For Immediate Release - April 18, 2001

For further information, contact:
Chris Finan, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, (212) 587-4025
Judith F. Krug, Freedom to Read Foundation, (312) 280-4222

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Free speech groups representing booksellers, librarians and authors this week urged a federal judge to weigh First Amendment concerns in deciding the fate of The Wind Done Gone, a novel that is described as a parody of Gone With The Wind by its publisher, Houghton Mifflin. The estate of author Margaret Mitchell has asked the judge to block the publication of the novel, which is scheduled for June.

In a friend of the court brief filed on Monday, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Freedom to Read Foundation and PEN American Center urged the court to recognize that parody, which is an important form of social criticism and commentary, cannot exist unless authors can make use of aspects of the works they are satirizing. "The copying and the commentary that lie at the heart of parody are inextricably intertwined," the amicus brief states. The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized this fact by granting parodies greater scope to use copyrighted material than is allowed in other types of works. "We are deeply concerned by the possibility that the copyright laws could be used to suppress books that satirize other books," Chris Finan, ABFFE president, said. "The right to criticize is a freedom that is at the very core of the First Amendment," Judith F. Krug, FTRF executive director, observed.

The amicus brief also urges the court not to issue a preliminary injunction delaying publication of The Wind Done Gone while it weighs the merits of the Mitchell estate's claims. While such injunctions can be used in cases involving simple piracy, they are not appropriate where the book in question claims to be parody and may be protected by the First Amendment, it says. A hearing is scheduled in the case in Atlanta today. A decision on the preliminary injunction motion could come before the end of the week. Houghton Mifflin plans to begin shipping the book to bookstores in early May.

The Mitchell estate contends that The Wind Done Gone is not a parody but an unauthorized sequel that will hurt the sale of two authorized sequels. It has called the book a "blatant and wholesale theft" because it incorporates "characters, settings, plot lines and other copyrighted elements" of the Mitchell novel.

Randall, who is African-American, argues that her book is an effort to tell the story of the slaves at Tara, a story that was ignored in Gone With The Wind. "I felt I had to take on Mitchell's novel directly," she said in a prepared statement. "My book is an antidote to a text that has hurt generations of African-Americans."