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Orson Scott Card Blasts J.K. Rowling's Lawsuit
Wanker writes "In the wake of a lawsuit by J.K. Rowling against the author of a Harry Potter encyclopedia, the Greensboro Rhino Times has an article by Orson Scott Card blasting J.K. Rowling for 'letting herself be talked into being outraged over a perfectly normal publishing activity.' Orson Scott Card has hit the nail on the head. He understands that authors re-use each others' ideas all the time, and certainly Ender's Game gets its share of re-use. Did Rowling's success go to her head?"
Card lays out (something like tongue-in-cheek) some of the similarities between the story in Ender's Game and in the Potter series: "A young kid growing up in an oppressive family situation suddenly learns that he is one of a special class of children with special abilities, who are to be educated in a remote training facility where student life is dominated by an intense game played by teams flying in midair, at which this kid turns out to be exceptionally talented and a natural leader." (And that's just to get started.)
Writers will always sue the pants off each other and sometimes even other sources! Always have, always will. It just depends on how big of an orc ... I mean ass they are. I think that Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" pointed out how, through one way or another, nearly everyone owes at least something to those who came before and the Monomyth. You want to write a good fiction story? Simply take Campbell's book and dump the Monomyth into some environment of today. If I may say so myself, Rowling is a few mousekateers short of a full Mickey Mouse group ... uh, I mean she's a few rhymes short of a full Cat in the Hat ... uh, I mean she's a few Knights Templar short of a full Da Vinci's Code ... that is to say she's a few crystals short of a Jedi Lightsaber ...
Aw, christ, I'll just put my lawyer on speed dial.
My work here is dung.
I really tried to care about this story, but then I realized that there was simply no way to do it. Sorry.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Which jerk am I supposed to be rooting for in this story? Card had one good book decades ago and has been riding its success ever since.
Not a typewriter
Except Enders Game was actually good literature.
He's talking about re-using general themes. Yes, that's all fine and dandy. However, copyright is about specific implementations. The concept of a wizard can't be copyrighted, but a wizard named Harry Potter with glasses that has a specific set of life events is certainly copyrightable. The book which triggered the lawsuit is taking the specifics of Harry Potter and the characters and republishing them. It's significantly similar, and thus a derived work which only the author can legally create.
Similarities in plot/storyline are not the same as using actual characters, names, and places. Rowling has a point and and profit from the encyclopedia are hers.
Because he's really not that great at commentary.
The Lexicon authors may well be within their rights to have produced that work, but not for reasons that are based in the rather tortured screed he's offering up.
So... one can find parallels between many good stories. Does that automatically erode all intellectual property claims? Does it even directly relate to the specific claims in the Rowling suit? Hardly.
So... Card has publicly admitted on at least one occasion where he's borrowed from someone else. And he also tells people in his books when a character is gay! Look how much of a better person he is than Rowling!
And this dig is pure malice:
" The difference between us is that I actually make enough money from Ender's Game to be content, without having to try to punish other people whose creativity might have been inspired by something I wrote."
Yeah, Orson. That quote just *oozes* personal security with what you've done.
Ask yourself this: after reading the piece, which do you have a clearer understanding of:
(1) Copyright and other intellectual property law
(2) Which particulars Rowling is invoking and where her case goes wrong
(3) How disgusted Orson Scott Card is with Rowling
I'm seeing a lot of #3 and not very much of #1 or #2.
If the suit lowers the dignity of Rowling, Card seems perfectly ready to sacrifice his own by basically marshalling the resources of his talents.... to call Rowling a poopyhead.
Tweet, tweet.
Re-read it again when you're a little older - it's just trash. Barely any plot, and a deus-ex-machina ending which anybody over the mental age of eight could've seen coming long before the story's midpoint.
Puts it right next to the Harry Potter books - except those were explicitely marketed to the younger crowd. Tell ya what - compare Ender's Game with, say, The Martian Chronicles or I, Robot or Stranger in a Strange Land and let me know if you see a slight difference in the complexity of the story being told, eh?
I think the essence is summed up in this snippet of the article:
"Rowling has nowhere to go and nothing to do now that the Harry Potter series is over. After all her literary borrowing, she shot her wad and she's flailing about trying to come up with something to do that means anything."
I tend to agree. I think she's being a huge self absorbed twit over this whole thing.
For what the court has to say. Not that I like either OSC or JKR, in fact I can't stand either author.
Card is missing the point here. This isn't about reuse. Rowling certainly doesn't have problems with reuse... How many HP companion/related type books are there out there?
