Copyright-related fight: Oh my Peggy, my Peggy Sue, what really happened with Buddy Holly and you?
Buddy Holly’s widow threatened to use copyright law to kill a book by Peggy Sue Gerron—immortalized in the namesake song by the rock star killed in the plane crash of American Pie fame.
Maria Elena Holly felt the book would harm her husband’s reputation. A local newspaper, however, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, sided with Peggy Sue in an editorial in January. “We wrote on June 18 we would respect her more if she dropped the pretense she was trying to protect the name of her late husband and admitted she was trying to cash in for all the money she can get.”
The e-book angle
When I checked just now at least, the book was still alive on Amazon, and from afar, without knowing all the facts, I say, “Good.” There’s even an e-book angle here, given the potential of the medium for newsy books, without the delays that paper publication can bring; and the last thing we want is for copyright law to inhibit authors unfairly.
I hope the quality-to-trash ratio will be good. But that isn’t the issue here; rather, freedom of expression.
A TeleBlog angle, too
Meanwhile the Holly controversy has heated up right here in the TeleBlog. Defending Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue? is Jeffery Haas, who writes: “I’ve met and worked with Peggy Sue Gerron and I have a copy of the book in question. Nothing in the book is libelous and indeed any lawsuit will be dismissed. Most of all, the publication of this book will hardly tarnish Holly’s image. If anything it will shine some more light on what is essentially a story about a man whose complexity was seriously under-portrayed in his sanitized movie biopic.” Nope, I do know of his exact connection with Peggy Sue, but I like the spirit of his comments.
Arguing against Peggy Sue’s recollections is Yvonne Dillaha, “the Yvonne Hall she wrote about in her book. The comments attributed to me were totally false and exceptionally hateful. Furthermore, she certainly did not ask my permission and unlike Buddy, I am very much alive and well, nor am I a celebrity. At the time of her imaginary ‘conversation,’ I had plans to marry the following year myself and did so. She and I took plane geometry at the same time and sat across the aisle from each other. I hardly think we needed an introduction and get acquainted session. Since his mom and mine were such close friends, could anyone possibly be expected to believe that I would question whether they ‘really got married’? She was not there when her irate father showed up on our doorstep wanting to know where they had gone, either.”
Related: Ficbot’s original Peggy Sue post.
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