True story claim and effect

Hi all,

If anyone can point me to a real case of the following hypothetical situation, I'd love to know about it. Opinions and discussions are also welcome.

Person A writes and publishes a short non-fiction account of a series of incidents he claims is true and is documented, but does not cite sources. Person B reads Person A's account and creates a much longer fictional story based on this material, but is unable to find the original documentation in historical archives despite serious attempts to do so. Person B uses the same names, context, situation, etc. as Person A in order to keep to historical reality.

The questions of interest to me in this situation revolve around what happens if it turns out that Person A really made up the events he says are true. Has Person B likely infringed copyright on Person A because of the use of the same names, situation, etc.? Does Person A's declaration of the story being true essentially grant others the expectation that it's not infringement to take such material from the so-called non-fiction account to use as they will?

(In this example, let us assume that Person A is no longer living and could not be contacted to confirm his claim of truthfulness in the first place.)

-Ken Received on Sat May 31 2003 - 07:59:10 GMT