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."

Comments

well that's funny

[deathtopaulw]

the first thing I see on the main page is a quote from JKR:
"This is such a great site...my natural home." - JK Rowling
I assume this is a lawyer thing

Re:well that's funny

[hdparm]

So she "helps" someone to promote her work for free, enabling her to add a few more bucks to the mountain of money she already has. But if whoever wants to earn something in return for their work, that's a no-no.

She is even worse than I thought. Ultimate bitch.

Re:well that's funny

[A beautiful mind]

This is an example where copyright is fundamentally broken and hinders our culture*. Every work that has been ever been created by humankind is a derivative work of our culture, that is how building a culture works. Copyright criminalizes that process, which is akin to shooting ourselves in the foot.

*Some would say Harry Potter is not the best example of culture.

Re:well that's funny

[unlametheweak]

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. It's a book about a book (to put it simply). No "end run" here.

Re:well that's funny

[unlametheweak]

A lot of people seem to feel the situation is different because she made a billion or so off the Potter series. The situation IS different. She is a billionaire now (I'm assuming this to be true). She is no longer an unemployed single mother.

She worked for more than a decade creating the characters so why shouldn't she have the right to control her work? She has the right to control her work. She doesn't have a right to control other people's work. Yeah I know in this case the work is based on that of HP. In this case it is not even a fair use derivative work of fiction, it is merely an aid to understanding the fiction.

If she allows people to freely expand on her work then she looses control and it becomes something she never intended. What is this "it" you speak of? "Looses control"? People should not be allowed to control other people; this isn't 1984 this is 2007. We should have learned better by now.

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. Who cares. Don't like it, don't buy it.

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. Nobody is stealing here. I haven't read or watched anything HP, I just heard about HP a lot on the news so I don't have any vested interest either way. I remember when I was a kid I would sometimes write stories about Pack Man, Spider Man, etc... with no evil intent. In either case I would suspect that the author in this case probably "stole" a lot of things from other writers, whether it be Shakespeare or contemporary.

She's not part of the evil empire she's a little person that made good and crossed over. You are correct when you say "crossed over". Yes, just like Darth Vader it seems.

She should be an axample to everyone I agree. That's why she should stop the lawsuit and apologize.

Re:well that's funny

[Orion_]

I've only watched the first movie, and after that I don't feel like watching or reading any other Harry Potter movie or novel. And would you have also concluded from watching the equally bad 1984 theatrical version of Dune that the entire Dune series wasn't worth reading?

Not saying I think they're worth reading, just saying that's a really stupid reason not to.

The article claims this happens more often

[SmallFurryCreature]

Other popular universes might be Star Wars, Star Trek, the Discworld etc etc. How many of these have books published that are NOT sanctioned by the original copyright holder?

All those Star Trek tech manuals, or star wars art books, or the discworld science books are ALL published with the blessing of Paramount, Lucasfilm and Terry Pratchet. (The ones I got at least)

So are there any books out there that do something similar that were NOT officially sanctioned. I am not talking about parodies like Star Wrecked, these fall under different laws.

Movies spawn novells, these also seem to be often written with the blessing of the studio.

So where is the evidence that this kinda of thing is common practice?

This site is NOT a synopsis or a review or even a discussion site. It is clearly a product designed to work of the original content by extending it. Selling it for money makes it clear they are profitting of someone elses work.

While some one slashdot favor a more lenient copyright system, I think even the most rabid filesharer usually is against people who pirate for profit.

There is a real issue here, who owns the rights to for instance a 3D model of an x-wing. Worse, who owns the rights to a picture of a light-saber. Does it become a Star Wars image because someone hold a sword of light OR does it have to have Jedi written all over it before it becomes a Star Wars image.

But as intresting a discussion as that is, it doesn't apply here. If you browse the site you can clearly see that this is a 100% ripoff of the original work that would have no value on its own. It doesn't fall under the rules for a biography, it is not parody. Fair use is about using a limited amount of someone elses work in your own work.

So how much of this site is their own work and how much that of the original author? I don't think it is a simple measurement, if I produce a detailed layout of the Enterprise, then the resulting blueprint may well be 99% my own work, but that 1% that makes it the enterprise also puts it firmly in the hands of Paramount. Without that 1% it wouldjust be a blueprint, it is their original work that makes it 'worth' something.

Look at it that way, would this site be worth anything without the original work. No, I don't think so.

So I think in this case the copyright/trademark? holder is correct. They tolerated the site because it wasn't commericial, but printing it is clearly designed to earn money. Sorry, but if you want to profit of someone elses original work to such a degree, you got to get their permission first.

Re:The article claims this happens more often

[erroneus]

Let's be clear and simple on this point:

Copyright is about the right to copy something. There are rules about fair use and how much copying versus original content is allowed. In this case, it would seem NO amount of copyrighted material was extracted and used, but rather statistics and facts about the series of works are being written.

