Warner Bros. Settles 'Hangover Part II' Tattoo Lawsuit

While it is Mike's tattoo, the design technically belongs to the artist because he copyrighted it (most likely just for moments like this so he could try to cash in on it if anybody tried to use it after Mike made it popular).

The tattoo artist does own the copyright to the design. That's an already established point that is beyond contestation here.

Not sure what confusion you're talking about. The judge on the case even admitted at one point that the artist was absolutely right in that he owned the copyright to the design. Even saying that the idea (coming from some) that you can't copyright a tattoo design is ridiculous.

The battle of the case wasn't whether the artist owned rights to the tattoo, but whether or not WB's use of it was against the law since they didn't get the artists permission. However, WB contested that they didn't need his permission (and didn't need to pay him) because their use of the tattoo fell under the "fair use" policy since it was being used as a parody.

THAT is what the legal battle was over. Not whether he actually owned rights to the tattoo. He does.

And no, Tyson can't do anything about it. I'm sure the guy had it copyrighted before even putting it on Tyson. It's not uncommon for tattoo artists to copyright their work/designs. It's the same as comic book artists/etc copyrighting character designs.