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Re: Settlement Reached in Parody Suit ... (fwd)
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From: "Voronina, Olga" <OUVPETE@pd.state.gov>
I was pleasantly surprised to find the reference to the "Wind Done Gone"
court case on the list today. As former Deputy Director of the Nabokov
Museum in St. Petersburg, I organized the international Copyright Monitoring
Conference at the museum - it took place during the second week of February,
2001. Dmitri Nabokov came to St. Petersburg to open the conference and
launch the Copyright Monitoring program, in which the museum is still
actively involved. Among the American lawyers and copyright specialists who
came to speak at the conference was Joseph Beck, one of the lawyers
representing Houghton Mifflin and Alice Randall mentioned in the article.
Mr. Beck, who is a Partner in the Atlanta office of Kilpatrick Stockton, was
instrumental in winning the yearlong (or was it longer?) battle for Ms.
Randall's right to parody her literary predecessor. On July 7-13 of this
year he will come to St. Petersburg again to speak about international
copyright protection at various sites, including the Nabokov Museum. In
fact, I have received information about his travel being approved by the U.
S. Department of State on the same day the "Wind Done Gone" article was
posted on the list. I thought this might tickle those of us who like
Nabokovian coincidences.
Olga Voronina
ouvpete@pd.state.gov
-----Original Message-----
From: Galya Diment [mailto:galya@u.washington.edu]
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 10:49 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Settlement Reached in Parody Suit ... (fwd)
From: Sandy Klein <sk@starcapital.net>
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Wind-Done-Gone.html
Settlement Reached in Parody Suit
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:41 p.m. ET
ATLANTA (AP) -- The protectors of Margaret Mitchell's ``Gone With the Wind''
have dropped their yearlong battle to stop publication of Alice Randall's
``The Wind Done Gone,'' agreeing to an out-of-court settlement.
Under the terms of the settlement, Randall's publisher, Houghton Mifflin,
agreed to make an unspecified contribution to Morehouse College, a
historically black school in Atlanta. In return, lawyers for Mitchell's
estate agreed to stop trying to block sales of Randall's book, which tells
the ``GWTW'' story from a slave's point of view.
An Atlanta judge had blocked publication of ``The Wind Done Gone'' in April
2001, ruling that it violated the copyright of Mitchell's 1936 classic about
the Civil War. A month later, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in
Atlanta ruled that the injunction was an ``extraordinary and drastic
remedy'' that ``amounts to unlawful prior restraint in violation of the
First Amendment.''
The book was published in June 2001 and was on best-seller lists for weeks.
Even though the book was already available, lawyers for the Mitchell estate
had said they would continue the lawsuit in hopes of getting damages.
Lawyers for the Mitchell trust argued that Randall appropriated characters,
scene, setting, plot and even some passages straight from ``Gone With the
Wind.''
Houghton Mifflin and Randall argued that ``The Wind Done Gone'' was a parody
protected by the First Amendment. They also maintained that, by imagining
what Scarlett O'Hara's slaves thought and felt, the book offered a new
perspective on Mitchell's story.
The publishing industry closely watched the lawsuit, which could have
affected how extensively parodies can borrow from a copyrighted works.
A similar battle had been waged over the novel ``Lo's Diary,'' an irreverent
retelling of the late Vladimir Nabokov's ``Lolita'' from the young girl's
point of view. The two sides eventually reached a deal to share royalties.
I was pleasantly surprised to find the reference to the "Wind Done Gone"
court case on the list today. As former Deputy Director of the Nabokov
Museum in St. Petersburg, I organized the international Copyright Monitoring
Conference at the museum - it took place during the second week of February,
2001. Dmitri Nabokov came to St. Petersburg to open the conference and
launch the Copyright Monitoring program, in which the museum is still
actively involved. Among the American lawyers and copyright specialists who
came to speak at the conference was Joseph Beck, one of the lawyers
representing Houghton Mifflin and Alice Randall mentioned in the article.
Mr. Beck, who is a Partner in the Atlanta office of Kilpatrick Stockton, was
instrumental in winning the yearlong (or was it longer?) battle for Ms.
Randall's right to parody her literary predecessor. On July 7-13 of this
year he will come to St. Petersburg again to speak about international
copyright protection at various sites, including the Nabokov Museum. In
fact, I have received information about his travel being approved by the U.
S. Department of State on the same day the "Wind Done Gone" article was
posted on the list. I thought this might tickle those of us who like
Nabokovian coincidences.
Olga Voronina
ouvpete@pd.state.gov
-----Original Message-----
From: Galya Diment [mailto:galya@u.washington.edu]
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 10:49 PM
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: Settlement Reached in Parody Suit ... (fwd)
From: Sandy Klein <sk@starcapital.net>
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Wind-Done-Gone.html
Settlement Reached in Parody Suit
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:41 p.m. ET
ATLANTA (AP) -- The protectors of Margaret Mitchell's ``Gone With the Wind''
have dropped their yearlong battle to stop publication of Alice Randall's
``The Wind Done Gone,'' agreeing to an out-of-court settlement.
Under the terms of the settlement, Randall's publisher, Houghton Mifflin,
agreed to make an unspecified contribution to Morehouse College, a
historically black school in Atlanta. In return, lawyers for Mitchell's
estate agreed to stop trying to block sales of Randall's book, which tells
the ``GWTW'' story from a slave's point of view.
An Atlanta judge had blocked publication of ``The Wind Done Gone'' in April
2001, ruling that it violated the copyright of Mitchell's 1936 classic about
the Civil War. A month later, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in
Atlanta ruled that the injunction was an ``extraordinary and drastic
remedy'' that ``amounts to unlawful prior restraint in violation of the
First Amendment.''
The book was published in June 2001 and was on best-seller lists for weeks.
Even though the book was already available, lawyers for the Mitchell estate
had said they would continue the lawsuit in hopes of getting damages.
Lawyers for the Mitchell trust argued that Randall appropriated characters,
scene, setting, plot and even some passages straight from ``Gone With the
Wind.''
Houghton Mifflin and Randall argued that ``The Wind Done Gone'' was a parody
protected by the First Amendment. They also maintained that, by imagining
what Scarlett O'Hara's slaves thought and felt, the book offered a new
perspective on Mitchell's story.
The publishing industry closely watched the lawsuit, which could have
affected how extensively parodies can borrow from a copyrighted works.
A similar battle had been waged over the novel ``Lo's Diary,'' an irreverent
retelling of the late Vladimir Nabokov's ``Lolita'' from the young girl's
point of view. The two sides eventually reached a deal to share royalties.