Photographer Jeffrey Sedlik is the person suing Kat Von D. He filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the tattoo artist, her company Kat Von D, Inc., and High Voltage Tattoo, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, claiming she used his 1989 portrait of Miles Davis without permission as the reference for a tattoo. A jury sided with Kat Von D in January 2024, and on January 2, 2026, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that verdict.1United States Courts. Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg – Ninth Circuit Opinion
Who Jeffrey Sedlik Is and What He Claimed
Sedlik is a professional photographer. He shot the Miles Davis portrait in 1989 and registered the copyright in 1994. His legal argument was that Kat Von D violated two of the exclusive rights a copyright owner holds: the right to reproduce the work and the right to create works derived from it.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 107 – Limitations on Exclusive Rights: Fair Use
He sought either actual damages, measured by what a willing buyer would have paid to license the photograph, or statutory damages. Statutory damages under the Copyright Act run from $750 to $150,000 per work when infringement is willful.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 504 – Remedies for Infringement: Damages and Profits
What Kat Von D Did With the Photograph
The lawsuit covered ten separate works, not just the tattoo. They fell into three groups.1United States Courts. Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg – Ninth Circuit Opinion
The tattoo itself came first. Over two sessions in 2017, Kat Von D inked a photorealistic image of Davis onto a client’s shoulder. She began by laying tracing paper over a copy of Sedlik’s photograph to map the composition, then completed 99 percent of the work through freehand shading.
The second item was the preliminary sketch she drew on tracing paper during that mapping process.
The third group was social media posts, split into two sets. Four posts, labeled by the court as the “Messy Progress Post,” the “Final Tattoo Post,” an Instagram Story, and the “Light Box Post,” showed the finished tattoo, the sketch, or her workspace without reproducing the photograph directly. Four others, called the “Process Images,” showed her inking the tattoo with Sedlik’s full photograph visible in the background. Her lawyers conceded that the Process Images were substantially similar to the photograph because they contained a reproduction of it, so the fight over those four shifted to whether they qualified as fair use.
What the Jury Found
The trial took place in January 2024. The jury had to decide whether each accused work was substantially similar to Sedlik’s photograph, and for any that were, whether Kat Von D’s use qualified as fair use.
The result was a clean sweep for the defense. For six of the ten works, including the tattoo itself, the sketch, and the four non-reproducing social media posts, the jury found no substantial similarity to Sedlik’s photograph. For the four Process Images that the defense had conceded were similar, the jury found the use was fair use under the Copyright Act.1United States Courts. Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg – Ninth Circuit Opinion Sedlik lost on every count and announced he would appeal.
The Ninth Circuit’s January 2026 Ruling
On January 2, 2026, a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel affirmed the verdict in two opinions: a published per curiam decision on the substantial similarity findings and an unpublished memorandum on the fair use finding for the Process Images.1United States Courts. Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg – Ninth Circuit Opinion
On similarity, the panel declined to disturb the jury’s findings, holding that Sedlik had not shown the verdict was “contrary to the only reasonable conclusion permitted by the evidence.” Because that part of the similarity test turns on an ordinary person’s subjective impression, the court said it was not its place to second-guess the jury.
On fair use, the panel applied the four factors from the Copyright Act, evaluating the purpose and character of the use through the lens of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith.4Justia. Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith That Warhol ruling was significant to how this case unfolded: it had prompted the district court to reverse an earlier summary judgment for Kat Von D and send the case to a full jury trial in the first place. Sedlik also tried to challenge the district court’s denial of summary judgment on appeal, but the panel refused to review it because it involved factual disputes rather than a purely legal question.5United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg, No. 24-3367 – Memorandum
Two Judges Said the Test Is Broken
The panel unanimously affirmed the verdict, but two of the three judges wrote separately to say the Ninth Circuit’s own similarity test is flawed.
Judge Wardlaw wrote that the test’s instruction to evaluate “total concept and feel” contradicts copyright law itself, which excludes ideas and concepts from protection. She suggested the court should consider abandoning that part of the test.1United States Courts. Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg – Ninth Circuit Opinion
Judge Johnstone identified a structural imbalance. When a jury wrongly finds two works similar, the defendant can challenge that ruling on appeal through an objective test. When a jury wrongly finds two works not similar, the plaintiff has no comparable route to review, because appellate courts won’t reweigh the jury’s subjective impression. Johnstone said a test producing such lopsided results “cannot be right” and joined Wardlaw’s call to replace it.1United States Courts. Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg – Ninth Circuit Opinion
These concurrences do not change the law now. But they lay out a roadmap if the Ninth Circuit revisits its similarity framework in a future case.
What the Ruling Settles, and What It Doesn’t
Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg was widely treated as the first major test of whether a tattoo can infringe the copyright in a reference photograph. A jury said no on these facts, and the Ninth Circuit let that answer stand.
The decision is narrower than it looks. The similarity finding was specific to the works in this case, and two of the three appellate judges said the test that produced it needs to change. The fair use finding covered only the four Process Images and turned on the specific circumstances of those posts. A different jury working from different facts, or a revised legal standard down the road, could reach a different result. For tattoo artists and other visual creators, using reference photographs still carries real legal risk.