Miller said that Hunter hired her to write the manuscript after Hunter's initial efforts at penning a semi-autobiographical title failed. Miller was never compensated for her work or alerted that her manuscript had been sold.
Hunter, a former Vivid Entertainment contract performer, was an active performer between 1998 and 2000. She also has recorded music CDs and appeared in mainstream films.
Miller is a former acquisitions editor for Indigo, Therion and Indigo After Dark, and also was a marketing representative for Genesis Press Inc. She has published a collection of erotic short stories entitled "Passion's Bedtime Stories" and written a second collection entitled "Passion's Fire." She currently is working on a full-length fictional work set in ancient Egypt.
"Dianne Miller already has legal counsel," LiRon Anderson-Bell of Crisis Contingency Partners, which is representing Miller, told XBIZ. "My understanding is that she has reached out to both Heather Hunter and her management as well as St. Martin's Press, and has not received any response.
"According to her attorneys, legal action is likely. They have ordered that the manuscript Ms. Miller originally wrote to be compared with the final book that came out over the summer. I've seen the comparisons, and they are strikingly similar.
"I'm not permitted to say that it's plagiarism because that hasn't been proven in court. But it appears to be problematic, to say the least."
A spokesman for Hunter told XBIZ that she had not received any official notification of a lawsuit, and "if anything like that happens, we'll make an immediate statement."
A call to St. Martin's Press was not returned by post time.
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