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They looked like one of those perfect perfect early romantic couples – the kind that you can not understand how they even plugged in, but they seem so big one for l & # 39; other. The US Postal Service and a half-size replica of the Statue of Liberty – a Las Vegas hotel, no less.
They met totally by accident. The postal service thought that she was the real statue and put her picture on one of her most popular stamps. It was like the premise of a rom-com. But the best part was that the postal officials wanted to stay with the picture even after realizing the mistake. "We still like the stamp design and would have chosen this photo anyway," a New York Times spokesman told the New York Times. And USPS has continued to present the sensual lips of Las Vegas's Knockoff and the retro-modern fringe on billions of stamps for years to come.
"Forever" stamps, USPS called them. As always, fortunately forever.
But that was before the dissolution, and the fight of the court, and before all the ugly details were made public.
And now it's over. Last week, a federal judge ordered the USPS to pay $ 3.5 million to the creator of the statue for exploiting the sculpture without permission or consent
. 19659002] More exactly, they blamed the artist, Robert S. Davidson. He sued for copyright infringement in 2013, claiming that the USPS had sold billions of stamps, even after the government realized that he had mistaken an image of his plaster sculpture at the New York Hotel. & Las Vegas Casino for 19th century stone. Copper and copper monster off the real New York.
The stamp was extremely popular with the public at the time Davidson sued. He might not have been in favor of public relations, calling his sculpture "fresh" and "even sexier" than the original Statue of Liberty.
"Mr. Davidson, you're really rude," an angry representative The commentator wrote under the Washington Post's first article on the 2013 lawsuit. "You take an icon from America, create a semi-replica low-priced and cheap for, from all places, Vegas (our national headquarters "
But Davidson told a more compelling story at the trial last year – or he at least found a more receptive audience Before a Federal Court Judge of Claims
Having failed to convince the court that the Davidson Statue was a building and not a sculpture, and therefore free from claims of artistic counterfeiting, USPS argued that it was just not original, Davidson had simply copied a government-owned statue, supported the postal service, and USPS could therefore freely design stamps based on its creation as he used the real Lady Liberty.
To dispute this, Davidson explained to the court how he created the sculpture.
And Here, History Becomes A Little Romantic
Davidson took the $ 385,000 job in 1996, after completing his work on a 110-foot replica of the Sphinx down the street from New York … New York. The hotel wanted him to make a full-size version of the real Statue of Liberty, he told the court. But he did not give him a model, so he had to improvise his own design.
"I just thought it needed a little more modern, a little more contemporary, a lot more feminine face". track, according to court documents. "Just something I thought was more appropriate for Las Vegas."
As inspiration, he said, he used a photo of his mother-in-law.
The judge noted that Davidson seemed to be talking with emotion as he remembered how he grated the plaster to reveal the face of the statue – giving life to his eyes and what the artist called "small" subtle touches on the lips. "
"It really starts to talk to you, as you have to go," Davidson told the court. "And he tells you if you hurt him."
When he finished the 150-foot sculpture, the judge wrote, Davidson affixed a small plaque to a pick on his crown. "This one is for you, mother," we read.
Fifteen years later, Davidson says, his wife returns from the post office to tell him that the plate, and the same face, is sold at 44 cents a stamp
A USPS spokesman refuses to comment on the case. As federal judge Eric G. Bruggink described it, the government did not offer much of a convincing defense
. A bad legend on an online photo of Davidson's sculpture led to the government's initial confusion, the court said. The Director of USPS stamp development was looking for a suitable patriotic image to replace a popular Liberty Bell stamp in 2010. He was captivated by what he called a "different and unique" shot down the Lady Liberty – without realizing that a photo had been taken at the corner of Las Vegas and Tropicana boulevards
USPS thus paid Getty Images $ 1,500 to authorize it, turned it into an illustration of the size of a stamp and pressed it by hundreds of millions.
"Lady Liberty, as the Statue of Liberty affectionately is called, is shown in a close-up photo of her head and crown," writes the agency in a December 2010 press release, describing the new stamp as his "gift". to business letters.
The courier service knew in a few months that he had used the wrong Lady Liberty, the judge wrote. He was first informed by a photography company, then by a stamp collector's blog, then by the New York Times and the Washington Post and many others.
But after some internal discussions, the judge wrote: the stamp, that the government had already spent millions of dollars to print and distribute – and that had already proved so popular with the public that the stamp was Internally known as the "workhorse" of the agency
praised the beauty of the design and sold nearly 5 billion stamps for over $ 2 billion before withdrawing it at the beginning of the year 2014, a few weeks after Davidson brought a lawsuit
. wrote in last week's decision: "… print billions of copies and sell them to the public as part of a commercial venture – whether to send mail or to be kept in collections – promotes so overwhelmingly "
Even with the thin profit margins of the USPS, writes the judge, the government earned $ 70 million in profits during the four years of the stamp.
He decided that Davidson should get a 5% royalty on this, and so ordered the government to pay the artist $ 3,548,470 and 95 cents – plus interest, and affections notwithstanding.
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