So obviously there's something going on in this case that's different than the others. This is even more obvious when you consider that Rowling was quite happy to have the text in question available on the Internet.
It's that there's a possibility that the Lexicon may use far too much of the original text to be considered an original work for publishing purposes. Apparently Rowling considers this to be the case.
So it comes down to the old, "it's all right with me if it's up for free, but when you want to start charging for it, I'm going to have to come down on you."
Although I do believe that he is right that if Rowling had a problem with this material, she should have done something about it years ago... the real problem here isn't personal greed, it's that she was planning on producing a similar encyclopedia herself, with all the proceeds going to charity, and this publication will conflict with that interest so that's why she is trying to stop it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Just goes to show that power does in fact corrupt, and since money = power these days... Yeah. Greedy selfish behavior.
Orson... not Scott.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
... but I find Card's article pretty unpalatable, more so than Rowling's case, although I am not a great fan of that.
Creating a book who's plot is in various vague ways similar to a previous book is not the same in my opinion as selling a product which only makes money because it uses the exact same characters and names in its marketing.
Rather than a black and white issue, I think we have a continuum. Let's look at one extreme end - would it have been OK if the Hollywood Harry Potter films had been produced without any of the credit or cash going to Rowling? I would say no. At the other end of the continuum - would it be OK for Rowling to write a book that has passing resemblance to Card's? A bit shoddy perhaps, but I would have to see a damn site more evidence of real plagiarism.
The Rowling case, in my opinion falls somewhere between those two extremes. It has more merit than Card's whining - but is still rather lame.
Rowlings books are actually entertaining.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
The enemy's quidditch goal is down?
Rowling is specifically "outraged" because she's been working on her own compendium. Should she just scrap one of the secondary projects for her Potter franchise so that shmucko McFanboi can publish his?
Card, you card.
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm only a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta
"If I see farther than other men, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants." -Isaac Newton
He is not, in fact, the first man to say that! (WP doesn't mention the quote stolen by the far more famous Newton). The fact is that all art is based on previous art.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Fiction? Yes. Science? No. That is unless you're an overly religious idio--err... person who still believes that science and magic are the same thing.
No, seriously. She's a huge douchebag, a total control freak when it comes to Harry Potter. For example, I've heard she specifically won't allow a Harry Potter RPG to be made, because she wouldn't be able to control the sorts of stories run in it.
As an academic who's written critical works on contemporary media, I'm all for fair use and the freedom for fans or opponents to employ some material in their own work. But that isn't what this proposed Lexicon is, in truth.
This isn't fair use (news reporting, educational or criticism, although the publisher tries to pretend the latter) or transformative in any way: van der Ark's Lexicon is a summary of elements in the work. That means that, as a secondary work about Harry Potter, this is much more akin to the Castle Rock case: copying fragments of the work.
More significantly, Rowling was planning to publish her own encyclopedia to the Harry Potter world as one of her charitable publications (like some of the other guidebooks she's produced), while this work is taking the unpaid labour of countless fans who contributed to the Lexicon website and turning it to the personal profit of the site's disgruntled owner (who's cranky because his good buddy "Jo" wouldn't give him a paying job in the UK to edit her own encyclopedia).
The whole imbroglio has been amply covered by the helpful souls at Fandom Wank if you want to get a feel for what others besides OSC have said. (Anne Rice has even weighed in!)
ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
Uncle Orson Reviews Everything
J.K. Rowling, Lexicon and Oz
by Orson Scott Card
April 24, 2008
Can you believe that J.K. Rowling is suing a small publisher because she claims their 10,000-copy edition of The Harry Potter Lexicon, a book about Rowling's hugely successful novel series, is just a "rearrangement" of her own material.
Rowling "feels like her words were stolen," said lawyer Dan Shallman.
Well, heck, I feel like the plot of my novel Ender's Game was stolen by J.K. Rowling.
A young kid growing up in an oppressive family situation suddenly learns that he is one of a special class of children with special abilities, who are to be educated in a remote training facility where student life is dominated by an intense game played by teams flying in midair, at which this kid turns out to be exceptionally talented and a natural leader. He trains other kids in unauthorized extra sessions, which enrages his enemies, who attack him with the intention of killing him; but he is protected by his loyal, brilliant friends and gains strength from the love of some of his family members. He is given special guidance by an older man of legendary accomplishments who previously kept the enemy at bay. He goes on to become the crucial figure in a struggle against an unseen enemy who threatens the whole world.
This paragraph lists only the most prominent similarities between Ender's Game and the Harry Potter series. My book was published in England many years before Rowling began writing about Harry Potter. Rowling was known to be reading widely in speculative fiction during the era after the publication of my book.
