Meghan Markle To Get $1 From Copyright Court Win

Meghan Markle woke up one dollar richer today. In fact, she made around 1.36. Since the court ruling was made in the UK. The British paper, The Mail on Sunday, was ordered to pay the former "Suits" star a British pound. That British pound was given to Markle via court order. After Prince Harry's wife won her legal case over the copyright infringement issue. All of this over the fact that the paper published a personal letter that Markle had written to her father Thomas Markle back in 2018. The 1 pound that the British paper has to pay to Markle won't be the only thing that Meghan gets out of the settlement. The real cash that Meghan is set to make from this ruling is being kept secret.

It kind of hard to get too excited about winning a dollar and change. However, Meghan Markle has insisted that this court win wasn't about the cash. Just like, she and Harry have insisted, that essentially nothing that they do is about the cash. In any case, by early December Markle had pretty much secured the court win. At the time she mentioned,

"While this win is precedent setting, what matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel, and profits from the lies and pain that they create." Meghan would go on to take shots at the entire tabloid industry (just to clarify we're not all the same) saying,

"From day one, I have treated this lawsuit as an important measure of right versus wrong. The defendant has treated it as a game with no rules. The longer they dragged it out, the more they could twist facts and manipulate the public (even during the appeal itself), making a straightforward case extraordinarily convoluted in order to generate more headlines and sell more newspapers"

There were other deals made in the settlement besides the one pound that came into Markle's account today. There's an undisclosed amount that the paper has to pay to Markle. Plus, 90% of the legal fees that Markle spent fighting the case. According to sources close to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle that undisclosed amount isn't necessarily going towards the rental fee of their Montecito home. Instead, the couple has decided to donate that money to a charity of their choosing. With no word as to whether that charity will be their personal Archwell Foundation or another institution. Bloomberg reports that The Mail on Sunday has to deposit 300,000 pounds to Markle's account by January 7th. They didn't specify whether those were for legal fees or part of the "undisclosed amount".

Why do courts order people to pay ridiculous amounts like 1 dollar? This isn't the first time that this has happened in the entertainment industry. A photographer who allegedly groped Taylor Swift a couple of years back was also order to pay that amount. After he sued Swift for defamation, and she counter sued him. In simple terms it's a way for the court to declare a "winner" in the case. Even when they don't find that the court win deserves major compensation.