Buddy Holly's Estate Trying To Use Intellectual Property Laws To Stop Peggy Sue Autobiography
from the not-what-IP-is-for dept
Someone who prefers to remain anonymous sent in an article about how Buddy Holly's widow is trying to stop the publication of an autobiography by Peggy Sue Gerron, supposedly the woman whose name was the basis for Holly's famous song "Peggy Sue." The complaint seems to be that Peggy Sue Gerron is using Buddy Holly's "name and likeness" without permission. Though, the more likely explanation is that the Holly estate feels that it should get paid for this story, even though the story is told from Peggy Sue Gerron's own perspective. It has all the earmarks of a shakedown. And, of course, it will fail. It's unlikely that there's much of a case here. The most likely result will be that the book is allowed to be published and all this lawsuit will have done is to draw plenty of extra attention to the book, Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: buddy holly, peggy sue, publicity rights, trademark
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nice
First BTW..
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Huh?
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Not true
Maybe Peggy Sue should counter sue Buddy Holly's estate for the use of her name without permission.
Also, Peggy Sue can not sue because her first name ended up being used in a song. If her full name was used, she might have a case.
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Re: Not true
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Re: Re: Not true
Did I say it had to do with copyright? Nope.
I said it had to do with complaints about his likeness. I also pointed out that there's little right for the estate to stop such a book.
If the book is factual, she has every right to publish it.
So who's ignoring facts?
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Re: Not true
Right. That's what they say in court to get Gerron to feel that she needs to pay for the "rights" to publish the book. In the end, it's very much about money. By suing to block the publication of the book, it makes it seem that much more serious in order to make it that much more likely that Gerron will pay. It is very much about the money even if the lawsuit is officially to ban the book.
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Hmm, I missed that part. I thought Gerron was going to fight this so she could release her book. If she loses the lawsuit, she would not be able to release her book even if she paid the royalties, right? This would be a good case to watch and see what shakes out. Gerron might well just cut a deal and pay royalties.
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This lawsuit is just another way of Maria Elena Holly to cash in on Buddy's name to make money for herself. She said in an interview that the book supposedly had info in it that defamed Buddy Holly, herself and other people. Guess Maria Elena wants the sole rights to screwing over her husband's name. They were only married for 6 months, but I guess that still gives her the right to do whatever she wants with his name. Needless to say, Maria Elena isn't very welcome in Lubbock, TX
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Maybe putting "Right. That's what they say in court to get Gerron to feel that she needs to pay for the "rights" to publish the book. In the end, it's very much about money."
in the article would have changed my thoughts on the subject. You didn't and I agreed with Dock22 without knowing the background.
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Re:
I thought by saying "the more likely explanation" that it was pretty clear that it was my conjecture as to what was happening. I apologize if it wasn't clear enough.
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Did someone miss the word TECH in TechDirt??
This site has gone from a Tech news website to a "let's bash anyone doing anything having something loosely related to a patent or IP lawsuit" website.
Get on the ball guys.
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Re: Did someone miss the word TECH in TechDirt??
It's always great when people tell me that I shouldn't have written about something on my own site. The good thing about being in charge here is that I get to decide what's worth posting, and from the very beginning, intellectual property issues have always been a key part of the discussion around here. In fact, it was part of the reason why I started Techdirt.
And, it actually has very much to do with the technology industry. Intellectual property issues are deeply interwoven with the tech industry, and understanding how they're being used and abused will have a huge impact on the technology world.
I apologize if you find it not to your liking, but there are a number of pure technology news websites out there -- and we never claimed to be one anyway. We focus in on topics that have a larger impact -- and this story is a perfect example of that.
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Re: Did someone miss the word TECH in TechDirt??
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This is actually just a blog. There's no way anyone should confuse it with being a tech news site.
I get amused whenever other bloggers with similar views refer to each other and each other's sites by saying, "Alan Aardvark over at wtf.com demonstrates yada yada yada." That "over at" cracks me up. Makes everything sound almost collegiate. Bloggers need other bloggers it seems in order to support their biases and world view.
"I may not agree with what Mike blogs, but I'll defend to the death his right to blog it." LOL!
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Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue
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Re: Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue
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