Via intellectual property lawyer Nikos Prentoulis comes this article – Telegraph journalist and ghostwriter of Sir Alex Ferguson book slams BBC for ‘stealing chunks’ of it – but are they in the wrong?.
The article is by Mark Leiser, a PhD candidate in cyber law at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, in his Digital Media and Tech Law blog, and this is what he has to say (with various additions in italics):
The BBC ignited controversy among the sports journalism fraternity after publishing several news articles about former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s latest autobiography [My Autobiography (2013), not to be confused with Managing My Life: the Autobiography (2000)] which lifted a significant amount of text directly from the book.
Paul Hayward, the book’s ghost-writer and a sportswriter for the Telegraph, wasn’t happy about it. He tweeted: “BBC website stealing chunks of the Ferguson book direct. Scandalous. Looks to me like a complete contravention of copyright.”
