Civil Case (Tel Aviv) 49593-12-22 Amit Steinhardt v. Eliyahu Eshed

Is it possible to identify the character of a literary villain as a man of flesh and blood?

The defendant wrote and published several chapters under the name of "The Bulgarian Fraud", which he defined in advance as a work of fiction.  In the same book, the defendant brings a complex plot of crime, espionage and fraud that takes place throughout Europe and focuses on Bulgaria.  A plot in which characters created by the defendant are "starred" and alongside them are mentioned real figures such as the Russian president.  And among those characters that star in the book, there is also the character of a literary villain.  A person who is presented with a derogatory nickname that refers to the dimensions of his body and is described in a variety of negative descriptions.

According to the plaintiff, the description of that villain shows that this is not a fictional character at all, but rather his own character.  Because those who read the chapters of the book easily recognize him himself as the character of that villain.  In doing so, the defendant committed against him the tort of defamation and severe violation of privacy, under the guise of a fictional creation.  And it was not by chance that the defendant acted, since according to the plaintiff's version, the defendant sought to harass him and harm him following a previous dispute between them.

The defendant, the writer, denies these claims categorically.  The story is a completely fictional creation, the defendant claims.  The plaintiff, according to his version, served him as a legitimate inspiration at most, just as other events constituted such inspiration, but there is no basis for an attempt to identify the plaintiff with any character in the book, and in any case there is no basis for an attempt to attribute to him the commission of a tort against the plaintiff.

At the center of the disputes that arose between the parties is therefore the question of whether the character created by the defendant in the book he published can be identified with the figure of the plaintiff.  To the extent that it is found that it is indeed possible to identify the character in this way, the question of the tension between the plaintiff's right to his good name and privacy and the defendant's right to search for the expression and the work will be examined.  It will also be necessary to examine the appropriate remedy in the circumstances of the case and to the extent that it is found that an injustice has been done against the plaintiff, and in this framework the question of whether we are dealing with many publications or perhaps a single set of publications and whether an intention to harm the plaintiff has been proven.