Hesselbeck Sued for Copyright Infringement

Elisabeth Hasselbeck is being sued for stealing a book idea. I found the stories here and here.

I personally think Hasselbeck's an idiot. I've consistently found that her views are illogical, naive, unreasonable and/or little more than the same rhetoric spouted by the likes of Rush Limbaugh. But is there merit in this case?

Without actually seeing the work I don't know. Supposedly author Susan Hassett had sent Hasselbeck a copy of her self-published book "Living With Celiac Disease" and Mrs. Hasselbeck copied it word for word in her own book "The G-Free Diet: A Gluten-Free Survival Guide".

If she did indeed copy it "word for word" then I'd think there's not much to save her; it's a pretty clear cut case of infringement. If Ms. Hassett is lying about that, then I suppose she has found a great way to promote her own self-published book...go ahead and google her name. apparently alleging that a moron celebrity has wronged you will pop you up in the Google rankings faster than an eel moving on a slip-n-slide downhill. If nothing else she found a great way to advertise.

I tried looking on Hassett's website at the table of contents for her book and the contents weren't quite "word for word", and personally I think that when you're dealing with a topic like Celiac there probably will be a lot of overlap in material. Unless there truly are passages that are copied between the two books I'm wondering if this is more a case of publicity seeking.

EDIT: A popular author's website, Writer Beware Blogs!, has a piece on the lawsuit. Sounds like it takes a stronger stance on the side I came down on...in other words, WBB says Hassett is being an idiot.