I've always found the idea of permanently implanting a picture in someone's skin without it legally becoming part of their 'likeness' to be insane.

> See also: tattoo artists wanted a cut of the video games that depicted NBA players with “their” art.

That's wild. Imagine a world where sending photos of yourself would require permission from tattoo artists.

That's literally this world. That's how it works with some tattoos.

Without a contract stating otherwise, it would be a work for hire. Copyright should go to the purchaser.

I would imagine that the actual tattoo itself is a work for hire, but if the tattoo artist first created the artwork and then tattooed it onto the person, and wasn't explicitly paid for the first bit, you could argue that the tattoo is a copy (made by the copyright owner) of a copyrighted work.

I can't speak to tattoos specifically, but I'm familiar with IP contracts in other creative areas, and in every one of those cases, no contract means the copyright belongs to the creator.

For the US, if the creator did the work without initial payment or the promise of payment on delivery then the copyright is theirs. If they are hired before it exists, it is work for hire.

Does anyone "hire" a tattoo artist to do their tattoos? Other than a tattoo parlor?

For this to be true, "hire" does not just mean pay someone for a service, it has to mean that that person has become an employee of your company.

For example if you "hire" (contract with) a photographer to shoot your event, the photographer retains copyright on those photos unless you negotiate work-for-hire and document it in the contract. But if you have a company with a photographer on staff, the employment contract would typically specify that the company owns the copyright to images taken in the course of work.

> make it illegal for you to then use or power on the phone that you own

It that actually true? There is this thing called "exhaustion of intellectual property rights" that limits the rights you can enforce after you have sold something. This is also the basis for the First-sale doctrine in the US.

A more accurate version would be something like this:

Apple's EULA asserts it has the right to revoke your right to use Apple's software for any reason. Which would include the right to brick your phone.

Those assertions would need most likely need to be scaled back if they were ever challenged in court. It's not clear what the actual legal limits are.

In addition, smart phones and tablets are covered under an exemption to the DMCA. This is why it is legal to jailbreak an iPhone.

> Did you know that Apple can notify you that they have revoked your iOS license at any time, without cause, and, under a strict interpretation of copyright law, make it illegal for you to then use or power on the phone that you own?

Have you got a source / defence for that?

I thought that copyright only applies to reproduction and distribution, not use, hence the term ‘copy’ ‘right’. Once you have acquired something, you are free to use it as you now own it. I would also have thought promissory estoppel would also prevent a company from unilaterally revoking your right to use their product.

Using iOS requires a license to the software. Of course, the legality of the iOS contract has never been tested, nor has Apple revoked an iOS license for a legitimate iPhone. If you were to have your license revoked, your phone would indeed be pretty much useless and Apple would have a hard time defending the fact that your phone is now a brick, so they avoid this by never exercising their right to revoke the license. The license instead performs more important tasks like reducing liability (using iOS for terrorism, for instance, isn't Apple's problem) and giving it ground to sue people like Corellium[0] who run it on non-Apple hardware.

0: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCOURTS-flsd-9_19-cv-81...

0: https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/05/04/apple-opposing-us...

I get why a licence is required to receive software updates as software is being distributed to you outside of the original sale of the device, and I get that Apple can sue Corellium as they are making unlicensed copies of iOS.

You have pointed out that the legality of Apples’ EULA hasn’t been tested, but I’m having a hard time of understanding how an EULA could be used to restrict how a device could be used. Does anyone know of the legal theory behind this?

Can contracts or licence agreements be used to restrict use of something even if you now own it? I’m not a lawyer, obviously, but I thought as long as you buy something up front the contract can be deemed to have been successfully performed and thus ends? I.e. there is no longer an ongoing relationship.

You are legally allowed to jailbreak your iOS device under a named exemption to the DMCA, regardless of what Apple's EULA says. I'm having a hard time thinking of how copyright gives Apple the legal power to brick my phone.

See section 6 of the iPhone EULA.

I don't think the concept is wrong: incentivize the creation of creative works. Why would someone bother writing a story if any publisher can just take it and not pay the author?

Modern copyright goes far beyond this original goal, dis-incentivizes or forbids creation sometimes and it used in all kinds of manners where it is a bad fit like software and hardware.

The goal of incentivising work is nice. But the concept of copyright is busted even from the concept. The idea that you have a story that you wrote on your own dime and you're shopping around to publishers puts the authors in a tournament theory situation which is totally abusive.

The other issue of bringing a document to an independent publisher (akin to having a Chinese factory build your devices) who could steal the IP is a contractual and security matter.

It is independent of publishers. An author could have handwritten the books himself with no intermediaries before sale. Without copyright anyone who brought the book could replicate and sell it without restriction and sell it for cheaper, while the author doesn't get anything.

If you have no legal right to your creative output, you have no basis for writing a contract about it. You can't write enforceable contracts about things that don't exist.

Copyright is the basis for contracts about creative works. Without copyright there is literally nothing to steal or protect.

The tattoo artist was incentivized by someone paying for the tattoo. If they think they were insufficiently compensated they should charge more.

(I understand the position, though, and of course if people copy the tattoo the artist is not getting compensated for that)

Take two minutes and reflect on why people wrote stories before the concept of copyright even existed.

There were very few people who made it their job. The ease and accuracy with which artistic works can be replicated and replicates in the 1600s and earlier was much, much more limited.

An actor or singer didn't need this protection in 1800 because there was no film or audio records. You had to hire them to perform. It's no coincidence that the first protected works were books, because there was the printing press.

Mass replication is older than you think. In Ancient Rome when poets recited, it was common for an amanuensis in the crowd to copy down what was being recited. Copies would then be made by a team of slaves and sold in the marketplace without any of that money going to the poet. And yet there was absolutely no moral outrage at this.

The only thing people objected to (a famous case is Martial in one of his epigrams) was someone passing off those poems as his own work. That is, there is a stronger case across space and time for disapproval of plagiarism, but the notion of copyright only arose in the West a few centuries ago, and still much of the world does not take it seriously.