Pippa Middleton's Legal Battle with Fake Twitter Account

While Kate Middleton hunkers down at her parent’s house in Bucklebury awaiting the birth of her child with Prince William, sister Pippa Middleton is waging a legal battle with Mat Morrisroe and Suzanne Azzopardi, the creators of the Twitter account @Pippatips, according to a story published Sunday in the UK newspaper, The Independent.

The Twitter account was created in 2012, shortly after the October publication of Pippa’s book Celebrate: A Year of Festivities for Family and Friends, and spoofed Pippa’s tendency to oversimplify lifestyle advice. Morrisroe and Azzopardi quickly acquired more than 50,000 followers by tweeting tips such as “Form friendships by being nice to people you like,” and “A nice hat can help keep the sun off, simply place on your head et voila - your own personal, portable shade.” Once Kate Middleton announced her pregnancy in December, the writers began tweeting pregnancy advice such as, “If your old clothes don’t fit, why not buy new ones with space for your bump?” and “During later pregnancy you may not be able to see your feet. They’re most likely still there, so make sure you don’t forget footwear.”

In June, the pair published the book When One is Expecting: A Posh Person’s Guide to Pregnancy and Parenting, an unauthorized parody of the imagined advice Pippa gives to Kate Middleton.

But Pippa isn’t laughing. She can’t do much about the book since it’s already published, however, according to The Independent, her lawyers Harbottle & Lewis have written Icon Books which published the book, to demand that the Twitter account be deleted. If that’s true, Pippa’s had a change of heart—in June, Morrisroe told the Daily Mail that a copy of his book had been sent to Pippa and she was “ happy to poke fun at herself.” 

So does Middleton have a case? Maybe, Duris Holmes, an intellectual property lawyer for Deutsch, Kerrigan & Stiles in New Orleans told Yahoo Shine. “The UK does not have a general parody exception in its copyright law. Once the parody book was published, it became a commercial matter, ” says Holmes. In other words, it’s the book, not the Twitter account that’s given Middleton’s lawyers ammunition to try to shut down the Twitter account.

However, the Twitter account will likely be safe, as long as the account is presented as parody and doesn’t break any defamation laws in the UK. Given the parody Twitter accounts that have recently cropped up— @RoyalFoetus, @IamRoyalBaby, @UnbornRoyal, and @HRHBaby —impersonators should take note!