Key sentence:
- Following a lengthy legal battle with the Mail on Sunday’s publishers, Meghan Markle has received a public apology.
Multiple rulings that the Mail on Sunday and the MailOnline website breached Markle’s privacy in February 2019 by printing elements of a five-page letter she wrote to her father shortly after her royal wedding to Prince Harry in May 2018 forced the publication to print a front-page mea culpa to the Duchess of Sussex, 40.
“The Duchess of Sussex wins her copyright infringement case against Associated Newspapers for articles published in The Mail on Sunday and posted on Mail Online,” the front page announcement reads on Sunday.
“The Court has given judgment in favor of the Duchess of Sussex on her claim for copyright infringement after hearings on January 19-20, 2021, and May 5, 2021.
Associated Newspapers infringed on her copyright by publishing excerpts of her handwritten letter to her father in The Mail on Sunday and Mail Online, according to the Court. Financial redress has been agreed upon. “Page 3 contains the remainder of the public apology.
The Court ordered The Mail on Sunday to publish a longer “notice” inside the newspaper under the headline “The Duchess of Sussex,” stating that the Court found “Associated Newspapers intruded her [Meghan’s] copyright by releasing extracts of her handwritten letter to her dad in The Mail on Sunday and in Mail Online.”
He also ordered that the apology be posted on MailOnline’s homepage for “one week” and include a link to the official judgment and summary with the words, “The full judgment and the Court’s summary of it can be found here.”
Despite a legal challenge from the publisher, the Court of Appeal in London upheld Judge Warby’s decision in the privacy and copyright infringement case on December 2.
The Duchess can expect to receive substantial financial damages from the newspaper group in addition to the public apology printed on the front page of the Mail on Sunday and the homepage of the Mail Online.
Meghan’s estimated $1.88 million legal expenses for pursuing the 18-month-long case were ordered to be paid in full by the Daily Mail and Mail publisher on Sunday in March.
Meghan said in a statement on December 2 that “this is a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt afraid to stand up for what’s right.”
“While this victory sets a precedent, what matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that breeds cruelty in people and profits from the lies and pain they cause,” she said.
Meghan went on, “From the beginning, I’ve viewed this case as a crucial test of right versus wrong. The defendant has approached the case as if it were a game with no rules.
The longer they dragged it out, the more they could twist facts and manipulate the public (even during the appeal), making a simple case extremely complicated to generate more headlines and sell more newspapers.
This model rewards chaos over truth. I’ve remained patient in the face of deception, intimidation, and calculated attacks for nearly three years.”
