Bristow-Bovey: Lawyers gear up for action

A likely consequence of the Darrel Bristow-Bovey debacle is that lawyers will become involved. While nothing has yet been heard from Random House’s legal team on Bristow-Bovey’s “adaptation” of passages from Bill Bryson’s Notes From a Big Country in The Naked Bachelor, Zebra Press appears to be warming up for the courts.

Media Weekly has read an e-mail sent to columnist David Bullard by Zebra Press’s publishing manager, Marlene Fryer. Fryer was responding to a list of comparisons Bullard had received between passages in The Naked Bachelor, published in 2002, and PJ O’ Rourke’s The Bachelor Home Companion, published in 1987. The source of the list asked to remain anonymous, so Bullard wondered on his behalf what Zebra Press made of it.

Here is Fryer’s three-point response:

“1. Zebra Press views copyright infringement in a very serious light, and therefore we referred this matter to our lawyers immediately. Since receiving further averments (in relation to PJ O’Rourke), we have again investigated and considered the situation, and we have been advised and are satisfied that there has been no instance of copyright infringement or other unlawful conduct on the part of Darrel Bristow-Bovey.

“2. We support Darrel, as we would any of our authors, and believe that he drew on similar influences and life experiences to those of other authors in writing about a common topic. Darrel is familiar with the works referred to in the press, and is an admirer of their authors, but we are comfortable that his work is the product of independent thought processes and his own efforts.

“3. Zebra Press is concerned that there appears to be a concerted effort on the part of a group of journalists to discredit Darrel. It must be pointed out that there is a fine line between critical appraisal of an author’s work, on the one hand, and defamatory comment, on the other, and that if damage is inflicted, Zebra Press will not hesitate to protect its authors.”

Uncowed, Bullard wrote back. Here is an extract of his missive:

“I am unaware of this group of malicious hacks keen to bring Darrel down at all costs, so perhaps you would be kind enough to give me further details, just in case they start poring over my writing.

“I am, however, aware of a fairly large group of respected journalists who do not share your lawyer’s view that Darrel has done nothing wrong, and are keen to preserve what little integrity exists in their profession; hence their keen interest in the plagiarism accusation.

“It could be that they are all wrong, in which case their names will become mud and Darrel’s reputation … will continue to grow.”

A major issue, if Bristow-Bovey’s work is scrutinised in court, could be the difference between copyright breach and plagiarism.

Claire Wright, of law firm Rosin Wright Rosengarten, comments: “One may plagiarise by passing off another’s work as one’s own, but that wouldn’t necessarily be an infringement of copyright, where the right exists in the form the expression takes.”