My brother has published his memoir.

[Eatingricecrispieswithafork]

So my brother has written and published a book, we're estranged, well I'm estranged from my family, it's a shit show tbh.

Anyway during a Facebook messenger discussion, he told me he was writing his memoir, he's had an interesting life, I don't won't to say more as I'm trying to remain anonymous, anyway I told him to leave me out of it, he said I was only briefly mentioned in he named his 3 siblings. It came out before Xmas and despite telling myself to leave it, I bought it, I was dismayed that he had a few details. Of my childhood and adolescence and it was inaccurate, so I was a bit enjoyed, but was hardly mention3d in his later life ... then I got to the end, the photographs including 2 of me, 1 in particular was incredibly triggering, as it was taken during a very traumatic time for me and he knew that. He never asked my permission and I explicity told him I wanted left out of it. I Think he's either thought i wouldn't care or if I did i wouldn't have the money or the no how on what to do about it if anything, it's left me feeling like the lion cub that's been abandoned for the hyenas, they the family all know I'm autistic and struggletho with a lot of the nuances and aspects of everyday life... I just need some advice, your thoughts and if anyway has any knowledge about publishing laws and privacy. Thank you in advance.

Could the book help someone who has been through similar because I am guessing this is a book about trauma and abuse?

I know it hurts I think the only thing you can do is slag the book off and say I don't remember that leave reviews. People read reviews and make decisions on what they read. Hot him where it hurts his pocket.

What if you don't know who took the photo? And what if that person has died? And what if the camera belongs to a different person from the one who clicked the button? I'm thinking of the photo taken by a random tourist.

Did he pay the publisher? there firms who do this, ‘Vanity publishing’, ‘subsidy publishing’ and ‘vanity press’ are old-fashioned terms that refer to a certain type of publisher that invites authors to send in their manuscripts and then charges them a fee or co-payment to assess and/or publish their books.
houses.
Vanity publishers usually have little or no selection criteria. They tend to respond to submissions almost immediately, usually with a positive offer to publish your book.

I think you need legal advice. It's obviously wrong for him to share your image and name like that but you need proper legal advice as to how best stop further sales/get compensation/update the book. It is possible to force the publisher to reprint the book with you omitted and/or corrections made. Look for example at "If I Did It" by O. J. Simpson, his "hypothetical" account of how he would have committed the murders if he admitted he had done them. It was republished with the "if" in tiny letters on the cover so it looked like he was admitting his murders.

I agree with this post you should not give anymore headspace or your precious time. Block them out of your life and any social media you are on.

This is a different legal situation to the one the OP is describing. This refers to people being photographed in private settings without their knowledge/consent - for example, at a work event where there will be a roaming photographer taking reportage pictures for the company website, you need to notify the attendees about that in advance and give them the chance of opting out.

It doesn't apply to family photos taken at home with the subject's knowledge and permission, or photos taken in a public place. In those situations the copyright belongs, generally, to the person who took or now owns the photo.

OP, is your brother famous? Has he actually got a publishing deal for this book, or has he self-published it? Because if your brother is not famous and has self-published this book, I can guarantee that nobody is going to read it.

He's been an arse, but rest assured that you're one of probably five people who will ever buy and read it.

As it is a small publisher, I think it would be best to ignore it. If you take legal action you might just end up with the Streisand effect. Best to let this die down, unless the sales are huge. In that case it won't matter if you take action or not. It won't make the book more interesting to people.

Telling someone your sister is Emma Smith and showing them a photo is not a data breach. This isn't 'business' its real life and a fact about that.

Unless OP can prove anything posted is untrue therefor slanderous its really his right to factually state he has a sister or post a childhood photo of himself with his siblings to a public place etc... and OP has those same rights to tell people about him.

My family went through something horrific, nearly died. It always deeply triggered my mother, the other family member (not me) that survived shared photo of the actual event that had been captured by news plus some private after photos of the scene and damage for the anniversary. It deeply hurt my mam but the poster also survived the same trauma and one persons coping does not eclipse another persons coping or rights.

My mam NEVER spoke about it but I talk about it often almost everyone that I ever met in real life knows, chatting about it was my way of dealing with it. My mam needed to pretend it never happened where as I need to remember it did. Two different types of PTSD, I didn't blather on in front of her because I respected who it effected her but I did talk about it without her present because its my right to tell MY life story. If I where ever to publish a story especially now my mam has passed away, I would mention it in detail as it was a huge factor in my life story and just factually happened.

People have a right to tell their life story anyway they choose in their truth, unless it can be proven factually untrue for malicious reasons then there is little come back.

It's even hard to prove if something is untrue or not a lot of the time. Example: someone could post that their father sexually abused them as a child, the father can say they didn't but a court won't demand a person stop telling people their dad abused them if its historic and unprovable. That would be silencing a possible victim. They could intervene if they said 'my dads a peado who went to jail for abusing me' and its factually not true and no such guilty verdict occurred, but they won't insist they can't say a crime was committed and not prosecuted. Even if it is a slanderous lie for some reason its a somewhat unprovable one.

OP best thing you can do is just ignore it.

A complete narcissist who I knew wrote several self published memoirs?! All full of awful things about all his mates?!

And hasn’t been released yet.
I think people need to stop trying to guess the book

Assuming the book is self-published the number of people who are going to read it is a handful. The market is awash with the memoirs of ordinary folk whose individual stories very few people are interested in - no one cares. I hope knowing that is some comfort.

