Friday, Aug. 31, 2018 | 2 a.m.
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I read that a federal judge sided with the sculptor of the New York-New York resort’s Statue of Liberty.
The judge ordered the United States Postal Service to pay him $3.5 million due to its copyright infringement of his “original design” by using a picture of the statue on a postage stamp.
True, the stamp is a partial image of the Strip statue, which is sculpted slightly differently than the real Lady Liberty. But is the absurdity of this issue lost on the players in this lawsuit?
This sculptor created an “original design?” No, it’s a copy of the Statue of Liberty. It can’t be anything else, look like anything else, or be mistaken for anything else.
I’m sure there were legal points used to justify this judge’s decision, but common sense wasn’t one of them. If the USPS owes anything to anyone, it’s to the estate of Fred Bartholdi. In fact, his estate should be suing the sculptor of the copy.
