WWTBAM Bored

A U.S. judge ruled Monday in favor of “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling in her copyright infringement lawsuit against a fan and Web site operator who was set to publish a Potter encyclopedia.

U.S. District Judge Robert P. Patterson said Rowling had proven that Steven Vander Ark's “Harry Potter Lexicon” would cause her irreparable harm as a writer. He permanently blocked publication of the reference guide and awarded Rowling and her publisher $6,750 in statutory damages.

Full story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26610152/

I'm not sure I agree with the ruling, but in any case, I am glad that Vander Ark won't be forced into bankruptcy as a result of it.

Unless, of course, the article neglected to mention that she was also awarded some outrageous amount in Attorney's Fees.

I didn't read the new article. When this first hit, I agreed with Rowling's arguments, which probably didn't change much. I'm really glad about the ruling.

What were her arguments?

Haven't been around, so this is the first I've heard of this. Sounds a little flakey to me, but I don't know the background.

Aside from generally prefering to err on the side of freedom of the press, I'm not sure I like the idea that you can't publish a reference about someone's work. That would seem to fall into the academic "fair use" doctrine, at least at first blush.

hf_jai wrote:What were her arguments?

Haven't been around, so this is the first I've heard of this. Sounds a little flakey to me, but I don't know the background.

Aside from generally prefering to err on the side of freedom of the press, I'm not sure I like the idea that you can't publish a reference about someone's work. That would seem to fall into the academic "fair use" doctrine, at least at first blush.

On NPR this morning, Rowling was quoted as saying the author had just lifted passages out of her books for his work. There was no additional analysis or commentary. It was if someone had cut up her books and pasted them back together in a different order.

Rexer25 wrote:

hf_jai wrote:What were her arguments?

Haven't been around, so this is the first I've heard of this. Sounds a little flakey to me, but I don't know the background.

Aside from generally prefering to err on the side of freedom of the press, I'm not sure I like the idea that you can't publish a reference about someone's work. That would seem to fall into the academic "fair use" doctrine, at least at first blush.

On NPR this morning, Rowling was quoted as saying the author had just lifted passages out of her books for his work. There was no additional analysis or commentary. It was if someone had cut up her books and pasted them back together in a different order.

Yes, that's what she said first time around. She also said it would be a ripoff to the fans -- to have someone publish a "new" work, but it was merely rearranged. She said she was appalled at the idea of people parting with their hard-earned money for a ripoff.

I believe that the harm to her comes in if she wanted to publish something similar. People have been urging her to publish an encyclopedia which she reportedly has about half-written already. For example, other than saying that Crookshanks is part kneazle in the HP books, you have to go to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to get more:

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a book written by J. K. Rowling for the Comic Relief charity in 2001. Written under the pseudonym Newt Scamander, it is meant to be a copy of the in-universe book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The premise is that the book has been released to the Muggle world to help raise money for needy causes. It features a foreword by Albus Dumbledore.

The prefacing About the Author indicates the book is in its "fifty-second edition."

Throughout the book are hand-written comments by Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter. The book cover indicates the tome is "Property of Harry Potter," with "claw" gashes through the cover material.

The proposed encyclopedia (proposed by Potter fans, not by Rowling, I hasten to add) would draw from the Potter books and from Fantastic Beasts, other things she wrote, etc. She once said she wrote an entire childhood for Sirius which she couldn't fit into a book. I assume that something like that would show up in the Encyclopedia.

Well, ya gotta hope the court relied on some sort of law and precedent to come to a properly legal deciion.

I've been trying to remember a similar reference work of another author and all I can come up with are of people who have been dead a very long time. But it still surprises me that it's a copyright infringement to make one.