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After USPS Uses Wrong Statue of Liberty Image on Stamp, Sculptor Awarded $3.5 Million for Copyright Infringement
Lady Litigious
If you've ever seen the Statue of Liberty in New York versus the replica in Las Vegas, there is one glaring difference that any artist, designer or fabricator is bound to notice:
Enter a caption (optional)The replica, at right, has a conspicuous and continuous seam running across the breast. Lady Liberty's torso below that seam is bisected by a vertical seam.
A more subtle difference can be seen at the base of the centermost protrusion in Lady Liberty's corona radiata (original at left, replica at right):
Enter a caption (optional)That little rectangle shows up on the U.S. Postal Service's 2010 stamp featuring the Statue of Liberty. Which means, whoops, whoever selected that image for the stamp actually chose an image of the replica.
Enter a caption (optional)As PetaPixel explains:
The Post Office had used Getty Images to find a suitable photo of the Statue of Liberty, and they settled on the photo by photographer Raimund Linke, not seeing that the keywords on the page clearly stated that the photo shows the replica in Vegas.
Enter a caption (optional)No one noticed until 2011. Eventually word reached Robert Davidson, the Las-Vegas-based sculptor who created the replica. This being America, by 2013 he had lawyered up and sued the USPS for copyright infringement. Then, according to AP News:
Postal Service attorneys argued Davidson's design was too similar for him to claim copyright.
Federal Judge Eric Bruggink sided with Davidson last week and agreed his work was an original design with a more modern, feminine and contemporary face. He ordered the Postal Service to pay $3.5 million to the artist — a slice of the $70 million the service made in profit from the stamp.
News of the lawsuit's success broke, fittingly, last week on July 4th.
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Comments
The seam yes, and the fact that that Davidson's Liberty looks nothing like the original.
Suing the USPS. Nice going. That's like kicking a dying horse.
Whoa!!! You can use a stock photo for a lot of things, but most Royalty Free stock images can be used to promote a product, but cannot be used to make a profit, like put it on a t-shirt and sell t-shirts, unless you've worked out the details and compensation with the creator. In this case, the USPS is making a profit on the product (stamps) so most likely doesn't fit the Getty Terms of the contract. It's really stock photo 101. I'm a bit mystified by the sculptor being able to sue. But I guess it's similar to taking a photo of the 'LOVE' sculpture in NYC and then making a product and selling it.
How is this right? I am assuming that they lawfully purchased a stock photo of the Statue of Liberty.
Stock Photos are not necesarrly free to use in all or any way, you have to check every image of its "alowed" use.
I know an incident here in Germany using a "Train" image -> the german "Bahn" sued for using Image without permission.