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Harry Markle's avatar

I have only glanced at parts of the judgment and there are some aspects that I don't believe are 'safe'. I agree with the fair dealing which we thought would be a suitable defence, however as we did not have access to the whole letter, by using more than 40% and a substantial amount, that would have negated the defence. Again, as we don't have the whole letter , it is a judgment call if it was substantial or not. I still can't comment on that.

In terms of whether Thomas Markle had a right to print his story, Warby plays down the part in People, and says his actions were disproportionate to the article, but is he able to judge that? He doesn't actually know the facts of the misleading claims, so he can't judge.

Others say Thomas Markle should sue People, and yes he should as then the friends and MM would have to testify, but he doesn't want to harm or attack his daughter. The question is, did he fail ANL?

The case should see an appeal, and copyright law is very complex and there are no hard rules as the law evolves with each case. The fact that the other parties (Knauf and co) have remained silent has aided MM's case – another BP failure, because they should have acted sooner. As in stopped any involvement when she wrote the letter.

Was Warby clouded by the confidential claim? Perhaps? The thing is this is civil law and another judge would see things quite differently, as laws can be interpreted in various ways. Do I think this was a fair judgment? No, because the evidence wasn't laid out in full, and Warby claims that with the evidence it was unlikely to have succeeded. As the evidence was incomplete, one can't make that judgment, and the only fair thing to do was go to trial as during cross-examination is the time when evidence can be challenged. It is a poor day for justice when a judge believes that he can assess a case when half the evidence has been presented.

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Harry Markle's avatar

I've written an overview of some of the implications of the case from a public perspective. I will do a legal breakdown next week because I have another case to work on. https://harrymarkle.wordpress.com/2021/02/13/the-letter-case-trial-denied-is-that-biased-justice/

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