Judge Blocks Publication of Gone With The Wind Parody

Posted on April 20, 2001

U.S. District Judge Charles Pannell Jr. has ordered a preliminary injunction to prevent the publication of The Wind Done Gone. The author and publisher claimed the book is a parody of the famous Gone With The Wind novel by Margaret Mitchell published in 1936. But Lawyers for The Mitchell Trusts Committee, which was created by Margaret Mitchell's brother to protect his sister's work, claimed the book is a copyright violation. Hougton Mifflin, the publisher of The Wind Done Gone, said they would appeal the decision.

The Wind Done Gone author Alice Randall, said "I wrote this parody to ridicule a book that has wounded generations of Americans," said Randall. "I look forward to the day when readers will be able to judge my book for themselves."

Earlier this month, attorneys for the Mitchell Trusts filed a lawsuit in the Northern District Court in Atlanta to stop the publication of Randall's book, claiming it violates their copyright. Houghton Mifflin believes that the book is a political parody and that its publication is proper under the fair use doctrine of the Copyright Act and the First Amendment.

``We couldn't be more pleased with Judge Pannell's decision to stop publication of The Wind Done Gone in order to protect the characters and content of Gone With the Wind from copyright infringement,'' said Martin Garbus, attorney for the Mitchell Trusts Committee. ``The ruling clearly validates our position that Ms. Randall's book is a blatant and wholesale theft of Ms. Mitchell's work, and not the parody her publishers portrayed it to be.''

A growing list of authors and scholars have publicly voiced their opposition to the Mitchell Trusts' efforts to stop publication of the book, including Toni Morrison, who was the first African American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Shelby Foote, noted Civil War historian, and Charles R. Johnson, author of Middle Passage, winner of the National Book Award.