"In the early morning of August 24, 1875, eight members of
the notorious Donnelly family of Lucan, Ontario, armed with nothing
more than clubs, won a pitched street battle against eighteen
townspeople intent on revenge. Or did they?"1 These are the opening words of a recent
Federal Court case, Winkler v Hendley, which involved the
question of whether copyright should subsist in fictional elements
of a work that was marketed, published and perceived to be
historically factual.
In his 1954 book, The Black Donnellys, Thomas P. Kelley
recounted the history of the notorious Donnelly family; from their
migration to Lucan, Ontario from Tipperary, Ireland, to their
long-running trouble with the law and their neighbours, and
ultimately, to their unsolved murders. Over the years, the Donnelly
family tale has been heralded as one of Canada's most infamous
"true crime" stories. The Black Donnellys, in
particular, presents itself as "The True Story of
Canada's Most Barbaric
