In 2010, the United States Postal Service released its collection of Liberty Forever stamps. After approximately three billion stamps had been printed, USPS realized the image it had obtained from Getty Images, a stock photography company, was not of New York’s beloved Statue of Liberty but instead, bore the face of the Statue of Liberty replica positioned outside the New York-New York hotel and casino in Las Vegas. Robert Davidson, the replica’s sculptor, was hired in 1996 to create the statue after completing his work on the 110-foot replica of the Sphinx down the street. Davidson claims he was given no models to work off of and he particularly set out to make his version of Lady Liberty “more appropriate for Las Vegas.” Indeed, the sculptor says he tried to distinguish his work by rendering Lady Liberty more “fresh-faced,” “sultry,” and even “sexier.” In response to Davidson’s claims for copyright infringement, attorneys for USPS argued the two statues were too similar to notice any differences and that therefore Davidson does not possess a valid copyright in his statue. Copyright protection subsists only in original works of authorship and infringement can only be found through “substantial similarity.” The district court judge disagreed with USPS in finding that a mere comparison of the two faces “unmistakably shows that they are different” and that Davidson’s work was entitled to protection. The court proceeded to award Davidson $3.5 million in damages as a result. #omnilegalgroup #copyright #statueofliberty #usps #lasvegas