I can get on the stand and cry, too, Ms. Rowling, and talk about feeling "personally violated."
The difference between us is that I actually make enough money from Ender's Game to be content, without having to try to punish other people whose creativity might have been inspired by something I wrote.
Mine is not the only work that one can charge Rowling "borrowed" from. Check out this piece from a fan site, pointing out links between Harry Potter and other previous works: http://www.geocities.com/versetrue/rowling.htm. And don't forget the lawsuit by Nancy K. Stouffer, the author of a book entitled The Legend of Rah and the Muggles, whose hero was named "Larry Potter."
At that time, Rowling's lawyers called Stouffer's claim "frivolous."
It's true that we writers borrow words from each other - but we're supposed to admit it and not pretend we're original when we're not. I took the word ansible from Ursula K. LeGuin, and have always said so. Rowling, however, denies everything.
If Steven Vander Ark, the author of Lexicon, had written fiction that he claimed was original, when it was actually a rearrangement of ideas taken from the Harry Potter books, then she'd have a case.
But Lexicon is intended only as a reference book for people who have already paid for their copies of Rowling's books. Even though the book is not scholarly, it certainly falls within the realm of scholarly comment.
Rowling's hypocrisy is so thick I can hardly breathe: Prior to the publication of each novel, there were books about them that were no more intrusive than Lexicon. I contributed to one of them, and there was no complaint about it from Rowling or her publishers because they knew perfectly well that these fan/scholar ancillary publications were great publicity and actually boosted sales.
But now the Harry Potter series is over, and Rowling claims that her "creative work" is being "decimated."
Of course, she doesn't claim that it's the Lexicon that is harming her "creative work" (who's she borrowing from this time?); it's the lawsuit itself! And since she chose to bring the suit, whose fault is it? If she had left Vander Ark alone to publish his little book and make his little bit of money, she wouldn't be distracted from her next novel.
But no, Rowling claims Vander
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Sounds like someone has their Magic Panties all in a bunch.
(do I mention that this is a Mormon reference?...hmmm...)
...like this one. People are complicated critters.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Is Card describing his August 1977 novelette "Ender's Game" or the May 1977 movie "Star Wars"?
The only appropriate reply, after reading that, is: "SheGotOwned!"
Exactly. It's not possible to create anything without using the ideas of others. Every word is someone else's idea (unless you made it up yourself).
So it's ridiculous to claim such broad ownership of derivative works.
...you listen to Orson Scott Card on the topic of ethics. *yikes*
I didn't realize Orson Scott Card had literary respect, I mean Ender's Game was pretty good, but Heinlein, Dick, Asimov, Clarke, and Herbert all wrote several books that were much better than Ender's Game. That said JK Rowling ranks alongside Tom Clancy in my opinion. Fun to read once, but very little depth in the text.
Problem is, Microsoft already did it a while ago, and called their program "Word."
What do you think... could they sue me for copyright infringement? (Or could the many predecessors to Word sue MS?)
I have to admit I don't know enough of the facts to render final judgment, but I have been a fan of both the site and the books for some time now. From what I understand, hp-lexicon wants to publish, and profit from, their own retelling of a copyrighted work. From what I've seen of the site, I'd imagine it would be quite accurate and true to the original, but that's immaterial.
So what if JKR didn't object to the site when it was non-profit? Also immaterial.
And I know JKR has been a bit (*ahem*) overenthusiastic with other legal actions. Again, immaterial. Karma is not a legally valid argument.
Turn this around and ask... once HP-Lexicon has their own copyrighted version of the Harry Potter story, what's to stop them from changing it? What right would the original creator of the work have to control her creation if the copyright of the retelling is under someone else's control?
Could I call my word processor "Microsoft Word?" I'd really like to. I mean, I've done my best to make it look and act like Word. In fact, I even call all of the outwardly visible features the exact same thing as it's called in Word. Man, being able to call it Word would really help sales.
Re-read it again without the bias that complexity begets quality.
Sure, you can compare it with the books you mentioned and find a more complex structure in each of them. Complexity does not automatically imply quality, however, and while those three books are certainly historic works, that does nothing to indicate anything about Ender's Game.
Calling it "trash" as a result merely indicates a literary snob and doesn't do anything to invalidate its quality.
The ringing of the division bell has begun... -PF
'funnier-than-i-thought-he'd-be department'? well, fun trivia - Scott Card wrote the original sword fighting insults for Monkey Island...
The issue isn't that someone's deriving a work from Rowling's ideas. The issue is that the derived work in question is comprised of over 91% of her writing, word-for-word.
