200 lines
9.4 KiB
Markdown
200 lines
9.4 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2017-12-30T22:34:17.000Z'
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title: Stanford scholar gets six-figure settlement from James Joyce Estate (2009)
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url: https://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/september28/shloss-joyce-settlement-092809.html
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author: walterbell
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points: 126
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story_text:
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 16
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1514673257
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_walterbell
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- story_16038085
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objectID: '16038085'
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year: 2009
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---
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# Stanford researcher gets six-figure settlement from James Joyce Estate
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Stanford scholar Carol Shloss’ breakthrough settlement against the James
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Joyce Estate gives hope to beleaguered researchers.
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The Stanford scholar who wrote a controversial biography of James
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Joyce's daughter has settled her claims for attorneys' fees against the
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Joyce Estate for $240,000. The settlement successfully ends a tangled
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saga that has continued for two decades.
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As a result of an earlier settlement reached in 2007, consulting English
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Professor Carol Loeb Shloss already had achieved the right to domestic
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online publication of the supportive scholarship the Joyce Estate had
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forced her to remove from Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake (2003). She
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also had achieved the right to republish the book in the United States
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with the expurgated material restored. After that settlement was
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reached, Shloss asked the court to award the attorneys' fees and costs
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she had incurred in bringing her suit, and the court granted that
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request. The parties eventually settled the amount of the fees and
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litigation costs Shloss and her counsel were to receive at $240,000.
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Shloss' suit was championed by the Stanford Law School Center for
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Internet and Society's Fair Use Project, with the assistance of
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attorneys from Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin and Keker &
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Van Nest of San Francisco, and Doerner, Saunders, Daniel & Anderson of
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Tulsa, Okla.
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The estate of the celebrated Irish author of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake,
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under the guidance of Joyce's grandson, Stephen James Joyce, had become
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notorious in scholarly circles for its conflicts with scholars, authors
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and Joyce enthusiasts. The estate's history of suits and threats of suit
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has been the subject of many articles.
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L.A. Cicero
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[![Stanford scholar Carol
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Shloss](https://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/september28/gifs/shloss_news.jpg)](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/september28/gifs/shloss_news.jpg "Stanford scholar Carol Shloss")
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Stanford scholar Carol Shloss
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Stephen Joyce has stopped countless public readings of his grandfather's
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works and discouraged a generation of research. At one point, he told a
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prominent Joyce scholar that he was no longer giving permission to quote
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from any of Joyce's work. He told one performer, who had simply
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memorized a portion of Finnegans Wake for an onstage presentation, that
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he had probably "already infringed" on the estate's copyright, according
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to a 2006 New Yorker story. (The performer later discovered that Joyce
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did not have the right to block his performance.) Shloss herself recalls
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a conference where a scholar had Joyce's words projected on a screen
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rather than risk pronouncing the words in a recorded session.
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"It's a breakthrough, not just for me but for everybody who has to deal
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with a literary estate," said Shloss. "This has been going on for
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decades. Scholars are not wealthy people. We don't have easy access to
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the legal system to determine and vindicate our rights if someone
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threatens us with a lawsuit. You just have to give in.
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"When the Stanford Law School took this on, Larry Lessig \[now at
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Harvard University\] said, 'That's disgusting,' and the tables turned.
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Suddenly scholars had some legal support for an issue that had been
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stifling our lives for decades."
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Shloss said that the suit is a game-changer because now literary
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"estates know they can get hurt."
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"They know that scholars have resources now. They just can't be
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bullies," she said. "We've established that if you don't pay attention
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to the rights of scholars, authors and researchers the copyright laws
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protect, you might have to pay something as the Joyce Estate has had to
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pay."
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In a tartly worded Feb. 24 filing to determine attorneys' fees and
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costs, Shloss and her legal team argued that "the cost of litigating
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this case, which was substantial, was a direct result of the Estate's
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assiduous and energetic efforts to prevent Shloss from exercising the
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rights the U.S. copyright laws encourage, and its 'scorched earth'
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approach to litigating the early stages of the case to see if it could
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bully Shloss into capitulation."
