NYC owns the Statue of Liberty - maybe they should sue the sculptor for copyright claims... a virtuous circle.
The designer of the Statue of Liberty, Frédéric Bartholdi, died in 1904. The copyright has long since expired. It's public domain.
Post Office owes $3.5M for using wrong Statue of Liberty on a stamp
21–30 of 81 posts
Re: Post Office owes $3.5M for using wrong Statue of Liberty on a stamp
#22I don't get it... the USPS licensed the photo from Getty. Doesn't that license cover the use of the photo?
Getty indemnifies to the tune of $1m per image but that probably has loopholes you could drive the Statue of Liberty through.
Re: Post Office owes $3.5M for using wrong Statue of Liberty on a stamp
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's governed by the US National Park Service, and it's a derivative work.
Is there any clear line on what is considered a derivative and what is a copy without substantial deviation?
In the article, the sculptor claims that he made the statue more feminine.
Re: Post Office owes $3.5M for using wrong Statue of Liberty on a stamp
#24Have you seen the two faces side by side? https://tribzap2it.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/lady-liberty-...
I quite prefer the original myself. The post office made an aesthetic as well as legal mistake. The older Lady Liberty is not as pretty, but she's more handsome. She's less symmetrical, more craggy. Her face has seen more pain and made more hard choices. I get an impression of character that I don't get from Vegas Liberty.
My grandfather immigrated through Ellis Island around 1905. I imagine he passed that grand sculpture on the way, and saw a stronger, more concerned and committed face than Vegas Liberty's.
Re: Post Office owes $3.5M for using wrong Statue of Liberty on a stamp
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there any clear line on what is considered a derivative and what is a copy without substantial deviation?
As far as I know, no. It's usually up to a Judge to determine. Per this specific case, the USPS tried to argue something along those lines, but the plaintiff successfully claimed that because the statues face was feminized, it was not a copy, but a derivative.
That is ingenious. Considering that Mithras is a man, so a feminine version is easy to argue as substantially different.
Re: Post Office owes $3.5M for using wrong Statue of Liberty on a stamp
#26I don't get it... the USPS licensed the photo from Getty. Doesn't that license cover the use of the photo?
IANAL...and this is specific to US Copyright law. Yes, it does, but doesn't necessarily grant copyright for the content of the photograph. I can sell a photograph of that statue, and be protected from copyright claims IF my work meets the Fair Use standard. I can also give you permission to use my photograph commercially. However you may not use it yourself commercially without permission of the statues copyright own…
This is why copyright is so messed up. If I take an photograph of a building designed by someone else, can I sell my photo freely?
Re: Post Office owes $3.5M for using wrong Statue of Liberty on a stamp
#27So what do you exactly pay for when you license an image from Getty?
The right to use that image. Not the right to create derivative from it. Also licensing depends on end-use and can vary depending on the degree of use — a small print run of 500 copies of an ad using an image often has a different license cost than using that same image for a national ad campaign.
Terms of licensing are super clear when you buy stock work. What makes no sense is why the post office would even bother — there are plenty of public domain photos of the statue. Or they could have just had a mailman go shoot one and pay him $1000.
This is just incompetence, there wasn’t any ambiguity to what they were doing. They admit they used an image for commercial gain without knowing they were infringing — that’s negligence. They used that image because they knew it would sell more stamps. Even a basic legal review would have caught this — this sort of clearance/rights due dilligence is standard stuff. This wasn’t editorial and thus “fair use” would’t apply — this was used specifically to sell stamps. They can’t argue parody, satire or any of the numerous cases that might constitute fair use.
The post office made $70 million in pure profit from their misappropriation, the original art that led to that profit ought to be compensated accordingly. Had even a baby lawyer been consulted, they could have avoided this mess. Being a government agency doesn’t exempt you from the law.
Re: Post Office owes $3.5M for using wrong Statue of Liberty on a stamp
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't imply that - in fact the opposite. It implies that the sculptor retained rights to imagery of the work.
Good point. I should have said--did the defense actually determine that the sculptor retained their copyright, given the work was commissioned by a casino.
Well if the casino did own the copyright, the Post Office still had to pay up under the same exact law. A casino passing up $3.5 million? You bet they would have sued hard and probably would have won more.
Re: Post Office owes $3.5M for using wrong Statue of Liberty on a stamp
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
IANAL...and this is specific to US Copyright law. Yes, it does, but doesn't necessarily grant copyright for the content of the photograph. I can sell a photograph of that statue, and be protected from copyright claims IF my work meets the Fair Use standard. I can also give you permission to use my photograph commercially. However you may not use it yourself commercially without permission of the statues copyright own…
This is why copyright is so messed up. If I take an photograph of a building designed by someone else, can I sell my photo freely?
If the building is a work of art, then depends who owns it's copyright, and what restrictions they have placed on commercial use.
But most likely it's not, so your image would almost meet the Fair Use standard. It's derivative.
Re: Post Office owes $3.5M for using wrong Statue of Liberty on a stamp
#30I remember reading about this mess shortly after moving to the U.S. (and visiting Vegas for the first time). One thing that struck me about Vegas was an immense and everpresent feeling of fakeness. Seeing that fakeness reproduced on official stamps felt somewhat telling, and I've since entertained quite a few people with the story due to the sheer ridiculousness of it. I had no idea that they'd continue to use and se…
How is $3.5 million against a $70 million profit “ridiculous?”