Shloss v. Sweeney et al

Filing 36

Declaration of David Pierce in Support of 32 Memorandum in Opposition, filed byCarol Loeb Shloss. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1# 2 Exhibit 2# 3 Exhibit 3)(Related document(s) 32 ) (Falzone, Anthony) (Filed on 12/15/2006)

Shloss v. Sweeney et al

Doc. 36

Case 5:06-cv-03718-JW

Document 36

Filed 12/15/2006

Page 1 of 4

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Lawrence Lessig Anthony T. Falzone (SBN 190845) David S. Olson (SBN 231675) STANFORD LAW SCHOOL CENTER FOR INTERNET AND SOCIETY 559 Nathan Abbott Way Stanford, California 94305-8610 Telephone: [phone] Facsimile: [phone] E-mail: [e-mail] Mark A. Lemley (SBN 155830) Matthew M. Werdegar (SBN 200470) KEKER & VAN NEST LLP 710 Sansome Street San Francisco, California 94111 Telephone: [phone] Facsimile: [phone] E-mail: [e-mail] Bernard A. Burk (SBN 118083) Robert Spoo (pro hac vice) HOWARD RICE NEMEROVSKI CANADY FALK & RABKIN, PC Three Embarcadero Center, 7th Floor San Francisco, California 94111-4024 Telephone: [phone] Facsimile: [phone] E-mail: [e-mail] Attorneys for Plaintiff UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA SAN JOSE DIVISION CAROL LOEB SHLOSS, Plaintiff, v. SEAN SWEENEY, in his capacity as trustee of the Estate of James Joyce, and THE ESTATE OF JAMES JOYCE Defendants. CASE NO. CV 06-3718 (JW) (HRL) DECLARATION OF DAVID PIERCE IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFF'S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS Date: Time: Judge: January 22, 2007 9:00 a.m. Hon. James Ware

DECLARATION OF DAVID PIERCE

-1Dockets.Justia.com

Case 5:06-cv-03718-JW

Document 36

Filed 12/15/2006

Page 2 of 4

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

I, DAVID PIERCE, declare as follows: 1. I am Professor of English at the University College of Ripon and York St. John, in

York, England. I make this declaration in support of Plaintiff Carol Loeb Shloss's Opposition to the Defendants' Motion to Dismiss. I have personal, firsthand knowledge of the following facts, and if called as a witness, I could and would testify to them. 2. I am a literature scholar with particular expertise in modern Irish authors, including I have published numerous articles and reviews on these subjects in academic

James Joyce.

journals, and I am the author of several books on James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, and other literary subjects. My books include James Joyce's Ireland (Yale University Press, 1992) and Joyce and Company (Continuum, 2006). 3. I am also editor of Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century: A Reader (Cork University

Press, 2001), an anthology running to more than a thousand pages of text and annotations (hereafter, the "Reader"). In the months before the scheduled publication of that volume (September 2000), my publisher and I sought permission of the James Joyce Estate to print extracts from Joyce's major works. The Joyce extracts were to account for approximately 2% of the content of the Reader, and permission fees would have to be paid to many other authors and estates besides the Joyce Estate. In response to our requests, Mr. Stephen James Joyce insisted on a permission fee of £7,000 British sterling, even though it was explained to him that this would be a large percentage of the permissions budget set aside for the Reader by Cork University Press (the "Press"), an academic press with limited resources. Mr. Joyce was adamant. He later raised the fee to £7,500. 4. Mr. Joyce sent me two letter faxes during the period prior to the scheduled publication

of the Reader. In the first of these, dated June 20, 2000, he stated, among other things, that the Press had not replied to a letter he had addressed to it in May 2000, adding, "So be it. The thing about life is that if you live long enough the leopard will always show his spots and the pigeons usually come home to roost." These remarks and others in the letter made me greatly concerned that Mr. Joyce and the Joyce Estate would take legal action against me, the Press, or both of us. A true and correct copy of Mr. Joyce's June 20, 2000 letter fax is attached hereto as Exhibit 1. This document has been

DECLARATION OF DAVID PIERCE

-1-

Case 5:06-cv-03718-JW

Document 36

Filed 12/15/2006

Page 3 of 4

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

kept as a regular practice in my files in the course my regularly conducted work as a scholar and author. 5. Mr. Joyce's second letter fax to me was sent on July 10, 2000. In it, he informed me

that he was refusing permission to reproduce any extracts from James Joyce's writings in my Reader. He also stated that copyright in all of Joyce's writings would last in the European

Economic Community (EEC) until the end of 2011, and that the Joyce Estate owned this copyright. Mr. Joyce's letter made me, once again, extremely worried that legal action would be taken against me, the Press, or both of us. A true and correct copy of Mr. Joyce's July 10, 200 letter fax is attached hereto as Exhibit 2. This document has been kept as a regular practice in my files in the course my regularly conducted work as a scholar and author. 6. I was made even more fearful of legal reprisal when Mr. Joyce unexpectedly phoned me

at my home in York on August 24, 2000. He spoke menacingly to me, accused me, falsely, of being the author of an article he disliked, and inquired about my plans for the Reader. I told him that deletions of some Joyce material had been made and that the book had gone to press, but I would not discuss the contents of the volume with him. 7. The next day, August 25, 2000, the Joyce Estate's solicitors in Dublin faxed a letter to

the Press threatening legal action concerning the Reader. On September 11, 2000, the Joyce Estate's solicitors filed suit against the Press for injunctive relief to halt release of the Reader. In a Judgment dated October 9, 2000, the Irish High Court granted an injunction. A true and correct copy of that Judgment, obtained from the British and Irish Legal Information website (found at http://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IEHC/2000/70.html), is attached hereto as Exhibit 3. 8. As a result of the injunction, the Reader was published, after considerable delay, with

the Joyce extracts literally shorn from the volume by the Press and a cardboard notice tipped in stating, "Pages 323-346 have been removed due to a dispute in relation to copyright." I was devastated by the mutilation of my Reader. I will never get over it entirely. 9. In June 2003, I attended a James Joyce conference hosted by the University of Tulsa in

Tulsa, Oklahoma. There I met Professor Carol Loeb Shloss, who was scheduled to give a plenary address on her biography of Lucia Joyce, then still to be issued by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
DECLARATION OF DAVID PIERCE

-2-

Case 5:06-cv-03718-JW

Document 36

Filed 12/15/2006

Page 4 of 4