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Shloss began researching her book in 1988. During a visit to Stephen
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Joyce's Paris home that year, the writer's grandson warned her of his
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determination to protect what he considered the Joyce family's privacy
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rights. After studying the 50 unpublished notebooks that the author used
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to write Finnegans Wake, Shloss challenged the long-accepted image of
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Lucia Joyce, who was institutionalized in mental asylums for decades, as
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the schizophrenic daughter of a man of genius. Instead, Shloss saw the
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young dancer as a creative, independent figure who was an inspiration
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for her father's work.
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In subsequent years, according to a 2006 court filing, the author's
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grandson and the estate's trustee made "attempts to interfere with
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Shloss' research, to stop publication of her book, to damage her
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relationship with her employer, and to misuse the copyrights they
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control."
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Photo by C. Ruf, Zurich, ca. 1918 Source: Cornell Joyce Collection
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[![James
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Joyce](https://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/september28/gifs/shloss_joyce_news.jpg)](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/september28/gifs/shloss_joyce_news.jpg "James Joyce")
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James Joyce
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In 2002, when Shloss' book was nearing publication, Joyce pressured her
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publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, to delete material from the book
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or face a lawsuit. The publisher complied rather than fight the issue.
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In the deleted material, Shloss links Joyce's chronological observations
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about his daughter, as related in his notebooks, as a "consistent
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influence on the final text of Finnegans Wake." Joyce is in an "edgy,
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almost surrealistic, comic mode" as he describes the budding sexuality
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of his daughter in her interactions with his son, and himself as an
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older man watching almost voyeuristically. The account "still bears the
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specificity of his children's lives: Issy \[modeled on Lucia\] still
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whistles, drops handkerchiefs, waits for her male counterpart to pick
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them up with his feet, worries that she'll be forgotten."
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When an expurgated Lucia was published in 2003, the reviews were, as
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Shloss said she had anticipated, mixed. The New York Times said her
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unsupported arguments made the book "read more like an exercise in wish
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fulfillment than a biography." The New Yorker noted that "the less
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Shloss knows, the more she tells us." The San Francisco Chronicle noted
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that Shloss added "a daunting quality of her own speculations, surmises
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and unconvincingly supported suppositions."
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Shloss responded by creating in 2005, and later revising, [an electronic
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supplement to Lucia](http://www.lucia-the-authors-cut.info). The website
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was restricted to U.S. access only, and the additional material was
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designed to be protected by copyright's "fair use" doctrine.
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The Joyce Estate responded with a series of strongly worded letters. To
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protect herself and her work, Shloss filed a suit for declaratory relief
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in June 2006, guided by the Stanford Center for Internet and Society and
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the center's private-sector co-counsel. The estate fired back with a
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475-page motion to dismiss and to strike, attacking the quality of
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Shloss' scholarship and arguing that, despite the estate's threats,
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there was no dispute for the court to adjudicate. The court ruled
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against the estate in March 2007, finding that Shloss' suit should go
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forward. A settlement in 2007 allowed Shloss to publish her supplement
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on the Internet and in print in the United States, as she had sought in
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her lawsuit, but did not address attorneys' fees. A full settlement
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including the payment of attorneys' fees and costs to Shloss and her
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counsel was not completed until recently.
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For Shloss, the decision is "a vindication of my scholarship. I knew the
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scholarship was excellent. But I'd had to take the evidence out."
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On the initial settlement in 2007, Lessig had said, "We will continue to
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defend academics threatened by overly aggressive copyright holders, as
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well as other creators for whom the intended protections of 'fair use'
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do not work in practice. I am hopeful that this is the last time this
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defendant will be involved in an action like this. But it is only the
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first time that we will be defending academics in these contexts."
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Shloss said she is happy to leave behind the tangled legal saga that had
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"defined my life for years."
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"This has always been running in the background, always something
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happening in my name, filled with papers I have to read and understand,"
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she said. "It's a relief not to have double life – professional life and
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legal life – running in parallel. I was receiving threatening letters
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from the Joyce Estate long before I found the Fair Use Project and Larry
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Lessig.
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"Larry's the one who said, 'This should not be happening to you.' And
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then we began to work together with the Stanford center and the private
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law firms. That's when the tables turned. It's a real Stanford story.
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Most people can't do this. These are fabulous people to work with.
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Really fabulous."
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## Media Contact
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Cynthia Haven, Stanford News Service: (650) 724-6184,
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<cynthia.haven@stanford.edu>
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