That HP Lexicon legal battle

[ghost2]

I recently found an article in a major magazine where the author writes in favor of that fellow who wants to publish his HP Lexicon. I typed it up below. Any typos are mine; my typing is fairly mediocre, problem currently compounded by a minor finger injury.

Harry Potter's mom picks a legal fight, by Vanessa Juarez, additional reporting by Lindsay Soll
(Entertainment Weekly, Summer Movie '08 issue)



JK Rowling's HP series is a brilliant feat of imagination that got a generation of videogame- and TV-obsessed kids to pick up a book again. Now she's going to painstaking lengths to make sure there's one book they'll never get to read.

Rowling took the stand in a Manhattan courthouse April 14 in an effort to block publication of the HP Lexicon, a 400-page reference manual based on an online fan hub Rowling once dubbed "a great site." Citing her own plans to write a Potter encyclopedia, the author teared up while testifying. But the ordeal made her look like Draco Malfoy picking on Harry. In this case, Harry's stand-in is author Steve Vander Ark, who's working with tiny Muskegon, Michigan-based RDR Books to publish just 10,000 copies of the guide. (That's roughly 0.002667 percent of all the Potter books that exist worldwide.)

It's hard to believe Vander Ark's Lexicon would poach more copyrighted material than can already be found in other unauthorized offerings such as The Complete Idiot's Guide to the World of Harry Potter.

This case may wind through courts for a while, but a ruling in Rowling's favor would set a dangerous precedent that could jeopardize film compilations, unauthorized biographies, and all kinds of pop-culture guides that use snippets of the works they cover. "Authors have a notion that, 'I wrote this and therefore I can control all uses of it,'" says Corynne McSherry, an attorney. "That's not really how it works. Anyone who's a huge HP fan is going to buy her [encyclopedia], too, and she's going to add value that no one else can."

end article

I read somewhere that around 90% of Vander Ark's book was taken directly from the HP series. That's an awful lot of "snippets," IMO.

Coincidence: I was born in Muskegon, home of Vander Ark's publishing company. Still have a lot of relatives over there.

Anyway, I'm on Rowling's side. I hope she wins.

Comments

[ventruechick.livejournal.com]

You know, I agree, I hope Rowling wins. Plagiarism aside, she's been saying all along that she intended to write an encyclopedia sort of reference work after she was done with the series. Add to that that Vander Ark didn't even want to convert the Lexicon to book format at first, because (by his own admission) it was too close to stealing her work for his own comfort. I know a few reps from publishers were supposed to have told him that it was perfectly legal, so I'm curious as to whether or not he actually verified that before attempting to publish.

I also wonder if they haven't settled because he's simply trying not to lose whatever he's obviously already invested in having the book printed. Considering his initial misgivings, it doesn't seem like he'd be maliciously sticking it out, just to win. One hopes, at any rate. 'Course, in the end, nobody's really gonna win, are they? :/

[elliptic-eye.livejournal.com]

Wow. What stunningly unbiassed reporting. So stunningly unbiassed, in fact, that the reporter spins it as Rowling blocking fans from accessing material that is, you know, freely available online where she's never objected to it remotely. ARGH.