Kat Von D vs Jeff Sedlik Pre-Trial Overview

[00:00:01] Introduction: Copyright Issues in Tattoo Art

Can a tattoo artist use any image they find online without permission or without paying for the copyright?

So it's a question that plagues tattoo artists. Everyone is like, where did you get that image from? When someone brings you an image and you're like, am I straight up stealing this from somebody? Well, when realism artists and tattoo artists in general use an image that's a photo photograph of let's say like a famous musician or something, you usually look up, you know, images of them.

It's almost never considered stealing when a tattoo artist uses a photographer's work to do a realism tattoo. And that's like a tattoo whose goal is to perfectly recreate that photo as closely as possible. That's the nature of realism. Now, there's different types of realism. There's realism artists that are heavily stylizing things.

[00:00:59] Different Styles of Realism Tattoos

You know, you look at them and they're like, they have their own way. They do realism, you know, um, for example, uh, @mandomilli, Mando does his portraits and they look like Mando did 'em, you know? But other people who are extremely technically skilled, no one would argue that mind-blowingly good at doing tattoos like realism.

Tattoos are doing these photographs exactly as the photograph. No change at all, like literally nothing.

[00:01:27] The Landmark Kat Von D Copyright Case

So this is the situation that led to the biggest tattoo trial in tattoo history of all time. And that's actually this Monday, that is July. 14th, 2025 and the Ninth Circuit Court in Pasadena Federal Court.

Uh, three judges is going to rule on this appeals case whether Kat Von D was able to use this photo that Jeff Sedlik took and owns a copyright to without paying for it. Without asking for permission, or if she is owed, like if there's, if she did commit copyright infringement. She didn't constitute the Fair Act or fair use rule and owes Jeff for damages.

So this is a really big decision. So this all started when Kat did this tattoo and she posted it on Instagram. So her account is monetized. She's, you know, obviously professional influencer, really big deal influencers make millions of dollars off of their Instagram. One brand deal will pay as much as $5,000 just for a single hard post on Instagram that give you some scale of reference.

So Kat, even though she said she did the tattoo for free on a friend, um, and wasn't using the tattoo to run ads, was still posted on a business account and further, you know, furthered her monetization, right? She was making money off of her page. So. So Jeff Sedlik is a really solid dude. Jeff is for the people, uh, on my life.

You can look it up. I I will, I will prove it to you, but you can also look it up. Jeff is an advoKate for independent artists getting like, you know, he's an advoKate for keeping independent artists from getting their artwork stolen. He's an advoKate for like, he goes and testifies and is expert testimony in trials over copyright.

[00:03:24] Jeff Sedlik's Background and Advocacy Work

And he even informed the, he's the CEO and founder of the Plus Coalition. That's a nonprofit. He doesn't even make any money from it. And the whole goal is like a global free registry to where you actually can enter, upload your photographs and it'll include metadata. And then now if you ever go on Google and you hover your little cursor over an image, you'll see a little thing pop up now and it'll be all the metadata and it'll link you to that artist and you can like license that photo from them.

Jeff did that. And among other things also, Jeff is like, so he's all about eduKating artists on copyright law, including tattoo artists. And he, most of the time he'll see an artist using his work. He's also a professor in Pasadena, right? So think of his position, he does expert testimony. He's an advoKate, he has a plus coalition, and he's a professor.