Legal Wrangle Over Wine Books
The Age
Monday September 26, 1994
IT was the kind of legal contretemps that even copyright lawyers have nightmares about. Established wine book author Robin Bradley, whose Australian and New Zealand Wine Vintages book is about to rack up total sales of 450,000 copies, was upset at a newcomer's entry into the same field.
He considered Jeremy Oliver's `The Australian Wine Handbook', launched last year, too similar in concept and format to his own.
It was almost inevitable that the matter would end up in the courts.
But what has surprised some industry commentators has been the settlement offer made by the publishers of Oliver's book - and accepted by Bradley - which effectively leaves the matter no clearer to recording an outright ``win".
``They (Portside Editions, the publishers) made a settlement offer a couple of months ago which was that both sides walk away and we pay our own costs," says Bradley.
``I accepted that offer. I am walking away from action over the first edition, but I am not yielding them any right at all to copy my format."
Oliver is cautious about commenting on the case. ``No documents have been signed yet so I don't want to say anything that might rekindle the situation," he says. ``But I see no reason to change the format.
The second edition will be as different to Robin Bradley's book as the first one was."
The second edition is to be released next month, with what author Oliver calls ``minor modifications".
He has elected to drop a column on the maturity rating of wines listed because, he says, it tended to confuse more than help consumers.
Bradley's Australian and New Zealand Wine Vintages, known widely as the little golden book, was originally commissioned by the Benson and Hedges cigarette company in 1979. The concept, except for the much later addition of New Zealand wineries, has changed little over the intervening 15 years.
Bradley's book was printed by Southbank Communications Group between 1983 and 1990. The same group, now called Southbank Pacific, prints Oliver's book.
Soon after the handbook was launched, Bradley took Oliver to court, claiming his handbook was similar in format and concept to his own.
Both Bradley and Oliver now seem content for the marketplace to decide which of the wine guides will survive.
``We - my publisher and I - are of the joint opinion that we should let bygones be bygones," says Oliver. ``From the start we said we wanted the market place to decide."
Bradley agrees, but adds that he will also be looking very carefully at the second edition of `The Australian Wine Handbook' come October.
© 1994 The Age