Just ask the lawyers at the U.S. Post Office, who made the big mistake of Googling "Statue of Liberty" and swiping a photo of Lady Liberty to use on a stamp.
Their mistake? Google's search brought them a very nice photo of a Statue of Liberty REPLICA, along with more "public domain" views of the actual statue.
That's the stamp, which has been withdrawn. Looks like the Statue of Liberty, huh? Well, no, not QUITE. Her nose is flattened, to give it a more ethnic quality. The lips jut out a bit, Kardashian style. Pouty-pout! And her eyes are staring like Paris Hilton watching one of her own porn tapes. Ah, the AMERICAN GIRL!
Now take a look at the actual statue, as you'll see in many, many tourist snapshots. The REAL Statue of Liberty has a dirty face (you know these French women...hygiene is not a priority!). She is frowning, like Bardot after divorcing Vadim. Her deep-set eyes don't quite have any intensity, and her chin looks as if she's had one baguette too many. This is how the stamp WOULD HAVE LOOKED if somebody at the Post Office hadn't been...
...TRICKED...BY A GOOGLE SEARCH
Lawyers for the Post Office argued that nobody could tell the difference. The guy who made the fake, and "improved" it slightly, felt he was entitled to damages. After all, you can't make a copy of a public domain statue and NOT be compensated. That he was paid very well by the Las Vegas casino (called "New York New York") that bought his bogus babe didn't matter.
Making a federal case out of it, the artist and the Post Office got the verdict by Judge Eric Bruggink: pay up THREE MILLION. Technically, 3.5 million, but you figure the sculptor's lawyer took at least half a million for his fee.
The good news for the post office is that 3 billion stamps were printed before the litigation began and the items were recalled, and they reportedly made a good profit on the amount of stamps that were bought by collectors who never intended to mail anything and actually USE them. The 3.5 million paid to the sculptor and his lawyer wasn't a total loss. The post office may still be in the red, but not because of the settlement in this case.
The bottom line: if the bogus Statue of Liberty was photographed and used on a zillion Google blogs, and on Google's YouTube, the sculptor would not have gotten a penny. Or a takedown. That's the Internet. Google would've ignored the jerk and his lawyer and said, "Sorry, we don't see any problem, and by DMCA law, we are not required to do anything. But go ahead, fill out a dozen forms, and keep sending them in every day, and we'll either ignore them, or send you a maddening form letter saying you didn't fill out the forms properly."
Google would eventually have said, "We don't see how this is a copyright violation. Send us the actual copyright forms for review..." And left things hanging forever. Their lawyers would've added, "What are your damages? How can you say that uploaders have damaged sales of pictures of your statue? Can you prove this? File with our Google branch in Finland, as it's our server there that handles Google searches regarding the Statue of Liberty. PS, we will counter-sue for twice the amount and have a corrupt judge rule in our favor. Don't believe us?"
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