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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."
Seriously, who does this woman think she is? All she did was all the hard work in creating something. Who is she to profit from it?
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Did the publishers of those books make a deal with the publishers of the Harry Potter books? Unless we're talking about those "fanfic" Chinese HP books, I'll bet they did.
And there's the crux of the matter. If the publishers/creators/whatever of this lexicon had sat down and hammered out a deal with the HP publishers, there wouldn't be a court case. But it looks like they're trying to do an end run around those publishers, possibly in order to keep all the potential cash for themselves.
Which is damned foolish, considering the amount of money they're going to have spend on lawyers.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I think we should use the phrase imaginary property much more often.
Money for nothing, pix for free
...which is also tax deductible.
A lot of people seem to feel the situation is different because she made a billion or so off the Potter series. Why legally has her situation changed since she was an out of work single mother handwriting a novel? She worked for more than a decade creating the characters so why shouldn't she have the right to control her work? If she allows people to freely expand on her work then she looses control and it becomes something she never intended. It happened with Robert E Howard's work after his death. Many other authors added to his mythologies but none of them equaled the original and most were just trying to make a buck off something popular. Nothing is stopping any of these people from creating original works but they know it's easier to get noticed if you lift from something popular. This is more about taking the easy road to success than creating something. She didn't take the easy road so why should others be allowed to ride her coat tails? Rowlings got lucky with the success of the series but I'm thrilled for her. She's not part of the evil empire she's a little person that made good and crossed over. She should be an axample to everyone not some one to villify when she tries to protect her creation.
If her lawyers are working for free I will eat my hat.
In my very limited opinion it is a grey area as to whether this is infringement or not. According to this post Rowling was planning a similar book the profits of which would go to charity, so she asked Lexicon to at least do the same which they wouldn't do.
If she is so concerned about getting money to her charity then why not make "the official" version of the book and donate the proceeds to charity, then instead of pushing the boundaries of fair use with a potentially long and expensive trial donate the money she would have spent on a trial to her charity as well?
That way at least the pile of money that would have been swallowed up by lawyers fees goes to charity. So what if Lexicon makes some money off it as well? did they not put some time and effort into this? With a trial instead of Lexicon making some money it is the lawyers on both sides that make the money that charity will never see.
This comes across less like forcing the profits of the book to go to charity and more like being bitter about someone else getting a (tiny) slice of money out of the H.P. empire.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
I really have to agree with J.K. Rowling on this. The amount of money she made from the series is immaterial. Actions don't become morally right or wrong based on how much money you've made, unless you're a psychopath. The simple fact is, the person who wrote the lexicon wants to make money because it's easier to expand on an already popular work than it is to come up with an original mythos, make it popular, and then write a lexicon for it. If he wanted to undertake the project commercially, the appropriate path would have been to approach the author and publisher and pitch them the idea of a joint project. What he's doing is the equivalent of selling a product called Pepsi Snacks because it's easier to sell something if you associate it with an already popular product. If you just sold "Bob's Snacks", it doesn't have any immediate appeal. Yeah, what a bitch, all she does is write best-selling novels and give huge chunks of money to charity. That's just terrible. I bet there's a special layer of hell reserved for people like that.
Consider this a learning experience.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
So Rowling is clearly in the wrong if she insists that the whole H.P. universe is protected because she invented it. Only her words describing that universe are protected. The lexicon has every right to collect and write about each and every item in that universe, using the exact names and concepts and so forth. But it must not use any of Rowlings sentences to do so...
I'm an English prof. My shelves are full of books that regurgitate the facts of the books they address. They're called "reference works." A lot work goes into them, and they're often quite useful. Yet they can in no way replace the books they are about. Novels and such are textual works of art. Reference books are not. They are references to works of art, useful for study, which is what I'm guessing Rowling fanatics do with this info on Hairy Pooter. But those reference books, useful they may be, just aren't the thrill of reading the Real Thing(tm).
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Copyright applies to the work.
" to produce copies or reproductions of the work and to sell those copies"
They aren't copying the works and reselling them.
"to import or export the work"
There aren't importing or exporting the harry potter books.
"works that adapt the original work"
The aren't doing that either.
"to perform or display the work publicly"
The aren't performing or displaying the Harry Potter works.
"to sell or assign these rights to others"
They aren't assigning rights to the harry potter books
Those are the ONLY rights the copyright holder can exercise.
Creating a work about another work is not a violation. See numerous books about Tolkien's work.
This is like saying Rolling Stone Magazine can't talk about specific music, or that movie reviews can't talk about movies, or that dummies books on visual basic violate Microsoft's copyright.
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Every single work written by arguably the greatest author in the English language (Shakespeare), just like every single work written by the arguably greatest author in the French language (Molière) heavily incorporated elements from previous authors well beyond the standard that we would call "copyright infringement" today. All modern scientific progress is built on the works of others. True human genius is cumulative.
Now, I understand the logic behind copyright and patent laws in modern society: we wish to give an incentive to creators to create by giving them unfettered rights to what they create. I also agree that we need to have a system in place to encourage creation.
However, it seems to me that we are reifying the practice: something that we as a society have constructed and continue to construct is being treated as a right in and of itself. I think that JK Rowling and all of the people associated with the "Harry Potter" machine have made enough that the objective of our copyright laws is being fulfilled. It is time for them to let it go.
But they won't. And that is what is scary: our culture is being taken from us and given to corporations. There is no legitimate reason that Mickey Mouse, which is part of our culture and should be free for us all, should still be covered under copyright. Walt Disney is dead. His children are rich (sort of).
The process is hardly conducive to the creation of more culture. Look at the music industry, where this process has advanced the most: has any really good music been published on a wide scale lately? No? Then lets get rid of the institution that no longer fulfill its purpose.
I have a right to my culture. You have a right to your fan fiction, to your culture.
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