Meghan Markle in a statement stated: “We all lose when misinformation sells more than truth,”
In August 2018 ahead of the Royal Wedding, Dutchess of Sussex Meghan Markle sued ANL, publishers of Mail Online and Mail On Sunday for breach of copyright, infringement of her privacy, and breaches of the Data Protection Act over publishing articles that invaded her privacy and which showed parts of a letter she had written to her father Thomas Markle.
On Thursday, she rightly won the battle and shares her victory.
Judge Mark Warby said, ” Meghan had a reasonable expectation that the contents of the letter would remain private. The Mail articles interfered with that reasonable expectation.”
Additionally, Judge Warby also ruled, ” The Mail had infringed on the copyright in the letter, leaving open only the question of whether the Duchess of Sussex was the sole owner of the copyright or might have been a co-author due to alleged involvement by others in the letter’s editing—a point pressed by the Mail, but which the judge described as occupying “the shadowland between improbability and unreality.”
Judge Warby further said that on March 2 a hearing will be scheduled to decide the matters raised in Thursday’s judgment indicating that the open copyright question which likely only has an impact on the money damages the Meghan will be receiving. Moreover, the third part of the case has not yet been addressed about the alleged data privacy violations.
Judge Warby stated, “At worst, therefore, the claimant is a co-author of a work of joint authorship, and entitled to relief for infringement of her share in the copyright,” “There is no room for doubt that the defendant’s conduct involved an infringement of copyright in the Electronic Draft of which the claimant was the owner or, at worst, a co-owner.”
After Thursday’s successful ruling, Meghan said that she was “grateful to the courts for holding Associated Newspapers and The Mail on Sunday to account.”
The Dutchess’s Statements on the issue
“These tactics (and those of their sister publications MailOnline and the Daily Mail) are not new; in fact, they’ve been going on for far too long without consequence,” “For these outlets, it’s a game. For me and so many others, it’s real life, real relationships, and very real sadness. The damage they have done and continue to do runs deep.
“The world needs reliable, fact-checked, high-quality news. What The Mail on Sunday and its partner publications do is the opposite. We all lose when misinformation sells more than truth, when moral exploitation sells more than decency, and when companies create their business model to profit from people’s pain.”
“But for today, with this comprehensive win on both privacy and copyright, we have all won. We now know, and hope it creates a legal precedent, that you cannot take somebody’s privacy and exploit it in a privacy case, as the defendant has blatantly done over the past two years.”
“I share this victory with each of you—because we all deserve justice and truth, and we all deserve better.
“I particularly want to thank my husband, mom, and legal team, and especially Jenny Afia for her unrelenting support throughout this process.”
On the contrary, A spokesperson for the Mail on Sunday in a statement said, “We are very surprised by today’s summary judgment and disappointed at being denied the chance to have all the evidence heard and tested in open court at a full trial. We are carefully considering the judgment’s contents and will decide in due course whether to lodge an appeal.”
