Tattoo Design Theft

  At Speakeasy Tattoo in Los Angeles California, I am learning about all there is in tattooing. Unfortunately this includes how to protect my designs as a tattoo artist. In today's day and age, social media has made it incredibly easy for original ideas to get stolen and retattooed without the original designer even knowing that it happened. This happens when a certain design is so good it becomes popular on social media and then everyone rushes to get the same design because it has then become a trend. Personally I am against trend chasing and believe that chasing trends leads to someone getting a tattoo that was not meant for them. Instead it is best to have the artist design something specific to you so that you can enjoy the design on yourself that much more. 

“There’s a delicate balance between taking inspiration from fellow tattooers and crossing the line into plagiarism. Artists must be mindful of the ethical considerations involved in borrowing ideas and try to add their own idea to create something new. Finding inspiration from other people in your field is common when it comes to any type of creative pursuit. But it’s crucial to give credit where it’s due while maintaining originality…Most artists pride themselves on spending hours creating unique designs for their clients. If someone copies the original tattoo artist and puts the same tattoo on someone else, it can take value away from that person’s work. Even if you’re still developing your own style, it will pay off in the long run because your tattoos will be different from anyone else’s design, raising the value of that piece,” (tattooing101). 

With today’s social media, many artists post their work on their chosen pages and advertise themselves with their art. This makes it extremely easy for other artists to screenshot the design and copy it onto another client. Some things you can do to protect your art from this is take the photo of your work at an angle so that you can still see the quality of the tattoo but the dimensions would be difficult to copy straight on. You could also add a water mark on the photo so that the original image is credited with your name. 

If you find yourself with a client that really wants the exact same tattoo as the photo, you could always ask the original artist for their consent to tattoo the design. Some other cases are a judgment call with things like similar flash sheets and things like that but at the end of the day there is always a way to make the desired work original.