December 2009
£10 for a Jolly Fisherman
Skegness Town Council has told tattoo parlours that they will have to pay it £10 for every Jolly Fisherman tattoo they are asked to draw.
The figure, which was originally created by John Hassall, became synonymous with Skegness after it appeared on posters promoting the town as a tourist destination in 1908.
Skegness Town Council has owned the copyright since 1966 and according to one of its officials has always required permission for its use but had only recently discovered that tattoo parlours were offering the image for sale as a tattoo.
The council official added that Skegness Town Council had no objection to the use of the Jolly Fisherman by others and stressed that the reason its approval is required is to ensure the original image is protected and not devalued in any way.
The owner of one local tattoo parlour felt that the idea of having to pay to use a tattoo was “silly” though whether it would have much impact on his business is doubtful given that he has in the past only received on average one request for a jolly fisherman tattoo a year.
BRIFFA Comment
Copying of an image using any method including drawing it as a tattoo is copyright infringement and Skegness Town Council as owners of the copyright in the Jolly Fisherman image are justified in their request for permission for its use.
In addition an important feature of copyright protection is that it does not only protect against exact copying but also applies where a substantial part of an original work (qualitatively assessed) is copied, and so in most cases copyright infringement can not be avoided with slight alterations.
It is only where an original work is altered so dramatically and a completely different work is created that such alteration may be considered not to be an infringement and instead attract copyright protection of its own.
With regard to the above situation as anyone wanting to use the Jolly Fisherman image as a tattoo or in fact otherwise would want something similar to the original it is doubtful that they would be able to alter the image sufficiently to avoid copyright infringement. Therefore Skegness Town Council should be successful in their desired goal of ensuring that the original image is protected.
For more information on Copyright law protection and enforcement please do not hesitate to get in contact with one of our specialist intellectual property lawyers via info@briffa.com.