'Gone With the Wind' Takeoff Ignites Legal Battle

May 25 -- The heirs of Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell are steamed about a cynical new book that retells the Southern epic with some twists — like giving Scarlett O'Hara African ancestry and making Ashley Wilkes gay.

They're suing to stop publication of the book, The Wind Done Gone, by black author Alice Randall.

While the Mitchell estate's trustees say they hold copyrights on the characters and story line in the Gone With the Wind, Randall is gaining support from First Amendment advocates and authors who say her version of the story needs to be told.

A federal judge in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta will hear arguments today on both sides of the tenuous line between First Amendment rights of creative freedom and the intellectual property rights of the Mitchell estate.

Randall's book retells the 1936 classic from the perspective of a new character, Cynara, who is ostensibly the illegitimate child of Scarlett's white father and her black nanny.

"I know very few blacks who don't shudder with revulsion at Gone With the Wind's portrait of slavery," Southern author Pat Conroy wrote in a letter to the judge who originally heard the case and ended up blocking publication.

Satire or Theft?

The question at issue in the Mitchell estate's lawsuit is not whether Randall's book borrows heavily from the story line of the classic tale; Randall admits as much. The issue is whether Randall legitimately criticizes Gone With the Wind or trades on the novel for her own profit.

Today, the appeals court will consider whether the new book amounts to artistic satire or an unauthorized sequel that plagiarizes the original.

In April, a lower-court judge halted the planned June 6 publication of the book, ruling it borrowed too heavily from the classic.

Lawyers for the Margaret Mitchell estate contend Randall essentially copies 15 characters, even though she renames them, and steals Margaret Mitchell's original story line by giving an alternative depiction of the same events.