Thursday, September 9, 2010

Chipmunka Solves The Copyright Issue!

We were at an impasse. Chipmunka thought they had a right to publish my letter, out of context and without my permission. I insisted they did not.

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.