The OP says it was released before Christmas

Exactly the point I was making

Exactly op. Don’t give it much headspace because very likely hardly anyone else will either.

Also another way of looking at this is that in this case you have a visual “proof” of the warped version of things being pedalled about you by another person. However, in reality, we are all facing this every day; we just don’t always know about it. People constantly talk about others and give their take on how another person is thinking, living their life etc and much of it is not what the person themselves would “ condone” as a “ correct” version.

I’ve heard that I’m determined my Dc have academic scholarships; apparently that has been accepted as established fact in one of our DC’s year group. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, I would never wish that on a child; I think it is too much to live up to and just want them to enjoy their education without feeling the school have “wasted” a scholarship on them. (Fine for parents who feel it is right for their Dc). I realise that’s not a particularly negative view to pass round about me, but that’s probably the only reason it casually came back to me, and the point is it’s just inaccurate. I hear things all the time about people that I’m sure are nothing they want being said. It’s how people are, sadly.

Trying to dox the OP by discussing the identity of the writer is not cool.

If your brother is a relative nonentity (as most of us are) I don’t think many people are going to read his book.

Books are hardly ever recalled, and never for this sort of reason - siblings disagreeing over memories of their childhoods, or the use of photographs. As PPs have said, image copyright does not reside with the subject of a photograph. Presumably the OP knew the garden picture was being taken at the time.

There was a famous case in, I think, 2019 when the well-known feminist author Naomi Wolf wrote a book about the treatment of homosexuals in 19th Century Britain. She had misinterpreted a specific legal term to mean that people were being executed for what was then a crime. As the whole book hinged on this point, it was recalled and pulped.

@Eatingricecrispieswithafork your brother has been a dick to ignore your express wishes, but there's no legal recourse here I'm afraid. Take PPs excellent advice to ignore.

I don’t think that the supposedly minuscule number of potential readers is the point here. The OP clearly feels betrayed by her brother. He has gone against her wishes.

We had similar in my family, but it was a play written by my uncle. It was promoted as semi autobiographical and was staged in a few different theatres. My mum and her siblings had a horrible upbringing and I can see why it made for a ‘good’ story, but the play caused a lot of distress in the family. Two of his sisters accused him of telling lies and never spoke to him again. Some of the issues were sensitive and not something you would necessarily want people to know about. Yes it was his experience too, but there are times when integrity is called for. It wasn’t simply about other people knowing their secrets, which was bad enough, but the lack of care for their feelings. One of my aunts said she felt he had taken away her control of how she processed her own trauma.

Yes, and the first run of Rachel Cusk’s travel memoir The Last Supper was pulped when someone she had recognisably described in it sued for breach of privacy — I think she had to absorb the costs, or some of them. But again, that was a book from a famous author and a big publishing house, and pulping a run happens incredibly rarely. Faber didn’t fight it, they settled and recalled/pulped.

And, while I think Cusk is very brilliant, she’s often an unsparing, contemptuous kind of writer — I can imagine that her depiction of the person was both recognisable and very, very negative.

I completely agree with this.

I always think it’s particularly selfish when someone “processes” their own feelings about a family situation in a way that treats it as though they have full ownership of the story and without regard for how others might prefer to handle it especially when they are essentially really just making money off it.

However, in this circumstance I don’t think op can change it now, so she needs to find the best way she can to come to terms with his behaviour.

ETA I actually even think it’s quite unfair to do a “tell all” autobiographical type publication about the dead in many circumstances. Even if you feel it is positive, it’s disloyal when it’s a family member who has passed and you are just trying to make money off the fact their story was more interesting than your own.

don’t think that the supposedly minuscule number of potential readers is the point here. The OP clearly feels betrayed by her brother. He has gone against her wishes.

True and I do get the incredible hurt it's caused. This advice though is intended to get the OP to think pragmatically about it all. The worst outcome would be that not only is it very hurtful, it causes her extended trauma and costs her money, effort and upset on top. That's why the legal pursuit of it is not a great idea. I do think counselling or therapy would be a better use of her money as a way to come to terms with her awful family experiences.

Yes, that’s a fair point. I can see what you mean. It has already happened and how to live with it and process it is what is important now.

Id like to thank everyone for their feedback, aside from the one disparaging remark about my autism, you know who you are, so everyone is aware I had my adhd asd diagnosis way before every fucker on tik tok had it, in fact it was pre tik tok and pre it becoming the in thing to have ... maybe being unfair there, but it drives me nuts.

Onto the memoir , I'm going to do nothing, I've had my feelings and thoughts vindicated by you lovely lot and I feel heard and understood, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Those trying to guess the book ... I didn't mind that at all ... I would do it too, I recently read Alison Steadmans memoir and she mentioned having a shit time with a female director whilst filming an episode of a tv show in the 70s, she deliberately didn't name her. But I was right on imdb.com and found her name and I wasn't surprised she didn't have a good rep later on her career.

I digressed again, sorry ... so I did my best to disguise myself and the author in case family members are on here.

You have all been amazing and I would defo recommend coming on hear for impartial advice and to be heard.

Yep the memoir writer is a selfish cunt, but I knew that anyway, it's just nice to hear someone else agree for once.

To anyone writing autobiographical stuff ... ask people to use pictures of them otherwise leave them out of it and be accurate, it's not a case of remembering stuff differently it's stating x went to y when really x went to z and you know that.

Much love, I understand that one, it's warm and there's a rush of feeling good ... a bit like coke. 😀xxx

Ps They also used my image because they know i have zero cash to do anything legal wise.