Who Owns Your Body?

A few weeks ago I discussed the common libertarian question of whether the government owns you or you own you.

From England we may have the answer. That answer is, apparently, the tattoo artist owns you. Or at least part of you.

David Beckham is being sued by body artist Louis Molloy over the rights to his tattoos.

Beckham, it appears, wishes to use them commercially.

According to The Mirror, Molloy who created nine of Beckham's tattoos, claims he owns the copyright. He has threatened to sue Becks and wife Victoria if they go ahead with plans to use the images in an ad campaign.

Molloy was unable to reach an agreement with Beckham, so he said, their mine. I'm taking my ink pen and going home.

"So I said 'I own the copyright, they are my intellectual property, I drew them, I didn't copy them from other sources'.

They still think they're the owners of the images but if they use them without my permission I'd sue. There's no doubt about it," he added.

What an interesting delima. You put the art on someone's body, then you can prevent the person from exposing their own body commercially? I wonder how this would play out if he had tatooed a fetus.


David Beckham, showing some tatoos which
are apparently part of this controversy.