Don't forget that this book also tells the story of EFF Austin http://www.effaustin.org/ which is separate (but with naturally close ties) from EFF and does important work in cyber liberties in Texas.

RE: Kyle Armbruster and "works for hire"

US copyright law divides “works for hire” into two categories:

(1)works made within an employer/employee relationship, and
(2)works “specially ordered or commissioned for use as[,]” among others, “a contribution to a collective work”.
See 17 U.S.C. 101 “work made for hire”

Works for hire uniquely vest with the employer or commissioner of the work rather than with the creator—the creator has no copyright interest.

Out of the listed categories, I think only "a contribution to a collective work" argument would work for tattoos. Something like doing one of Enigma's puzzle pieces. The other categories are things like a motion picture, or for teaching.

Even if you could fit a tattoo as a "work for hire" either as a collective work or under one of the other categories, one of the requirements is that you written instrument saying that it is a "work for hire". As tattoo artists don't (AFAIK) routinely deal with copyright, they aren't likely to have had a written instrument covering this.

As to employer/emmployee relationship, this is highly unlikely. In CCNV v Reed, the US Supreme Court listed some factors for finding this relationship, including:

...the skill required; the source of the instrumentalities and tools; the location of the work; the duration of the relationship between the parties; whether the hiring party has the right to assign additional projects to the hired party; the extent of the hired party's discretion over when and how long to work; the method of payment; the hired party's role in hiring and paying assistants; whether the work is part of the regular business of the hiring party; whether the hiring party is in business; the provision of employee benefits; and the tax treatment of the hired party.

I think based on the typical scenario that it is highly unlikely that there would be an employer/employee relationship here.

Hi Shannon -- While I didn't intend for the slides to get posted, I felt that I had a clear fair dealing argument (in the UK) or fair use (in the United States) for using the images for a conference presentation. Thank you very much though for the great site! I am a huge fan of your work and of BMEZINE.

Thanks for the link! The full paper is still in progress, but I'll make a screencast of the slides and my talk later on today and post it at twitchgamer.net.