<p class="title">A 2010 US Postal Service stamp mistakenly bearing the image of a Lady Liberty replica will cost the American post office a whopping USD 3.5 million for the copyright violation, according to a media report.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In a 2010 stamp design, the United States Postal Service mistook a Las Vegas-based replica for the real Statue of Liberty.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Now a federal court has ruled that the post office must pay the replica's sculptor USD 3.5 million for violating his copyright, The New York Times reported.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The statue by the artist Robert Davidson sits at the New York-New York casino in Las Vegas, thousands of kilometres away from the mint-green figure in New York Harbour.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Yet an image of his sculpture made a surprise appearance on the post office's Lady Liberty "forever" stamp in 2010.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Davidson filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the post office in 2013, claiming it illegally used the image of his piece, and a federal court agreed, awarding him damages after he established that his piece was different enough from the original to be protected, the report said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Made of plaster mud, acrylic-based coating and foam, the replica is half the size of the real Statue of Liberty and sports more defined eyes and lips.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Davidson argued in court that his mother-in-law's face inspired the Las Vegas sculpture’s design. He said he made the statue's appearance "a little more modern, a little more feminine" than the original's "masculine" features.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The post office had originally picked the photo by searching Getty Images, the stock-photo agency, and believed it showed the real statue. After sizing and cropping the photo to fit on a stamp, the post office released it to the public in December 2010.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The post office, however, declined to comment on the case's outcome, the report said. </p>
<p class="title">A 2010 US Postal Service stamp mistakenly bearing the image of a Lady Liberty replica will cost the American post office a whopping USD 3.5 million for the copyright violation, according to a media report.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In a 2010 stamp design, the United States Postal Service mistook a Las Vegas-based replica for the real Statue of Liberty.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Now a federal court has ruled that the post office must pay the replica's sculptor USD 3.5 million for violating his copyright, The New York Times reported.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The statue by the artist Robert Davidson sits at the New York-New York casino in Las Vegas, thousands of kilometres away from the mint-green figure in New York Harbour.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Yet an image of his sculpture made a surprise appearance on the post office's Lady Liberty "forever" stamp in 2010.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Davidson filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the post office in 2013, claiming it illegally used the image of his piece, and a federal court agreed, awarding him damages after he established that his piece was different enough from the original to be protected, the report said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Made of plaster mud, acrylic-based coating and foam, the replica is half the size of the real Statue of Liberty and sports more defined eyes and lips.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Davidson argued in court that his mother-in-law's face inspired the Las Vegas sculpture’s design. He said he made the statue's appearance "a little more modern, a little more feminine" than the original's "masculine" features.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The post office had originally picked the photo by searching Getty Images, the stock-photo agency, and believed it showed the real statue. After sizing and cropping the photo to fit on a stamp, the post office released it to the public in December 2010.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The post office, however, declined to comment on the case's outcome, the report said. </p>