![\"Goodbye](\"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/pippa-middleton.jpg\")
Goodbye to LOLs? Pippa Middleton is reported to have taken legal action against a spoof twitter account (Pic Angus Mordant\/Demotix)<\/p><\/div>\n
I\u2019m fairly certain I\u2019m the only person I know who owns a copy of Pippa Middleton\u2019s Celebrate. I\u2019m not even entirely sure why I own it.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not actually a terrible book. Well, not that bad. At times it does seem that Pippa\u2019s specialist subject on Celebrity Mastermind would be The Obvious, yes (ice makes things cold, that kind of thing). But recently a friend came for lunch, and we cooked a very nice salad from Pippa\u2019s book. \u00a0I know not whether Pippa wrote the recipe herself or not. I don\u2019t care very much who wrote it either. It was nice.<\/p>\n
Until recent newspaper reports, I had no idea who was behind PippaTips<\/a>, the Twitter account that poked fun Middleton\u2019s more pedestrian pieces of advice (\u201c#PippaTip<\/a>: dressing up in nice clothes is a stylish way to look great at a party\u201d). Again, I wasn\u2019t hugely concerned. It was a reasonably amusing twitter feed, but I didn\u2019t hang on every update.<\/p>\n Which is why I failed to notice it had been inactive for a month.<\/p>\n This lack of tips is apparently due to an ongoing legal shemozzle between Pippa Middleton and Icon Books, the publishers of \u201cWhen One is Expecting: A Posh Person’s Guide to Pregnancy and Parenting\u201d<\/a>, authored by \u201cthe creators of @Pippatips (Mat Morrisroe and Suzanne Azzopardi, for the record).<\/p>\n The parody pregnancy guide is doing reasonably well on Amazon (one reviewer does describe it as \u201cnot much more than a posh version of the Top Tips section\/books of Viz magazine\u201d – which is actually high comedy praise indeed).<\/p>\n According to the Daily Mail, Pippa\u2019s lawyers are pursuing the creators of this gentle joshing for \u201cpassing off\u201d – that is, marketing the book and Twitter account as actually written by Ms Middleton – but the exact nature of the action remains unclear.<\/p>\n Is it possible that Pippa\u2019s lawyers Harbottle and Lewis\u00a0are threatening litigation not just for passing off, but possibly also for defamation? When questioned by Index, a spokeswoman for the firm said it was the firm’s policy “not to comment on client matters”.<\/p>\n A defamation case seems unlikely, but it\u2019s not unknown for lawyers to raise the idea in order to strike the fear of God into publishers.<\/p>\n In 2010, at the height of the MPs expenses scandal, the Barclay Brothers, owners of the Telegraph newspapers, threatened to sue Private Eye magazine<\/a> for a joke about the brothers\u2019 tax status.<\/p>\n Private Eye said that this was their first ever libel threat for a joke. But has the magazine famous for its spoof columns by politicians, hacks and celebs ever faced action for \u201cpassing off\u201d? \u201cThe answer is no\u201d came the simple reply from editor Ian Hislop when Index inquired.<\/p>\n The most infamous \u201cpassing off\u201d case of recent years was that of Conservative politician and diarist Alan Clarke versus the Evening Standard, in 1998. The Standard ran a spoof column headlined The Secret Diary of Alan Clarke. Clarke took umbrage, and in spite of the fact that the column was obviously a joke (along the lines of the Guardian\u2019s Samantha Cameron spoof column Mrs Cameron\u2019s Diary<\/a>), Clarke won his court case, with the judge absurdly ruling that because the paper was largely read by commuters who wouldn\u2019t really be paying attention as they fought to defend their space on the evening train home, it was possible that people would think the articles were genuine.<\/p>\n It seems clear that the PippaTips account and book are parodies: even the Twitter bio states \u201cclearly a parody\u201d, and the book does not make any claim to be written by Middleton herself.<\/p>\n Does Middleton have a case to make then? According to the Intellectual Property Office, \u201cpassing off\u201d cases hinge on whether:<\/p>\n \u2022 you have established a reputation in \u00a0your mark;<\/p>\n \u2022 the use you are complaining of \u00a0would be likely to confuse or deceive the public; and<\/p>\n \u2022 the use would be likely to damage your business and goodwill.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n These matters are up for debate. Publishing lawyer Bernie Nyman<\/a> says that he can see no evidence that Pippa Middleton has trademarked her name.<\/p>\n Are the public likely to be confused or deceived? Unlikely. As we\u2019ve seen, there is no claim that the book is authored by Pippa Middleton, and the twitter account is marked as parody. Twitter\u2019s own rules say that \u201cYou may not impersonate others through the Twitter service in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse, or deceive others\u201d.