From the AP:
A Portland, Ore., man who put a tattoo on the right arm of Pistons forward Rasheed Wallace is suing to stop Wallace from displaying the work in ads for Nike basketball shoes.
Matthew Reed from TigerLilly Tattoo and DesignWorks claims he owns the copyright for the design of the tattoo. Reed’s lawsuit wants the Nike ad featuring Wallace and the tattoo off the air and the Internet, as well as damages.
According to the suit filed last week in U.S. District Court, Wallace, who was then playing for the Portland Trail Blazers, approached Reed in 1998, saying he wanted an Egyptian-themed family design with a king and queen and three children and a stylized sun in the background.
Reed researched the idea and came up with a design. Reed said the $450 charge was a small amount, but he expected to benefit from the exposure.
This somehow reminds me of the story about Bob Sinister (ex-C.O.C.) having his Black Flag bars changed (in the wake of the disappointing — to him, anyway — ‘My War’ album) to cans of Diet Pepsi. But surely Rasheed deserves credit for coming up with the Egyptian-themed concept.
He needs to drop the law suit.This is a sick pursuit for cash. Plenty of poor people have tatoos. If a poor man explains his tatoo in public he probably wouldn’t be subjected to a law suit! This gold digger is a pathetic oppportunist without decent bone in his body. Do all tatoo artists own parts of clients. Then I’ll be Halle Berry’s Tat artist. HA …anyway Will rasheed have to give this guy his right arm?