Harry Potter Sites vs. Warner Brothers

Kinchie writes "Now that Warner Brothers (read clueless Muggles) owns Harry Potter body, soul, and Nimbus 2001, they have begun an all out litigious onslaught against fan sites; check the ZDNET story here. Great public relations move guys. I sure hope that you can manage to intimidate a few hundred children and children-at-heart. Falstaff was right about lawyers."

Comments

My take

[Masem]

It's between the lines here, and there's a better story at CNN on this, but basically, some company registered about 120 variations of Harry Potter domain, nearly all dated shortly after WB announced the HP movie in March. WB took them to WIPO; the opponent never responded or showed up, so WB took control pretty much by default, as the move was most likely for cybersquatting.

Probably at a time before this action, they tried to contact that person, in addition to every other site that had Harry Potter-isms domain names, with the same form letter: posible violation of WB's trademark name. As the ZDnet article states, WB can't tell at the time if the person is a true fan or a cybersquatter and they have to defend their trademark or lose it.

I know people that have dealt with WB before in fan sites verses copyright and generally WB is pretty good. I think, however, in those cases the amount of money that was involved was pittence to Harry Potter. I expect it to rack up money in the BILLIONS, and WB has a strong financial interest to make sure that squatters aren't ripping them off. I do see that WB is trying to make some concessions, particularly if they harm too many fan sites they are going to disenfrantize their primary audience.

But overall, I think this is a problem of slash-and-burn trademark/domain arbitration. With one major cybersquatter apparently ruining it for the rest. ().

Yes, there is the one case of copyright infringement, but this is actually not surprising; I'd think that if you had a signficiant number of images from books, you'd be looking at a C&D. Typical with other studios as well, but these are things that studios should be able to work out with fans.

Re:My take

[rocur]

Nice theory, but the reality seems to be a little harsher: Check out this article (and the related ones) at The Register . Seems more like WB is going after anyone who even comes close to their "property". The Register also reported that when the studio is asked by the operator what domain name can be used, it replies that it can be anything that doesn't refer to Harry Potter or the books -- leading The Register to comment: "What the hell are you supposed to call a Harry Potter fan site, and how would anyone find it?"

Re:My take

[Masem]

While I still think it's too agressive of WB here, I do think the Register is missing the point, since a domain name should not be the end-all of a web site. They say nothing about naming the site, just the domain name (which current legalities place well into trademark areas) while there's plenty of ways to find anything you want on the web. Remember, domain names were never meant to be a way to locate sites and the original intent was for domain names to be transparent to average users when the web was introduced.

But yes, WB needs to learn to negotiate, particularly when the person they're threatening is their target audience.