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Rowling Sues Harry Potter Lexicon
Snape kills Trinity with Rosebud writes "Apparently famous authors don't like it if you try to make a buck using their imaginary property because J.K. Rowling is suing the publishers of the Harry Potter Lexicon for infringement. This should prove an interesting test case for fair use given that the lexicon contains mostly factual information about the series, not copies of the books' text. Of course, both sides seem a bit touchy about imaginary property rights, with Rowling's lawyers being miffed after being told to print it themselves when they asked for a paper copy of the lexicon's website, and the lexicon website itself using one of those insipid right click disabling scripts."
If you read on and visit Rowling's site you will notice something. The story is quite different from what the grandfather-post suggests. Rowling has been helping the lexicon so for. But now the makers of the lexicon intend to make money by publishing a book, and that is where Rowling has to draw the line. She's happy helping fans, but selling books based on her work is a bridge to far.
I take no pleasure in the fact that publication has been prevented for the present. On the contrary, I feel massively disappointed that this matter had to come to court at all. Despite repeated requests, the publishers have refused to even countenance making any changes to the book to ensure that it does not infringe my rights. (source
No, you are not. This is a common misconception. It applies, if at all, only to trademarks ("Kleenex". "Xerox"), not copyright (this case).
I just wanted to point out that she is writing an encyclopedia the profits from the sale will go to her charity, I believe she has also said if she wins the case the profits from the court case will also go to her charity.
No Slashdot thread is complete without RMS's opinion on the matter.
J. K. Rowling's lawyers seems to be on a suing spree.. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=487334&in_page_id=1811 This one they lost.
She failed previously to sue for "generic" use of characters. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7040191.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7041863.stm
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
No, "fair use" as a protection is based on the length of the extracts use from the original, and in how much monetary value it takes from it.
As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of an analogy involving cars approaches one.
Where are you in law school? The US and UK have different laws concerning copyrights, you know.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. It seems likely that U.K. copyright and patent laws were formulated with similar intent. So Rowling is done producing "useful Arts" based on her characters. Let some else bring us some more "useful Arts" we can enjoy.
That's the whole point of copyright, and patents for that matter. This point got lost somewhere along the road to unrestricted corporatism.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No. This is a copyright infringement suit, not a trademark case. Trademark law does work the way you describe -- if you do not defend a trademark, you can lose all protection to it. Trademarks are supposed to identify that the trademarked item comes from a particular source; if world+dog can use it without interference, this vanishes and so does the protection. There are number of high-profile cases of this happening to existing trademarks (see below), so most big corporations with very valuable brand names are quite paranoid about allowing them to be diluted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin#Trademark_issues
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark
No comparable mechanism exists for copyright. Copyright holders are free to prosecute whoever they want, and ignore other infringers. There are a couple of defenses (if you tell someone they can do something, for instance, you can't sue them anymore) but generally, a copyright holder is perfectly free to leave websites alone and go after those same people for selling deadtree versions of the exact same content. It so happens in this case they have a weak case, but for other reasons (fair use reasons).
Were it done any other way, one of the consequences would be that all fanfiction would have to be cracked down on (otherwise the owners would lose all copyrights). While a lot of people like to make cracks about how bad much fanfiction is, I don't think many would argue it ought to be cracked down on indiscriminately.