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For more than 40 years, a water tank mural painted by Clover artist Todd Atkinson covered part of a building in the small downtown. He painted it as a young man out of Clover High School to help pay for college.

The name: “Water Tank.”

“It took me a couple of weeks,” Atkinson said. “I used a 26-foot extension ladder. Painted left to right until it was done.”

“Water Tank” had Atkinson’s name on it, too. Artists often sign their names, and the credit remains forever.

That name became the focal point of a federal lawsuit over visual artists’ rights, because Todd Atkinson’s name went missing.

Because in 2023, another artist from Florida created what Atkinson’s lawyers say was a substantially similar copy of the Water Tank. And he painted it right over Atkinson’s mural, then “obliterated” Atkinson’s name on the mural and replaced it with his own, the lawyers said.

Two years after lawyers for Atkinson filed a lawsuit on his behalf alleging a violation of the Visual Artists Rights Act, a federal judge has said the actions of Chan Shepherd in taking off the name were a violation of federal law, and issued Atkinson a judgment against Shepherd of $158,400.

$8,400 was for copyright infringement, the court order shows.

The $150,000 default judgment is the maximum damages allowed under a rarely used federal law protecting artists and their names who can show the work was theirs.

U.S. District Court Judge Sherri Lydon wrote in her ruling earlier this month: “Chan Shepherd painted over Water Tank, substantially replicating the mural but replacing Atkinson’s name with his own.”

Lydon issued the default judgment because Shepherd did not respond to the lawsuit filed in 2024, court records show. Atkinson’s lawyers served him with an initial summons about the lawsuit after it was filed, and again he did not respond to a second summons after Lydon issued an order of default judgment last year, court records show.

Clover and the mural

The Town of Clover, in western York County with around 7,000 people, is 20 miles northwest of Rock Hill and 25 miles southwest of Charlotte. It became a town in 1887. Clover got its name, according to the lawsuit and lore, from a clover patch that grew around the water tank that once was used to fortify steam engines on the railroad that passed through.

Atkinson, who still lives in Clover, said when one of his kids told him a few years ago somebody was painting his mural on a building on North Main Street, he was a little miffed.

“I said, ‘Now wait a minute, they’ve taken my name off of it,’ ”Atkinson said.

Atkinson later filed the civil suit.

“Todd Atkinson is just a guy who wanted to do the right thing,” said his lawyer, Samuel Alexander “Alex” Long Jr. of Charlotte’s Shumaker law firm. “This is a case about principle, not money.”

Federal law: Artists have rights

The 1990 federal law states visual artists have rights over their works, Long said.

The ruling relied in part on expert analysis evaluating the destruction of the original mural and the similarities between the original and copied work, a statement from the law firm said. Another lawyer in the firm, the late Moses Luski, an art collector and philanthropist, helped identify the art expert who submitted a report to Judge Lydon about the water tank mural.

“This case underscores the enduring importance of protecting artists’ rights, which include not only their economic interests, but their identity, authorship, and legacy,” Long’s firm said in a statement.

In her ruling, Lydon said she agreed with Atkinson and his lawyers that the case calls for “strong deterrence of willful abuses” of the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act.

Lydon agreed with Atkinson’s lawyers that Shepherd “willfully destroyed a work of art authored by a fellow artist” and then “did not deign to appear and defend himself...” the order said.

Shepherd could not be reached for comment at several phone numbers listed in public records.

What happens now?

The lawsuit is over, Long said. The judgment ends the case. There will be no trial.

And the “Water Tank” can’t be seen anymore either, Long said. It’s been dismantled.

But the ruling and principle remain, according to Long and Atkinson. It remains unclear when, or if, Atkinson will see any of the money from the judgment.