A helpful soul (the co-founder of chipmunka) suggested the following as an alternative: he would write a fake letter, which he would then claim was by the author's relative (me)!
He provided me with a sample he had knocked up himself:
"I am just sorry that I acted in a strange way to you. I am sorry that I left you feeling like you, like I disowned you. I had not realised the pain this caused. I am very sorry about my behaviour"
Aside from making it look like I am unable to write coherently, this did not reflect my feelings then or at any time before or since, and I certainly would not have written anything like this.
I tried to explain this, but Chipmunka felt that as my name had been changed, it didn't matter what they said. In fact, I was told that they could publish anything they liked and I would have no way to fight it:
"Basically the character doesnt have your name and as therefore it isn't you we could have this character say whetever we like, legally."
I guess if there were a 'character' rather than a thinly disguised version of me in an autobiography there would be no problem, because I am not a fictional character. Chipmunka's shaky grip on reality seems to extend to the existence of people they correspond with, unfortunately.
I did let them know (in a non-fictional way) that this was not acceptable.
2 comments:
Hi. We are talking about you here:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5321829#post5321829
and I think it would be interesting to see what you have to say about this, there. Some people feel that you may have diluted your case against Chipmunka by attacking the CEO personally. I'd just be interested to see what would happen if you showed up, and if you can justify your position.
I found that a while back when someone filed a DMCA complaint because a post from that forum showed up in the comments to one of these articles. Fun times.
Thanks for the heads-up. I'll come see what's going on.
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