Publisher Fraud?

[Tex70]

Is a publisher liable if they market a publication for years using fictional information about the author that they know contradicts the correct information about the author they put on the copyright application that they processed? It seems to me that I and the buying public were mislead to purchase the work.

 

[Zigner]

Is a publisher liable if they market a publication for years using fictional information about the author that they know contradicts the correct information about the author they put on the copyright application that they processed? It seems to me that I and the buying public were mislead to purchase the work.

Sorry, this forum is for US law only.

 

[quincy]

Is a publisher liable if they market a publication for years using fictional information about the author that they know contradicts the correct information about the author they put on the copyright application that they processed? It seems to me that I and the buying public were mislead to purchase the work.

Darn those publishers for publishing books by George Eliot and Dr. Seuss and Voltaire and Lewis Carroll and Mark Twain and George Orwell and, my personal favorite, Penelope Ashe.

Authors are allowed to write under pseudonyms and register their copyrights under either their real names or their pseudonyms. They can publish their books using their pseudonyms.

One of my favorite books, not for its content (which was absolutely dreadful) but rather for its concept, is the book "Naked Came the Stranger." It was published for the first time in 1969. The book was said to be authored by a housewife named Penelope Ashe and the copyright was registered under Ashe's name. The publisher marketed the book under Ashe's name, and information on Ashe and her life was provided on the book jacket.

But "Naked Came the Stranger" was, in actuality, a book written in reaction to the horribly written books that were currently on the New York Times bestsellers list (books like those by Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins). The book was conceived by, and written jointly by, 25 different reporters who worked for "Newsday." Each reporter was assigned to write one chapter. The book was to have "an unrelenting emphasis on sex" and the guidelines for the reporters included the provision: "... true excellence in writing will be quickly blue-penciled into oblivion."

To everyone's surprise, the book became a New York Times bestseller before the hoax was discovered (and then the book became an international best seller).

With all of that said, a publishing company and an author could find themselves in legal hot water for fictionalizing the credentials of an author who has written a non-fiction book.

If you provide your state name, Tex70, I can provide you with some examples.

 

[Tex70]

State is Texas.

 

[quincy]

State is Texas.

Thank you for providing the name of your state, Tex70.

Following is a link to a list compiled in 2010 by Jamie Frater (founder of Listverse) of the "Top 10 Infamous Fake Memoirs," starting with Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance's book "Long Lance," and ending with "Angel at the Fence" by Herman Rosenblat published in 2009. Frater touches on some of the problems faced by both the authors and the publishers when it was discovered the memoirs were not entirely what they were made out to be. http://listverse.com/2010/03/06/top-10-infamous-fake-memoirs/