She’ll lose.

This would be analogous to her saying to the producers and writers of Saturday Night Live, ‘You mustn’t do any parodies of my work, because I intend (at some future point) to do my own parodies for charity’.

Both uses (encyclopedia and parody) fall under the same fair use provision. In other words, copyright infringement is acknowledged, but the infringement is exempt from suit because of the fair use defense.

That Rowling would even include her future intentions as part of her defense shows, in my mind, either how desperate her case is (to make such public emotional, non-legal claims) or how self-inflated and pompous she has become.

Probably the latter, with no strong attorney to advise her otherwise of the vanity of her arguments.

The original website is a fan based creation done out of love, and is free to visit. So anyone can come there and investigate and discuss a beloved topic. JKR endorsed this and visited it frequently herself.

Now this book, is something people will have to pay for and JKR has requested that it not be done. In the past she has noted and encouraged others who took her creation and created something new from that and cheered them on.

She is not attacking someone playing in her garden, she is saying no to someone breaking and entering into her declared private place.

I feel that she (and WB) are justified in what they are doing and have every right to expect her creative efforts to be respected.

my two cents.

The website contains, aside from the lexicon itself, essays and analysis that are missing from the book (as they weren’t written by Mr. Vander Ark but other fans). If Mr. Vander Ark’s book was a collection of those essays instead of the lexicon part of the website, this wouldn’t have happened.

As it is, the book is simply an alphabetical re-ordering of the Harry Potter books with quotes taken either directly from the novels (without indicating that they are quotes) or third-party statements about the novels.

If the non-fiction book heavily quotes the fiction works then there may be a valid case, but on the whole a non-fiction work about any subject is it’s own work. As for percentage of words, ninety-nine percent of all printed words are found in a dictionary. It’s really the percentage of quotes from the original text that have to be considered.

Besides, have people already forgotten the Larry Potter lawsuit? Her main character is based upon someone else’s work. Rowlings seems to have no problem taking material from others.

Part of the problem as well is that copyright has become rediculous in a time when almost all cultural references would fall under someone’s copyright.

When Steven Vander Ark’s publisher, RDR Books, told him it was okay to publish a printed version of Vander Ark’s Harry Potter Lexicon Web site, which is largely derived from work by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, Vander Ark accepted that without further question and proceeded with the project. That cavalier attitude is no surprise when one considers the source of Vander Ark’s Web site in the first place. When did it become okay to lift someone else’s copyrighted material and present it as one’s own? That’s why, “in the name of scholastic pursuit”, I’ve made a copy of Vander Ark’s Web site to use as my own Web site. Oh, it’s okay. I’ve changed the name of the site and reorganized it a little. My version is called Harry Potter’s Maxicon. Different enough, right?

Http://www.maxicon.org

It’s clearly a case of copyright infringement, and frankly (even though I’ve met SVA on several occasions and do like him) find SVA to be incredibly stupid about this. And his publisher RDR is on crack!

See the link below for pie chart in the second to the last page of the legal memorandum.

http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2007cv09667/315790/83/

Tolkien ripped off the Volsung Saga. Right down to the names of the dwarves. The difference between Tolkien and SVA (aside from Tolkien having a modicum of talent) is that the Volsung Saga was written in 13th century and would be considered to be in the public domain.

I imagine you don’t care because the 1)Volsung Saga was first written in Old Norse and 2) it didn’t sink your ship.

No love,

Me

P.S. Speaking as a fan? GO, WB, GO! W00T!

If this case was filed in the Second Circuit, then the Castle Rock case is binding. The Ty case was in the 7th Circuit, not the 9th Circuit. Judge Posner sits on the 7th Cir. Court of Appeals. Further, the Ty case involved photographs of the Beanie Babies, and the copyright protection for the Beanie Babies didn’t extend that far. Here, the “encyclopedia” of the Harry Potter universe would seem to directly violate 17 USC 106(2) — the preparation of derivative works based upon the copyrighted work. This right is exclusively reserved for the copyright holder, baring certain exceptions, the biggest one being fair use. But unless this work is a parody or literary criticism, they’ll have a hard time establishing a fair use defense; everything in the Harry Potter universe exists solely by way of the author’s creation, and so they’ll receive the highest copyright protection.

Their charity angle is nothing more than PR spin. They are out to make as much money as possible from the Potter genre that’s what this case is about.

A much more interesting angle is who actually writes the Potter books? Supposedly Jo Rowling is merely the front woman for a consortium of writers who write the books as a team.

The theory and it’s only an allegation is that she came up with the basic idea of Hogwarts and the characters but that’s really all she did.

This theory has been expounded on all over the web but Rowling has never sued for libel. If it’s false then it’s clearly libelous so why hasn’t she ever sued over it? They are claiming she doesn’t write the books. How much more libelous can something be if it’s false?

The fact that she hasn’t sued over such a slanderous theory could mean that it’s true and she’s afraid to publicize it for fear of exposing the group she fronts for. Does she really write all of the books or is she just the public face of the Harry Potter Publishing Team?

She’s supposedly a billionaire. What if she’s just well paid to keep quiet about who’s actually writing the books? This is the real mystery if it’s true it’s a fascinating case study in mass media and popular culture manipulation.