Author: Ravipa Udomrungrueng

My research has pointed me to the following which is that when people are educated about the existence of copyright in respect of tattoos. They begin to care about it and when they are personally involved they become highly aware sensitive and eager to protect the copyright of tattoo.

The research question originally was ‘How to protect the copyright of emerging tattoo artists?’

“How can emerging tattoo artists protect their work in a way that will encourage clients to choose the original artist and not someone copying the work?’’

Throughout my research, I came to the additional question ‘Is it something people care about?’

I came to the conclusion to that question that it is something people care about

From there I returned to the original question which is ‘How can it be protected?’

Based upon my research of education

I have analysed that people care about it

My research produces evidence that people when they’re not aware of it start to care if they are educated and if they are not aware of it then they become more aware of it and more protective of it.

I have come to the conclusion that tattoo copyright is worth protecting and the best way is education

People who are not aware or interested in protecting the originality of the tattoo artists work when they are educated about it, become interested

In addition, tattoo artists who are emerging and who are concern about sharing their work following learning about copyright and learning about the ability to protect their work they being to become more confident in expressing their creativity and sharing their work.

Based on this conclusion, with the exception of only one person who attended all people shared this view. I can therefore extrapolated this from the small group I’ve applied to and suggest that this would be … to a broader scope and would work on a larger scale. The conclusion would be similar which is that when people are aware of tattoo artists and copyright in relation to their work they would be more respectful of it and emerging tattoo artists would be more confidence if they have the opportunity to know that they can protect their work.

All of the attendees to the workshops and throughout my research had a consensus of opinion that copyright was an important thing to protect and they felt it appiled to tattooing they felt protected of the work they created and did not and were not happy with the idea of somebody using their work and felt that somebody copied a tattooists work was not good. In the broader sense they felt it was wrong.

There was only one opinion that apposed this throughout the workshop and for my research

• What did I learn?

How to host an event (organisation, social skills)

New experience

From attendees

-Some tips for tattooing

-Their style of tattoos

-Practice tattooing

-Connection with emerging tattoo artists (creating community)

Difficulties

-People not turning up

Tattoo with me workshop v.2

Attendees

1. Ben
   Emerging tattoo artist as @its_whutever_init_pokes
   
2. Brenda
   MA applied imagination in the creative industries, CSM
   
3. Juda
   Emerging tattoo artist as @ranx.juda

PRE workshop questions

• Can I ask if you have any tattoos?

• Have you ever designed a tattoo yourself?

• Do you know much about the process?

• Can I ask – Have you ever wanted to have the exact same tattoo as anyone else?

POST workshop questions

• Can I ask you to introduce yourself?

• Can I ask why you wanted to attend the workshop today?

• What do you feel you gained from this workshop?

• Can I ask what this workshop made you think about the tattoo process and the industry?

• Let me ask you about your tattoo you created, how do you feel about it?

• Would you feel ok if someone wanted to copy that tattoo you designed and created?

• Do you think you felt differently before you came here today?

Feedback for the intervention workshop video

(intervention = testing my question)

1. Get help with the video, camera man needed for close up
   
2. Shorten up the video
   
3. Add before and after interview (find out the change)
   
4. Let the attendees talk to each other and get information

————————————–

• Could mixed my old idea (NFT)
  
  HOW TO REGISTER IDEA?
  
• Registher tattoo, design work
  NFT as verify
  
• For tattoo artists “if you value your for maybe you should protect it”
  
• PATENT + NFT|
  
• Prove of originator (Digital signature)
  
• For the website “collection/ archive” (soon to be BANK of tattoo)
  – Register detail of artist -so can identify them
  – start with myself

David’s suggested I should ask and attempt to answer myself is:

• What did I learn?
• What is my current understanding?
• What do I still ‘not’ know that I need to? (This should inform your ‘next steps…)
• How does this relate to or develop my question?
• How can I communicate this as ‘evidence’ of my reserach development?
• How do I effective capture this data so it can be information?

One of the attendees of my intervention workshop shared their experience with a friend who is interested in learning about the tattoo industry and becoming a tattoo artist.