And the question of "who owns the facts" has been up in the air for a while. Let's look at sports statistics and facts. The various parties in control of profiting from baseball, for example, have started lawsuits against publication of histories, stats, facts and figures related to baseball. "Who owns the facts" is a big deal.

Initially, I was thinking "not copyright -- it can't apply! they must be talking about trademark or some other intellectual property." This is not the case either. This is a [potentially] useful collection of information about the series.

And to pick another slashdot favorite parallel reference: The Church of Scientology often threatens and sues for copyright infringement for very similar activities. Often listing facts, histories and statistics about the CoS results in "copyright" related legal activity where the CoS is the plaintiff.

Who owns the facts?! How far can this "fact owning" notion go? Can people get sued by paramount for the creation and listing of the number of times that Spock says the word "Logic" or "Logical" for the purposes of a drinking game?

This is an important issue and it should really be put to the test and laid out clearly in precedent or law for it to be clear to everyone. "WHO OWNS THE FACTS?"

writers, journalists, harry potter fans

[cynicsreport]

A journalist should be allowed to write a review on a book, and be paid for it.
A professor should be able to publish an article interpreting the newest published literature.
A Harry Potter junkie should be able to write a book analyzing the lexicon in the novels.

It's a double standard; the journalist and professor are safe, but the Harry Potter fan gets sued.

Re:she's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Has free use really become so squashed and such a fairy-tale that you cannot even create factual works about someone elses work anymore? This is obvious free use and even with verbatim passages lifted from her book I still think that's free use.

Re:she's right

[Adolf Hitroll]

Being anonymous doesn't make you right... Quite the opposite: Being a troll might be wrong, but your point is wronger than mine.

And, BTW, this suit is not about an educational or factual work. It's about intellectual property, as long as this concept, however wrong it is, will be defendable, I'll encourage Janet to sue.

Re:Out of creative juice.. become an IP vulture.

[NickCatal]

Obviously you did not see the sarcasm in jay's post

I support the idea of having a lexicon/wiki/whatever. But going out and trying to sell the information that is inside the books is taking it too far.

If you wrote a book, would you want someone taking all the facts out of your book and publishing it for their own profit? This isn't fair use here. If these people wanted to make the sparknotes of Harry Potter, helping the reader understand the books, that is fine. The writer of the notes isn't taking away any money from the author and is adding their own content. This is literally taking every fact out of all 7 books and publishing them for a profit, and not sharing that money with the author.

Good

[Zorque]

Sure, sure, mod me down, but I don't agree with them trying to make money off of her name. Sure, if it was free (which it was in website form, and of which Rowling herself approved), it'd be great. But I really don't think it's OK for them to profit off of this. I'm sure many people here would be incensed to find out they'd paid money for a pirated copy of an album (I know this is different, but they're both IP issues), and I know if you'd created a bunch of highly successful books you wouldn't make them public domain either (you will probably say that you would, but honestly... would you really pass up the chance to actually make money off of your hard work?).

Re:Out of creative juice.. become an IP vulture.

[totally bogus dude]

Them's the breaks when you create something that enters the popular culture. Do you believe that third-parties shouldn't be allowed to sell "unauthorised" software for Windows because that would be preventing Microsoft from making a profit from all the hard work they did creating Windows? If so, then fine; I disagree, but at least you have a consistent position. If you disagree with that, then how is this different?

The content on the Lexicon seems to have taken a lot of time, effort and attention to detail (i.e. hard work) to create, and the author has made it available for free (presumably supported by ads, which may or may not pay for the site). It seems Rowling actually likes the site and doesn't have a problem with it if it's available for free. If people would be willing to pay for such content in book form, then why shouldn't he be able to make a profit from his own hard work? So long as he's not copying from the books so much that it would fail the "fair use" provisions, I can't see how there's a problem with this.

Her whole argument seems to be that she "plans" to release a companion book "one day", and if there's already a companion book it might decrease sales. What I think is that this third-party companion book created by a mere fan would be better than her own book, and she knows this -- and therefore yes, that may well hurt sales. Tough biscuits.

This seems like just another case of a commercial entity failing to meet consumer demand for their IP, and trying to sue anyone who DOES step up to meet that demand. Meeting consumer demand is pretty much the cornerstone of our entire economic system. What's more, in this case, meeting that demand isn't just a matter of providing the copyrighted content in a more convenient format (ala torrents), but providing supporting material which enhances the copyrighted content. It adds value.

Also, how many books are there in the Harry Potter series? Most fans seem to have bought them all. I don't think they'll hesitate to buy an "official" companion book as well as an unofficial one. ;P

Another thought: why not partner with this guy to release an official companion book and split the proceeds?

