The princess is the first member of Norway's royal family to ever appear in a court of law, and she was asked why she wants to halt sales of a book entitled Märthas engler ("Martha's angels"), which carries her photo on its cover.
"I usually have a fairly high threshold for tolerating criticism and comments," the princess said from the witness stand inside the Northern Vestfold county courthouse in Horten.
A book, however, "is published for commercial purposes, and misuse of my name and picture is something else," she added.
She said she sought advice from persons she feels she can rely on, before she decided to take legal action against the book and its publisher, Horten-based Publicom.
"The advice I got was that I should pursue the case," Princess Martha Louise said. Publicom has acknowledged that no permission was granted for use of the photo, but contends it wasn't necessary.
Asked why she was reacting to the book when so many newspapers and magazines print pictures and write about her, the princess said that "when I'm on the front pages ... I'm part of widespread coverage ... but this is a book and that's something completely else."
Her own lawyer took the initiative to question her about another controversy in which she's involved, where she's on the defensive. Film critic and NRK journalist Pål Bang-Hansen has called Princess Martha Louise "a thief and a hypocrite," claiming she stole translated texts from his own father's books.
"That was an unfortunate mistake," Martha Louise said. "But it's the publishing company (in her case, Bazar) that is responsible for clearing the rights to the material."
She said she could live with being called a thief and a hypocrite. "I have to tolerate such things," she said.
'Lovely' photo
The defense attorney for Publicom of Horten said he couldn't understand Princess Martha Louise's reaction to the book Märthas engler. "What harm can Martha Louise suffer from it?" asked Tor Erling Staff. "What is she afraid of? What is she vulnerable to?"
Staff drew laughter in the courtroom when he noted that the photo of her on the book's cover was "lovely." He denied Publicom has violated Norwegian law protecting privacy, intellectual property or marketing.
He also said that politicians, the royals and other public persons must tolerate use of their photos. "It's my contention, and it's not just a contention because it's completely correct, that simply by being the daughter of the royal couple, everything about Princess Märtha stirs chronic public interest."
