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Taylors helps witch walk author win battle against Lancashire County Council

The Intellectual Property team from Taylors Solicitors have helped the writer of a Pendle Witch walking guide successfully sue Lancashire County Council for copying his work.

In what was something of a ‘David v Goliath’ victory, Ian Thornton-Bryar who now lives in Hampshire was awarded damages of £19,187, plus costs, after a Small Claims Hearing found that the Council has published extensive extracts from his guide on its website.

The District Judge Lambert was particularly critical of the Council’s “couldn’t care less attitude” towards Mr Thornton-Bryar’s claims for copyright.

The story actually dates back to 2014. Keen walker Mr Thornton-Bryar had written a booklet The Lancashire Witches Walk but the Council copied significant parts of the text and published it on its Forest of Bowland website in 2014.

He complained at the time and the Council agreed to remove the text, but a year later the Council put the text back online with some amendments.

Carole Bullock, a Charted Legal Executive at Taylors, acted on behalf of Mr Thornton-Bryar, said that the Council’s attitude towards the infringement had been contemptuous.

“They really seemed to think they could ignore Mr Thornton-Bryar and his claims because he was a lone voice. In 2014 they accepted they’d copied the work and removed it but then a year later published it again. Taylors have always been keen to protect the rights of individual authors and designers.”

Colleague Rebecca Horne, one of Taylors Intellectual Property lawyers, said the judgement against the Council was particularly damning because of the ‘calculated’ way they infringed our client’s copyright. She said: “It’s really was a David v Goliath case with an individual taking on the might and resources of a local authority — and we’re delighted with the result.”

Judge Lambert, who awarded Mr Thornton-Bryar £9,000 compensation and a further £10,000 for flagrant infringement of the copyright law, said in the judgement: “The Council has copied a substantial part of Mr Thornton-Bryar’s work. These actions were a deliberate and calculated infringement of copyright, or at the very least they amounted to a couldn’t care less attitude.”

Barrister Jonathan D.C. Turner represented Mr Thornton-Bryar at the hearing in London. He commented: “The Court marked its disapproval of the Council’s conduct by awarding additional damages of £10,000 as well compensation for loss of sales and royalties.”

Judge Lambert said that the Council chose to publish the Lancashire Witch Walk guide on its website without consulting Mr Thornton-Bryar or seeking a licence from him, despite knowing that a large number of extracts from his work appeared in it. The Council also refused to remove their infringing walk guide from its website despite the requests made his solicitors at Taylors.

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