The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, has threatened the Mail on Sunday with legal action after it published sections of a private letter she sent to her father
Meghan Markle has threatened to sue the Mail on Sunday under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.
The newspaper published segments of a private letter Markle sent to her father Thomas.
Thomas Markle released the letter to the newspaper in a bid to respond to a critical interview given by the duchess’ friends to People, an American magazine.
The Mail on Sunday commissioned a “handwriting expert” to analyse the letter, the Guardian reports, and printed nine different extracts.
Copyright lawyer Alex Newman told the Guardian: “A letter is a copyright work as it is a literary work.
“As soon as you create a copyright work, you will own the copyright until it expires automatically. This gives you the right to prevent anyone else copying, or issuing to the public, the whole or a substantial part of your copyrighted work.”
It’s understood Markle asked her father to stop feeding a media narrative about their relationship by providing interviews and stories to publishers.
Kensington Palace has used copyright legislation to curtail reporting in the past.
