Settlement reached in 'Wind Done Gone' lawsuit

ATLANTA - The protectors of Margaret Mitchell&#39;s ``Gone With the Wind&#39;&#39; have reached a settlement in their yearlong battle to stop publication of Alice Randall&#39;s ``The Wind Done Gone.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Under the terms of the settlement, Randall&#39;s publisher, Houghton Mifflin, has agreed to make an unspecified contribution to Morehouse College. Also Randall&#39;s book. <br> <br> An Atlanta judge had blocked publication of ``The Wind Done Gone&#39;&#39; in April 2001, ruling that it violated the copyright of Mitchell&#39;s 1936 classic. A month later, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled that the injunction was ``an extraordinary and drastic remedy&#39;&#39; that ``amounts to unlawful prior restraint in violation of the First Amendment.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> The book was published in June 2001 and was on best sellers lists for weeks. <br> <br> Lawyers for the Mitchell trust argued that Randall appropriated characters, scene, setting, plot and even some passages straight from ``Gone With the Wind.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Houghton Mifflin and Randall argued that ``The Wind Done Gone&#39;&#39; was a parody protected by the First Amendment. They also maintained that the book offers a new perspective on Mitchell&#39;s story by telling the tale from a slave&#39;s perspective. <br> <br> The publishing industry closely watched the lawsuit, which could have affected how extensively parodies can borrow from a copyrighted works.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/5/194912