She should be so ashamed of herself as to never utter (or write) a word in public ever again. She went from being a single mother barely paying her bills to a multi-billion aire in the matter of a few years. Now she's pissed that a few other people, who are fans of her work, will make maybe a few thousand?
What a complete and utter bitch.
Considering that Card may not have even written the Ender books himself, I'm not surprised that he continues to advocate using other people's ideas.
That being interesting and all, the Potter encyclopedia clearly isn't a clear-cut case of plagiarism because Rowling gets all the credit for invention. This sort of thing happens all the time, under the "unauthorized" banner. Asshat or not, Card has a point.
P.S. Ender and Hitler essay was recently put online
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
The other thing I can't figure out is why some people like the color green. My favorite color is blue. How can anyone like the color green?
If the current long copyrights had been in effect when Disney stole those stories, Kipling could have taken them to court. Having gotten theirs, they want no one else to be as blatant. They are hypocrites of the first water.
Infuriate left and right
IIRC Rowling took the over-zealous fan to court because he took it upon himself to write up a compedium on her work based on his understanding of it. Not a new thing in the bunch, just an encyclopedic work of characters and places he had no part in creating ... AND did so without asking, AND assumed that this would be just fine with her. That guy didn't "borrow" the plot, as described so creatively, he "borrowed" the characters, places, events, and story, chopped it neatly into bits, and attempted to pass off the re-packaging of her time-and-effort as a new work created by him.
I can only hope that when the slashdotting of the Card article passes, and I finally get to read it, he won't come across as a big tool, which he does now based on the above.
Hmmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Here's another location where the article can be read: http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2008-04-20.shtml
Findlaw did an interesting legal commentary on the lawsuit (by an actual lawyer, no less), located at http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20080428.html. I provide a summary (in my best fair-use language) below.
It seems there are four issues that are looked at in cases where fair use exceptions are claimed as a defense: the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the portion of material used in relation to the original work and finally the effect on the potential market.
The author of the article wrote that typically in analysis of the purpose and character of use, the derivative work involves some extension or transformation. There isn't likely to be much in a lexicon or encyclopedia, so this should cut in favour of Rowling. The author did point out that an analysis of mistakes and plot inconsistencies would involve substantial extension and so could well have a valid defense
With regards to the nature of the copyrighted work, Rowling's books are original pieces of writing (although perhaps not great literature). This is the kind of stuff that copyright is meant to defend, so this is likely to cut in Rowling's favour also.
The article argues that it is the final two issues that the lexicon's author may have traction on. The amount and importance of the portion of work used seems to be the X-factor. The lexicon will no doubt copy a significant amount of material from the Rowling originals but use it in small pieces and put it in a completely context. The author figured this would break on a judge-by-judge basis. One that read the copyright act literally would fall in favour of Rowling, while a judge considering the overall purpose would not.
Finally there was the question of the effect on the potential market. Certainly a lexicon would damage sales of an official Rowling lexicon, but the author felt (and I would agree) that a Rowling original would likely be a bigger draw for readership. Rowling has access to more material than anyone, and her encyclopedia would likely be a better piece of work for a collector. The author figured that Rowling's claim here was weak.
All-in-all, it sounded like who gets selected as judge would play a major role in the result. It is possible that some uses may be fine (a detailed analysis of inconsistencies and mistakes, for example) while other uses may have to be deleted (e.g. an encyclopedic or dictionary-type use).
Ah, Steamboat Bill Jr... The last independent film Buster Keaton made for United Artists, signaling the peak of his career. Everything after this would be downhill for him. He'd get kicked around Hollywood and become an alcoholic for decades after this. By contrast, after Steamboat Willie, everything would be up, up, up for Disney.
Hollywood just isn't fair, is it?
"Flag on the moon. How did it get there?"
While I respect Mr Card, using a similar story is not the same as outright using characters and material from another author. That's infringement. On the other hand, in copyright law generally use is allowed for works about another piece or parodying a piece.
With all that being said I do think Mrs. Rowling is going overboard and is being an ass about the whole thing.
Derek Greene
Did you know?
In his own words:
http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.html
commentary:
http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/librarianinblack/2004/02/shame_on_orson_.html
Is anyone honestly surprised that the money has gone to her hear?
I hope she loses this case big time.
Card hasn't spent much time thinking about Rowling's case or he'd realize it isn't simply congruent ideas or similar fundamental storylines. This is someone who is publishing a fan board and augmenting the publication with wholesale copying of Rowling's work.
