Please Ask Permission

SirGrimm86 (Flickr User), another fan of my "Tribal Tattoo" artwork.

Seems like every three or four months someone takes my artwork and gets it permanently applied to their body. The last time this happened was in October of 2008.

This same modus operandi has been going on now for the last few years. It makes me wonder how many I don't find out about? Normally other people spot it and let me know, but last night while checking web traffic I came across this latest one.


My Original Artwork.

I certainly don't mind people wanting to make a life time commitment to my art like this, that much is very flattering of course and I'm glad they like my work. I'd just rather people ask permission first, and acknowledge that I own the artwork and need to grant them permission to use it before they use it.


Imperial Toy, LLC ripped off my "Tribal Tattoo Face" artwork.

I'm not a jerk, and have only denied someone permission once and that only was due to the fact that I had a copyright lawsuit in progress with a toy company at the time they had asked. (I won that case BTW)


The bat appears within the "Sims 2" universe.

I suppose one could argue that my bat tattoo has now "Jumped the Shark" seeing as it's being ripped off and used to skin people in the virtual world that is "Sims 2." This of course brings up all kinds of interesting copyright issues in and of itself.

Or, maybe I could take a cue and start selling tribal tattoo undies in my Zazzle.com store? Hmmm.


The Bat Signal.

I have to admit, I think tattoos look cool. But I also think they look better on young bodies. I can't argue with the image above at all, but will my art look so good on a 70 year old canvas with sublimated liver spots, and a wrinkled texture running through it?

In any regard, if you're a person looking for a cool tribal tattoo and have Googled your way to this post, then take the time to shoot me an email (See side bar at top right) and ask permission to use my art first.

Thanks.