I’m quoted and this site is mentioned by a Daniel Fisher Forbes.com article on the James Frey class action litigation. (“A Million Little Lawsuits Over Frey”, Jan. 30). The article refers to our January 12…

The real problem here is a therapeutic one–Frey wrote the way he saw his own life. His story of his life was distorted. But who could really be surprised about this? This seems to me like behavior of a recovering adddict.

The comments here seem most upset because he held himself up as a role model. Maybe–but that certainly did not happen in the book. the book is powerful because it is his story of his experience. It certainly did not seem to me like he was holding himself out as a model to others.

James Frey admitted on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show that The Smoking Gun’s investigation into his book was “pretty accurate.” (Howard Kurtz, “Oprah Winfrey Says She is ‘Deeply Sorry'”, Washington Post, Jan. 26). Which leaves us…

Another class action over the James Frey affair; this one, in Seattle, seeks, inter alia, recovery for “lost time” spent reading the book, prompting the Bookslut blog to reconsider its opposition to tort reform. It…

What Ted is saying is far from being a long shot. I’ve blogged about the ridiculous class action suits that happen every day. Mr. Frey’s fraud could have far reaching implications and I’m a big reader of non-fiction. Time will only tell what damage F…

Smoking Gun exposes Oprah book club anointee James Frey as a fraudster. Oprah doesn’t care whether the book is true. I’m not surprised. As Queen of the Self-Help and Actualization Movement (SHAM), and enabler-in-chief of the culture of narcissism, she’ll

WSJ Law Blog: “As surely as day follows night, a class-action lawsuit was filed Friday against James Frey and Random House over Frey’s alleged lies in his best-selling memoir ‘A Million Little Pieces.’” Christine Hurt…

The point remains that such injuries are not well redressed by the legal system. I don’t get to sue Scott Turow for exaggerating the plight of a first-year law student, nor should I, even though I’ve actually gone through it.

First, an infringement suit may not be maintained for works of U. S. origin unless the copyright is registered.

Second, registration must be made within 3 months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, for the copyright owner to get statutory damages (which can be significant) and attorney’s fees in its suit. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner. As Mr. Fischer pointed out, actual damages and profits are either non-existent or trivial.

The last and biggest hurdle for Singer, the author of the letter to the Smoking Gun, is the fair use doctrine which is codefied at 17 USC 107. Section 107 states in relevant part: “…the fair use of a copyrighted work … for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.”

The Smoking Gun’s publication is the type of activity that Congress intended to protect when they codified fair use. Any infringement lawsuit against the Smoking Gun would be frivolous and subject the filer to sanctions by a federal judge.