Comment by whatshisface
5 years ago
Curiously, not as strong as one might think.
"Judge Robert D. Sack of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, author of the defamation treatise, Sack on Defamation: Libel, Slander and Related Problems, describes when a libel suit might result from a work of fiction:
“Where the defendant invents defamatory dialogue or other defamatory details in what purports to be nonfiction, uses actual people as fictional characters, or bases fictional characters on living persons but fails sufficiently to disguise the characters, so that the fictional characters are understood to be ‘of and concerning’ their living models, liability for libel may result.”" (emphasis added)
https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center...
There's an AP Herbert book called "Uncommon Law", in which one of the (fictional) cases involves a crossword-setter (Mr. Haddock) who is sued for setting puzzles with defamatory clues.
For example, "Bibulous bishop". That could be any bishop, except that the space for the solution, and the other intersecting answers, narrow the field considerably, to the point that the solver is forced to conclude that Bishop XYZ is the solution.
If you follow the Assange case, then you might see a strong similarity with the idea of "jigsaw identification".
The link you've provided is interesting, but the gist of it is that it's very unlikely that you can successfully sue someone for basing a fictional story off of you; you might be able to drag them into court, but the case is difficult to win.