NEWS

Parties

The mention of Meghan Markle stirs up in the social media extreme views at both ends of the spectrum. However a recent court success by Meghan in the UK in regard to privacy and copyright has come to my attention and so this note. Mention of family squabbles also add a salacious background to any tale.

Facts

Meghan wrote a personal letter to her father and he released the contents to the Mail of Sunday which published about one half of the contents of her letter. The paper threatened to release the full contents of the five page letter. Meghan was upset and sought to restrain the use of the contents of the letter. Dad was being unreasonable and seems to have been looking for some financial gain at the expense of his daughters’s reputation and fame.

Issues

The two issues of privacy and copyright arose and were decided on by the court in London. I will only deal with issue of copyright in this note and at a later date I will deal with privacy. The UK law regarding copyright is very similar to the situation in Australia.

Legal Comment re: Copyright

When someone writes a letter to another party the law of copyright arises. The act of writing creates a “literary work”. It does not have to be high brow but just something in written form and original to the author of the work. Once all these facts arise then the author has copyright in the work. It is not personal property but a bundle of rights which allows the author to control release of the work.

The court held that there was breach of the copyright that Meghan owned in the copyright as she was found to possess the elements set out above.

Once Meghan proved she had copyright that is not the end of it. There can be a number of defences that can be argued to dispute the claim for copyright. The court said that the defence of fair dealing did not arise as the reproduction was essentially for the purpose of reporting the contents of the letter, which was not a current event. The court also held that the public interest defence failed in that the court would not condone using its process to be used for the purposes that are contrary to the public interest.

Useful Notes

Copyright exists immediately the work is penned. There is nothing more to do such as registration. In the case of written letter it is necessary to prove that you are the author of the original work that is held by the other party. By stating so on oath would be sufficient. People do not usually keep copies of letters as they do with emails. If someone in Australia wrote a letter to someone in UK then one can rock up to a UK court and directly file a claim per International Treaties.