Jeff Sedlick appears to have created a photograph that is iconic over 30 years later, while the tattoo artist is just copying it. If the point of copyright law is to encourage creativity then don't we want Sedlick to win?
Copyright is a compromise between the creatives and the community. Sedlick has already received more than enough compensation and protection to enable this creation, and that was the point of copyright - to encourage the creation of new works, not to protect them in eternity.
The compromise has diminishing returns for providing protections and affordances on longer time scales, and 30 years is really pushing it.
Do we know this? He's not even got a Wikipedia page. My understanding is that photographers earn peanuts and I for one would be raging if some Instragammer was coining it in from copying the one piece of work that made me famous.
The compromise has diminishing returns for providing protections and affordances on longer time scales, and 30 years is really pushing it.