The Tattoo That Sings: Soundwave Technology and Copyright Law

Abstract

The tattoo industry yielded 83 million dollars in the United States in 2019, and this revenue
is projected to increase to 110 million dollars by 2024. With a booming industry comes a new trend,
one that implicates intellectual property law: Soundwave Tattoos, the tattoos that sing. Skin Motion,
the company that converts a user-uploaded audio file into a design, charges users for access to a
phone application that scans the tattoo to play it aloud. But clients are using commercial songs,
downloading a famous song to play it from their bodies, forever. This trend matters because emerging
technologies and applications continue to implicate copyright law through unauthorized uses of
another’s work. This Article discusses the intersection of law, technology, and the tattoo industry,
and how this intersection impacts the legal liability of the tattoo client, artist, and company.