<\/p>\n If the account had done so, then it is likely it would be suspended by Twitter, and yet it remains.<\/p>\n Nyman says he thinks the account authors have \u201cdone enough to give themselves an arguable case that it\u2019s not passing off.\u201d<\/p>\n Furthermore, says Nyman, \u201cthere is no question of copyright infringement, as far as I\u2019m aware.\u201d<\/p>\n As to the question of whether Middleton is likely to damage Middleton\u2019s business or goodwill, a recent study on online parody and satire suggests that the opposite is true.<\/p>\n Evaluating The Impact of Parody<\/a>, commissioned by the Intellectual Property Office, and led by Dr Kris Erickson of Bournemouth University, found that there was no evidence that YouTube parodies caused any damage to earning potential of artists; indeed, the most parodied artists were often the most successful.<\/p>\n The study states: \u201cWe have evaluated two potential sources of economic harm – substitution and reputational effects – finding no compelling evidence that parody is damaging to the original in terms of the latter\u2019s ability to attract and monetise an audience via the online platform.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, the study suggests that \u201cenabling user-generated content such as parody could have positive economic benefits for the UK. Instead of an economic justification for limiting parody content, we find compelling reasons to promote the creation of more parody content based on UK works.\u201d<\/p>\n And this is not just the case for YouTube: the researchers suggest that while further work may need to be carried out on \u201cTV, print, photography and interactive games\u201d, they hope the insight can be \u201cdrawn and applied to other markets.\u201d<\/p>\n Britain currently does not have an exemption for parody in copyright law, despite the fact that the European Union\u2019s directive on copyright does allow for such an exemption. The IPO is suggesting that the UK does just that. Vince Cable announced late in 2012 that there was a possibility this could happen, and the IPO has now come up with drafting of amendments to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which would specifically protect fair usage of other artists\u2019 material in parody – whether that be \u201cweapon parody\u201d – parody used to make a point, or \u201ctarget parody\u201d often directed at the original artist.<\/p>\n In a statement, the IPO told Index:<\/p>\n “Government has announced its intention to introduce a new copyright exception to allow certain acts of parody, caricature and pastiche, and has published draft legislation to this effect. Once finalised the changes will form part of a package of provisions to be laid before Parliament later in the year.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n All this, though, pertains to parodies where original material has been copied but altered for parodic purposes: Downfall videos, for example, or one of the hundreds of versions of Adele\u2019s Rolling In The Deep marked as \u201cparody\u201d on YouTube.<\/p>\n But the people behind @pippatips did not actually use anything but their own material, in a pastiche of the style and tone of Middleton\u2019s book.<\/p>\n In a recent LRB article, novelist Jonathan Coe suggested that the prevalence of satire was in fact neutering British political and cultural life, sending the country, as Peter Cook put it, \u201cgiggling into the sea\u201d. But even with the proposed reforms to copyright laws governing parody, satire is still clearly seen as a threat by the UK establishment.<\/p>\n In 2011, Britons were surprised to discover that film footage of parliamentary debates is not allowed to be used for satirical purposes. This information arose after an episode of the US political satire programme The Daily Show was pulled from UK television because it contained footage from a parliamentary debate on the phone hacking scandal. As the New Statesman\u2019s Helen Lewis pointed out<\/a>\u00a0, \u201cAmericans can make fun of what happens in our parliament but we can’t\u201d.<\/p>\n And while Private Eye may only ever have had one libel threat over a joke, Eye journalist and author of the magazine\u2019s official history Adam McQueen says that \u201cpeople have written letters to editor over the years making it clear that they aren\u2019t really like what was said about them in the jokes section.\u201d<\/p>\n Satire, pastiche and parody are widely held to be part of what makes Britain great. But it seems not everyone is willing to exercise their right to laugh and be laughed at.<\/p>\n\n