Re:she's right

[unlametheweak]

It's about intellectual property, as long as this concept, however wrong it is, will be defendable, I'll encourage Janet to sue. Interesting point. If these laws exist then it would make sense that people would exploit them. These lawsuits expose the laws (and the people who use them) for what they are. Hopefully this will encourage copyright reform in the manner that patent abuse has brought about (an attempt) at patent reform in the US.

Re:Stallman to the rescue...

[jonas_jonas]

Much more interesting than Stallman's opinion is an article from 2003 linked by Stallman: http://www.slate.com/id/2084960/

Re:she's right

[unlametheweak]

Just an addendum and a couple of comments in general:

Note, that in the beginning (post Napster but when when Kazaa was popular), I used to argue with RL friends that file sharing was theft. Then the RIAA started getting aggressive and I started hearing a lot of arguments in favour of DRM and harsh laws involving intellectual property. The pro-IP crowd has educated me quite a lot since then. I am now (pretty much) in favour of laws against DRM and the like. When it comes to IP, then let it be free. If you have something that can make the world a better place (music, literature, etc) and only want rich people to enjoy it- then too bad. Don't make those things in the first place. Life isn't fair, isn't meant to be fair, and never will be; but it would certainly be MORE fair without IP. Thanks IRAA et al for educating me.

From the article:

and the lexicon website itself using one of those insipid right click disabling scripts High priced lawyers should get an idea. I feel tempted, but no I won't tell them how to get around this rather lame form of DRM... Let them hire an over-priced computer consultant :P

Trademark not Copyright

[mdmkolbe]

Intellectual Property doesn't exist as a legal concept. Only Patent, Copyright and Trademark exist and they are very different. Lumping to them together under one rubric clouds the issue. So lets see which of these she could file suit under.

Patent

Even our patent office isn't that crazy. No suit here.

Copyright

Copyright only covers the form of expression not the ideas expressed. So unless she was a material contributer or the lexicon copied large sections of her books, there's no successful routs for suit here either.

Trademark

This one is close enough that a good lawyer might be able to win on Trademark grounds.

Fictional characters can be Trademarked. So if I go around drawing pictures of Donald Duck for a living, I could be liable even though the actual drawing was all my own original work. The idea is that the franchise and brand association could be weakened by such an action. So the "Harry Potter Action Toy" would be a clear Trademark violation, but the "Lexicon of Recent Popular Fantasy" probably wouldn't be. It all depends on the details of what words are used and how they are used.

Also, there are unfortunately far reaching incentives to pursue trivial Trademark infringements. If Rowling doesn't enforce the Trademark, she could loose the rights to it. Many companies fear these sorts of leaks in the dike especially since several companies have run into trouble with it (e.g. Xerox, Frisbie (but I think they eventually kept their Trademarks)).

All in all, this is a fairly weak suit for Rowling, but not necessarily frivolous. It all depends on the details.

It's probably not about the money

[Tyrannosaurs]

If you look at Rowling's history in matters of licensing, you'll tend to find that if she's anything she's a control freak rather than greedy. The contract with WB for the films gives her a near unprecidented level of control over the films, and she personally reviews many of the merchandising proposals.

Her concerns tend to be around keeping Harry "pure" - that is retaining control over how everything around it is presented, rather than wringing every last penny out of it.

In this instance it will be about wanting a single authorative lexicon, rather than multiple competing ones, some of which will not fit her vision of things, meet the quality standards she wants or whatever.

I'm not saying that this is right/legal/good, just that claims of greed show little understanding about the individual they are being made against and are probably wrong.

Re:she's right

[nightcats]

Nope, she's wrong, and I hope the courts say so too. Preventing people from doing literary criticism and background is Death Eater stuff. I wrote a book that two different (and very successful) NYC lit agents loved, which failed to make it all because pubs fear Rowling, WB, Bloomsbury/Scholastic, and their lawyers. So now it's rotting away on lulu.com, and whatever merit it contains is lost.

One of the teachings in that book is this: Wealth is poison; it murders from within. Lucius Malfoy ("bad faith") killed himself with wealth before he embarked on his career as a Death Eater. Rowling has allowed herself to be turned into a corporate person -- such a "corpse" will never rest in peace.

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It's to late for Rowling to change her mind.

[SETIGuy]

She visits the site. She is aware of its existence. She has participated in its development. She has given implied consent to its existence.

Now all of a sudden she has decided it is a copyright violation. Apparently it wasn't yesterday, but today it is because the owners want to make money from it.

The intent of the owners does NOT change whether the site is a copyright violation. If it wasn't a violation yesterday, its not a violation today just because someone might make a penny.

Haven't you made enough fucking money off this crap anyway?