Levity's Hailstorm project scrapped

[Jeremy Osner]

Whatchoo, one a' them thur holocaust deniers?

Doug Millison wrote:

> Lacking the requisite legal budget, I guess I'll abandon that GR sequel I've
> been planning, Levity's Hailstorm, which would retell P's story but from the
> point of view of the loveable, courageous, zany Nazis and multinational
> corporation & cartel executives who were so egregiously mischaracterized in
> GR, and show how the Rocket really is the key to the consumer freedom of
> choice and political liberty that we all enjoy under the present
> Administration.
>
> -Doug
>
> >PW Daily for Booksellers from Publishers Weekly
> >http://www.publishersweekly.com
> >
> >Contents for the issue sent Tuesday, April 24, 2001:
> >
> [snip]
>
> >Blown Away: Preliminary Injunction Quiets Wind Done Gone
> >
> >Despite calls from such literary figures as Toni Morrison and Arthur
> >Schlesinger in support of the publication of Alice Randall's The Wind Done
> >Gone, the controversial forthcoming novel based on Margaret Mitchell's Gone
> >With the Wind, a district court judge in Atlanta has issued a temporary
> >restraining order that prevents Houghton Mifflin from further publication
> >and distribution of the work.
> >
> >Randall's novel retells the story of Gone With the Wind from a slave's
> >perspective, and the Mitchell Trustees are claiming that her retelling
> >infringes the Mitchell copyright.
> >
> >Martin Garbus of Frankfurt, Garbus, Kurnit Klein & Selz, attorneys for the
> >Mitchell Trust, told PW, "The judge found unabated piracy, that this book
> >is a sequel and has nothing to do with parody or satire. If it were either
> >I would have defended the book myself."
> >
> >Wendy Strothman, executive v-p and publisher of Houghton, said the company
> >will appeal the injunction. "We're disappointed. I've been in publishing
> >since 1973 and I've never seen anything like this ruling. This book has
> >garnered remarkable praise by people like Toni Morrison, Shelby Foote,
> >Henry Louis Gates, people who have read the book.
> >
> >"We care about copyright," Strothman continued. "The Mitchell trust can't
> >ban ridicule or criticism of their work. Computer hackers are the real
> >threat to copyright not a young African American writer."
> >
> >Nevertheless Judge Charles A. Pannell agreed overwhelming with the Mitchell
> >trustees and ruled against Houghton Mifflin and Randall on virtually every
> >legal issue. The preliminary injunction he issued  indicates a strong
> >likelihood that the plaintiff will prevail on its claims in court.
> >
> >Pannell indeed described Randall's work as "unabated piracy." He said that
> >the Randall novel uses 15 well-known and copyrightable characters from Gone
> >With The Wind along with the "physical attributes, mannerisms and the
> >distinct features that Ms. Mitchell used to describe them." And while
> >Houghton Mifflin's claimed that the work is a parody of GWTW and therefore
> >within the realm of legal "fair use," Pannell roundly disagreed, describing
> >the Randall novel as "some parody coupled with extensive duplication of the
> >original."
> >
> >Pannell notes that while The Wind Done Gone offers new, more historically
> >accurate information about plantation life in the post-Civil War South,
> >this new information has been added to an existing, protected story to
> >produce, in effect, an unauthorized sequel. "If the work is intended to
> >supply the missing story of the earlier work Ö then it is a sequel" wrote
> >Pannell, "If the work tells the same story through different eyes, then it
> >infringes on the copyright owner's right to create and control derivative
> >works."
> >
> >The judge also emphasized that fair use, the right to borrow from an
> >original work, affords "greater protection" for a work of fiction "that is
> >creative, imaginative" than for a scholarly or historical nonfiction work.
> >And Pannell even ruled that Randall's work would likely interfere with the
> >potential sales of St. Martin's Press's forthcoming GWTW sequel, which is
> >expected to feature Rhett Butler "a story that Ms. Randall attempts to
> >largely tell in The Wind Done Gone."--Calvin Reid
> >