Carol Shloss, a Stanford professor, has prevailed in her lawsuit over the litigious estate of James Joyce. Shloss, a Joyce scholar had been threatened by the Joyce estate (who also threatened to sue the Irish library for displaying Joyce's letters!) over her forthcoming book. Larry Lessig and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society represented her, and fought the Joyce state to surrender. Bravo!
Last June we sued the Estate of James Joyce to establish the right of Stanford Professor Carol Shloss to use copyrighted materials in connection with her scholarly biography of Lucia Joyce. Shloss suffered more than ten years of threats and intimidation by Stephen James Joyce, who purported to prohibit her from quoting from anything that James or Lucia Joyce ever wrote for any purpose. As a result of these threats, significant portions of source material were deleted from Shloss's book, Lucia Joyce: To Dance In The Wake.
In the lawsuits we filed against the Estate and against Stephen Joyce individually, we asked the Court to remove the threat of liability by declaring Shloss's right to publish those deleted materials on a website designed to supplement the book. After the trying to have the case dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the Estate gave up the fight. Joyce and the Estate have now entered into a settlement agreement enforceable by the Court that prohibits them from enforcing any of their copyrights against Shloss in connection with the publication of the supplement, whether in electronic or printed form. (The Settlement Agreement is posted here.)
(via Lessig)
See also:
Stanford prof sues James Joyce estate for right to study Joyce
James Joyce's descendants are copyright jerks
Molly Bloom talks copyright
