MIKE TYSON's FACIAL tattoo has been described as one of the most distinctive tattoos in North America. It has attracted controversy as an example of the cultural appropriation of ta moko, the sacred culturally embedded tattooing practice of the Maori people of Aotearoa/New Zealand. It has also attracted much media attention for its place at the heart of Whitmill v. Warner Bros., a rare litigated instance of a tattooist enforcing their copyright in a tattoo design. More than this, though, Tyson's tattoo is an excellent example of the tensions that emerge over the protection of traditional knowledge, and the difhculty of claiming one truth in an intellectual property world that was born in the Western philosophical tradition, and is only now beginning to come to terms with its colonial heritage.

Mike Tyson's “warrior” tattoo was inked by Las Vegas tattooist S. Victor Whitmill in 2003. From the time of Tyson's firstpublic appearance with the tattoo, Maori activists and scholars were critical of it as a cultural appropriation of ta moko. Tyson's tattoo is monochrome, curvilinear, features two spiral shapes, and was placed around his left eye. Whitmill has described the “flow”: of Maori art as a design influence, and he created it after showing Tyson pictures of Maori moko. In Maori culture, facial moko is a privilege reserved for respected cultural insiders, and it represents and embodies the wearer's sacred genealogy and social status. Appropriating an individual's moko is profoundly offensive and akin to identity theft.

But the controversy from the original tattoo wasn't the last of it. In THE HANGOVER PART II an exact copy of Tyson's tattoo was featured on the face of actor Ed Helms as part of a humorous plot device. Whitmill was outraged, and claimed copyright over his tattoo. In 2011 he sued Warner, arguing that they had violated his exclusive right to authorize derivative works. Whitmill's decision to sue stirred lingering resentments in Aotearoa/New Zealand around the tattoo's cultural content: in response to the litigation, Maori politician Tau Henare tweeted that it was a “a bit rich” that Tyson's tattooist was claiming someone had stolen the design, given that he had copied it from Maori without permission.