NEWPORT, VT. (AP) – A woman who claims she saw the Lake Memphremagog monster earlier this month says she also has a copyright for its name and doesn’t want any local businesses using it.
Barbara Malloy of Newport has told local journalists and historians they cannot write about the creature dubbed Memphre without her permission.
Malloy’s attorney also has written warnings to businesses and the local chamber of commerce instructing them not to use the name Memphre in any way.
“I do not want you to write about it,” Malloy told the Caledonian-Record late last week. “Do not run a story about my Memphre, my copyright … anymore.”
Malloy would not comment further, and her attorney, Eric Benson of Burlington, could not be reached for additional comment.
Newspapers like The Stanstead (Quebec) Journal have recorded sightings of the mysterious creature as far back as the 1840s.
Diver and historian Jacques Boisvert of Magog, Quebec, said he first coined the name Memphre in 1986.
Malloy and Boisvert collaborated to collect sightings about Memphre, until they had a falling-out in the 1990s.
Now, Malloy runs a Newport-based International Dracontology Society. Boisvert has a society by the same name in Quebec.
In Magog, many businesses incorporate Memphre into their names, and they celebrate a tourist-oriented Memphre Day. However, that’s not on the case on the other side of the lake.
Vermont’s North Country Chamber of Commerce in Newport has received a letter from Malloy’s lawyer concerning its promotional literature. This week the chamber hired its own attorney.
Ben Scotch, executive director of the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, says Malloy is trying to stop free speech.
“I am not aware of any principle that would keep people from discussing the myth or reality of a monster in any body of water anywhere in the world,” Scotch said.
Malloy’s opponents say there’s no reason why the local chamber of commerce couldn’t hold a Memphre Day like its Canadian neighbors do.
“That’s all that the Newport business community wants,” said Gary Kellogg, the chamber’s past president. “Memphre really belongs to all of us, to all the communities around the lake.”
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