The attendee recommended my workshop because they expressed an overwhelmingly positive experience and felt that other people should also share the same.

During the conversation, while I organised the new person coming to my next intervention workshop the new individual told me how massive and impact my first workshop had on the recommender.

According to this person, the attendee of the first workshop has been empowered, motivated, and has a in their words, “more oomph”.

My intervention workshop apparently gave the attendee the confidence and knowledge to be re-assured in working without theft of their work, and again from the new attendees words “said (she) would not have had the confidence without the workshop”

I am encouraged by the positive outcome of this workshop from this independent feedback, and extremely happy to learn that my idea and implementation is having a good result.  I look forward to further results from my next intervention to use effectively in final conclusions.

https://rareink.co/artist/@_hand_job_tattoo

During a collaborate session with one of my cohort where we exchange idea of the direction of our project regularly

After sharing experiences, thoughts, and ideas with each other project

I have come to the idea of having a platform where tattoo artists can claim by date that they are the principal owners or the ones who created that tattoo

as archive

as a collection

like creative commons

like a bank of original tattoos registered

Recognition, Validation and it calls out those who copy

Because they don’t get into legal trouble, followers will know that it’s not the original

like a platform that exhibits the very raw initial tattoo designs

https://www.tattooarchive.com/research_center.php

https://www.tattoodo.com/explore?lat=51.50853&location=London%2C%20GB&lon=-0.12574

I have been thinking about the central theme of my project, the protection of an artists original work, and considering the broader implications of this. The music industry is one where this is most problematic for artists, and on re-watching a film I have seen once before called ‘Yesterday’, I felt an overwhelming sense of relevance to my project, and to the wider world of creatives and originality of ideas.

For those unfamiliar, the film is about an unsuccessful singer songwriter called Jack Malik who is struck by a bus during a worldwide blackout. After recovery in hospital, and while drinking in the the pub, his lifelong friend and manager gave him a guitar to replace the one broken in the accident. Malik chose to play the Beatles ‘Yesterday’, and was greeted by shock and awe from his friends who had never heard it before. After some filler scenes, Malik realises that through some unknown force he has entered an alternate dimension where the Beatles never existed, and therefore none of the songs they ever wrote existed.

This leads Malik to recall all the great songs the Beatles wrote, and claim them as his own, leading him to be regarded as the greatest singer-songwriter ever known. In one scene, Ed Sheeran who guest stars (and puts in by the way and excellent performance) challenges the upcoming star to a songwriting competition, and after Malik presents “The Long and Winding Road’, Sheeran dejectedly proclaims Malik is “Mozart and I am Salieri”.

The film ends with Malik, after having achieved super-stardom being the acclaimed the single greatest artist of their generation, or of several, predictably admitting he stole all the songs, and going back to live the quiet life in quiet Suffolk with the films love interest, ignoring the doubtless criminal charges of fraud, intellectual property theft, breach of contract, and numerous other problems would ensue. Doubtless this was a Hollywood schmaltz ending designed to appease the movie going masses.

However, ludicrous ending aside, the film on second viewing made me think about a subtext of it, which has wider implications. How can creatives, in a world of so much noise, when everything great has already been created before, find their voice, and make something that matter, be heard?

This is hardly a new question or idea, indeed, typing into google “creatives everything has been done” comes up with 17,700,000 results, the first 20 of which are listicles on how to move past the “Everything’s Been Done Trap as a Creative”. Yet this contradiction illustrates the central problem, even my thought itself, and the films underlying premise are unoriginal, indeed, increasingly, everything is unoriginal.

Turning now to my project, in a world where everything has been done, it begins to become increasingly clear that copying will become the standard. This thought needs further exploration, as it has the potential to have profound effects on my project which is focused on the protection of original work, and preservation of copyright.

I have posted this on my tattoo account to be open to everyone and here are some responses

Tattoo artist (@spooky_jon_tattoo) has commented and agrees that education is a good idea for change for my project

Brenda from MAAI

@ranx.juda emerging tattoo artist