JK Rowling outside of federal court today.
JK Rowling is suing RDR books for attempting to publish a print version of a popular Harry Potter fan website, The Harry Potter Lexicon. The suit was filed last year and Rowling will be in U.S. District Court for hearings this week.
Rowling herself is a big fan of the site, and she even wrote on her website in 2004 that she used the Harry Potter Lexicon site to fact check her own work. Selling an encyclopedia that would include many of her own definitions for such things she invented for the Harry Potter series as spells, potions, magical creatures, Quidditch rules and wizarding history would be an extreme copyright violation, she contends, and is much different than a website. Her lawyer says that she personally compared the lexicon to her work and is prepared to testify about the similarities.
The author of the intended Harry Potter encyclopedia, 50 year-old former teacher and librarian Steven Vander Ark, says that he was initially reluctant to publish the book due to the copyright issues. He had the publisher include a section in his contract that they would provide free legal assistance as well as pay for any damages if a lawsuit was brought against him.
Lawyers for the publishing company are not fighting the copyright claim, but plan to defend that the Encyclopedia is legal because it’s for research or another “greater purpose”:
One of [Rowling’s] lawyers, Dan Shallman, on Friday told Judge Robert P. Patterson, who is hearing the trial without a jury, that Rowling “feels like her words were stolen.”
He said the author felt so personally violated that she made her own comparisons among her seven best-selling novels and the lexicon and was ready to testify about the similarities in dozens of instances.
David Saul Hammer, a lawyer for RDR Books, which plans to sell the lexicon, said the publisher will not challenge the claim by Rowling that much of the material in the lexicon infringed her copyrights.
But the judge will decide whether the use of the material by the small Muskegon, Mich., publisher was legal because it was used for some greater purpose, such as a scholarly pursuit.
In court papers filed prior to the trial, Rowling said she was “deeply troubled” by the book.
“If RDR’s position is accepted, it will undoubtedly have a significant, negative impact on the freedoms enjoyed by genuine fans on the Internet,” she said. “Authors everywhere will be forced to protect their creations much more rigorously, which could mean denying well-meaning fans permission to pursue legitimate creative activities.”
[From The Huffington Post]
I read all the Harry Potter books, but I’m not a huge fan and I kind of took them at face value and never tried to dig deeper into the very engaging world Rowling created. You can see how fans would want to get into the fine details of the books and how an encyclopedia of all of the items and history could serve that purpose. That should be Rowling’s decision to put something like that for profit, though. She was supportive of this website until they tried to turn it into a book that would infringe on her ideas and writing, and she has every right to sue to stop its publication.
Update: According to BBC News, Rowling plans to write her own Harry Potter encyclopedia.
The very definition of a dictionary is to define her works so no shit it has similarities. It’s her work he’s getting it from which he freely acknowledges.
Homegirl is just pissed she’s not getting the proceeds. It isn’t like he’s rewriting her works or that people are going to buy the dictionary and leave off her books.
I bet if he agrees to give her the majority of the profits, the lawsuit will magically disappear, such is her right of course as she wrote the original text. But I’m a little peeved that she’s making this out to be some kind of principle thing when in fact, it’s all about the dollar. I’d have alot more respect for her if she’s just say, look, no one should make more money off Harry Potter than me instead of some crappy excuse about stolen words. What utter horse tripe.
as greedy as she is appearing it appears to ME that her case is legit. Its her brand & if she wants to protect it(profit)then so be it.
It seems to me that if anyone should be able to publish an encyclopedia of HP it would be her… not someone else so I can see why she wants to put a stop to it. She does love the lexicon website and im sure it was upsetting for her to have to do battle with them. They should respectfully withdraw. I they are such big HP fans they should have gotten her permission in the first place before trying to publish.
Yeah, that bitch doesn’t have enough money.
I love Harry Potter, and I’ve browsed the Lexicon many times. JK Rowling is very reasonable about many things– fan sites, fan fiction, and the Lexicon. Everyone who thinks she’s being greedy–what about the guy who is trying to make money off of HER work? It’s not about the money at all for her, she certainly has enough. Plus, she’s been planning on writing her own, very detailed encyclopedia with info that wasn’t in the books. I think she’s perfectly within her rights, its the Lexicon that overstepped the line.
Reread what I said. I think we all know she is within her rights but I doubt her stated motivation. That’s all.
@headache
I dont think anybody was responding to your comment at least I know I wasnt. I dont think these super fans are as loyal as she thought. Dont trust anybody!!
I don’t think this is about the money for her at all. It’s her work, she owns the intellectual property rights, and is perfectly within her rights to sue.
@headache
That’s fine, I can understand that. I wasn’t directly talking about you, it was an ambiguous “everyone”. But I was trying to make the point that trying to make money off of someone else’s work isn’t greedy? Because that’s what publishing the Lexicon is doing. He’s probably making money off the site itself, but she’s not going after that.
I would do the same if I was her, otherwise if these people can publish Harry Potter related material, then it will just open the flood-gates to others wanting to make money from her idea. It will essentially render the Harry Potter copyright worthless, so she has to put her foot down in the beginning. Of course she is rich enough, but she has every right to sue.
Personally, I am tired of hearing about JK Rowling and her stupid books. I also think this woman is full of herself.
She’s just greedy. She’s already made over 1 billion dollars off these books. This kind of thing happens with brands like Star Trek, etc. Those people don’t get sued. It’s just an encyclopedia. I’ve often wondered if they let her keep the copyright. Ususally the publisher will sue.
It is reasonable to assert that Ms Rowling was herself motivated by another source that is not her own. She should acknowledge this source in public or admit to her own deceit…
She let several books of theories and “clues” about Harry Potter be published over the years. So lay off the greed comments, will ya?
For a while, she’s wanted to do her own encyclopedia with a lot of the material that didn’t make it into the final cuts. (e.g. Dean Thomas has a huge elaborate back story). Also, she probably wants to have control over the final product.
Whether she is within her rights or not, I don’t know. But I don’t think she is motivated by greed. She just wants to protect her works and her brand.
However I think she made a huge mistake by not letting people do extra works based on her books. Because that’s how literature works: the writer puts out his/her works, then people are allowed to interpretate it.
If her logics work, nobody should write anything based on Shakespeare’s plays.
You want your works to inspire people as a writer. Now it’s happening. Ms Rowling should be happy, instead of being angry.
If Ms Rowling wants to put out her own encyclopedia, she can always do that and the HP fans will choose her version over another version.