spezielles Box-Event steigen. Dann hätte der ehemalige Weltmeister im Schwergewicht Mike Tyson sein Comeback im Ring gegeben. Der dann 57-Jährige kämpft gegen den 30 Jahre jüngeren Jake Paul.
Of course tattoos can be copyrighted. I don’t think there is any reasonable dispute about that. They are not copyrighting Mr. Tyson’s face, or restricting Mr. Tyson’s use of his own face, as the defendant argues, or saying that someone who has a tattoo can’t remove the tattoo or change it, but the tattoo itself and the design itself can be copyrighted, and I think it’s entirely consistent with the copyright law.
The Mike Tyson tattoo on his face has had a decisive impact on popular culture and fashion, becoming a different kind of individuality and boldness. This unique pattern not only enhanced his formidable image, but also inspired many people to experiment with tattoos and self-expression. In the world of fashion and art, Tyson’s tattoo became a symbol of boldness and non-acceptance of the standard, prompting designers and artists to create new trends and boxing division champion collections inspired by the motifs present. The emergence of facial tattoos in music, movies and even on runways is partly due to the influence of Tyson, who showed with his invention that such tattoos can be a powerful expression of personal history and inner strength.
Warner Bros. asserted about 16 defenses. They acknowledged that the tattoos were similar but denied that theirs was a copy. They further argued that “tattoos on the skin are not copyrightable”. They reasoned that a human body is a useful article under 17 U.S.C. § 101 and thus not copyrightable. The question of a tattoo’s copyrightability had never been determined by the Supreme Court of the United States. Arguments in the alternative included that Tyson, by allowing them to use his likeness and not objecting to the plot device in The Hangover Part II, had given them an implied license, and that their use of the tattoo constituted fair use as parody because it juxtaposed Tyson as “the epitome of male aggression” with the “milquetoast” Price. Scholar David Nimmer, participating an expert witness for Warner Bros., argued that treating tattoos as copyrightable would violate the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as a badge of slavery; Nimmer’s declaration was then excluded because it was a legal opinion.
NORTH LAS VEGAS, NV – JUNE 15: Actor and former boxer Mike Tyson attends the world premiere of the movie “China Salesman” at the Cannery Casino Hotel on June 15, 2018 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images)
“He’s grown significantly as a boxer over the years, so it will be a lot of fun to see what the will and ambition of a ‘kid’ can do with the experience and aptitude of a GOAT (greatest of all time),” Tyson said of Paul, per a statement.
However, the fight has now been confirmed to be taking place this November by Most Valuable Promotions (MVP), the company organizing the occasion. The event will still take place at the 80,000-seat AT&T Stadium – home of the Dallas Cowboys – in Arlington, Texas, with streaming service Netflix retaining exclusive broadcast rights.
He said: “I just thought it was a cool tattoo. I was going to get a bunch of hearts and stuff. That would have been really stupid. I was going to be the man of hearts, baby. I was very close. Victor Perez, the tattoo artist, said, I ain’t doing that. I can’t do that.
Across the pond in the United States, we also saw the rise in use of face tattoos amongst gang members, specifically in 1980s California. Similar to the punks, these were individuals on the fringes of society with no intention of turning back. More importantly with the gang connotation, they were making it abundantly clear with which gang they had their allegiance to. Before these gang members would even consider the face tattoos, the rest of their body would have to be inked up first, leaving them with one final frontier. A large gang affiliated number on ones forehead isn’t so crazy when they’ve got them all over their body, too. Most respectable tattoo artists will even refuse to touch someone’s face until the rest of their body is covered, with being heavily tattooed more or less being a rite of passage. So it comes as no surprise when artists such as Lil Wayne and Birdman got their face tats they’ve been getting inked for a while. (Worth noting was that some of these Cash Money tattoos were affiliated with the Bloods.) Yet Lil Wayne and Birdman were were probably both the first and most notable mainstream faces to use the look rather than have it set them back.