I seriously doubt anyone, including Card, would approve of someone taking their work, scanning it into a computer and then submitting it for publication under their own name. Rowling's situation is somewhere on the slippery slope between Card's example and this one.
Well, it works both ways.
One can ask whether J.K. Rowling has borrowed from J.R.R. Tolkien too.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Of course, in point of fact, Ellison's case was a joke. The premise of a time-traveler coming back in time to help humanity is an ancient sci-fi trope. If anyone should have complained about Terminator theft, it was the estate of Phillip Dick, whose popular "Second Variety" bore a *striking* resemblance to Kyle Reese's dystopia. The sad thing is that Ellison actually conned his way into a victory in that case, adding another notch in his belt as a widely renowned and widely despised uber-asshole.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Please stop babbling and finish the last Alvin book. Seriousl,y this series has been going on decades and is one book away from completion. I know you are having cashgasms with your Ender's stuff, but really, shut up and start writing.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
Text only:
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:http://greensboro.rhinotimes.com/Articles-i-2008-04-24-177772.112113_JK_Rowling_Lexicon_and_Oz.html&hl=en&strip=1
THAT'S what her children story needs, MORE controversy! Because the religious whackjobs weren't harassing her enough as it is.
You can't take the sky from me...
The enemy's gate is down...and so is the referenced site...
and this happens just when i am so close to finishing ender's game for X amount of time. Dam then British ppl
You can't handle the truth.
...Copyright protects the original expression of an idea in a fixed, tangible medium, it does not protect ideas themselves. What Orson Scott Card is describing as a plot element is nothing more than an idea. The characters, setting, etc. is what expresses the idea about a boy having trouble growing up. I'd be willing to bet that if another author came along and wrote another Ender book without Card's permission he'd be rabidly foaming at the mouth. Derivative works are not using original expressions, and therefore are not allowed under current copyright law unless explicitly granted by the author.
A full page of posts and not a score above 2.
...no, really.
Nothing to see here, move along...
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
Since the linked article is down, you can catch a copy of the Rowling roasting at Card's own site:
http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2008-04-20.shtml
Except that it's not just that they called it "frivolous", it's that Stouffer apparently manufactured evidence, and was fined $50,000 by the court for her fraud. Not really fair to use as an argument against Rowling, is it?
I don't know why people bother reading a bunch of made up crap...
I haven't been as startled by anything in Slashdot in quite some time. Human society has always been built around stories. I'm curious if you feel this way just about things you read, or if you apply the "real things only" directive to TV, movies, and music as well.
Sticking to the facts excludes a huge swath of cultural artifacts, from pretty much all of recent popular music to the majority of television programming to almost all of the movies shown in theaters.
It would be an interesting experiment to try to exclude all non-factual media for a month. Of course there's the legitimate question of what constitutes "real things that actually happen," but even if we leave the debate over subjective/objective reality to the philosophers, I suspect it would be difficult to pull off even for a month.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The company she's suing isn't using a "high level concept" like "poor child learns he's got special abilities". That company is using Rowling's characters explicitely, cataloging them and defining them. They are attempting to make canon for her universe, not creating another universe of their own with characters with similar backgrounds.
Not only are they trying to make canon for her characters, they are now trying to profit off of them. Those specific characters, by name.
If I started trying to sell a Picard action-figure (which would be limited, of course, to saying "make it so" and "I surrender") Paramount would, rightly, sue me. Why is this any different?
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. Albert Einstein
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/geekend/?p=652 just read the proof.
Orson Scott Card is pretty horrible at commentary. It usually comes across as a one-sided, unintelligent, trollish opinion piece. Somewhat entertaining, but does little to further reasoned discourse.
For an example of *good* commentary of the lexicon situation by a professional author, go no further than Neil Gaiman's blog
Here
and
Here
You will find a polite, detailed, and thought-out response (that he most likely whacked together in under an hour).
She won't license it because she wouldn't be able to control the story the DM and players create. She would happily sign off on a POS HP game, and has.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This is the same woman that felt she had the right to hold up an entire airplane of passengers because she wasn't willing to part with her script despite it not being allowed as part of her hand luggage and being told it had to go in the hold with the rest of her luggage.
Why the fuck should she think she has some special right to bypass airline/anti-terrorism laws when no one else does? Arguments aside about how stupid the laws surrounding hand luggage are, this is just one of many examples where she's decided since becoming famous that she can do what she wants and is above everyone else.
not regurgitating the original expression.
A database of facts, though of zero original expressive content, is copyrighted by mere ordering of the facts.
JKR's entries are the facts.
The lexicon is no more a derivative than JKR's work is a derivative of Larry Potter, which protagonist had to deal with muggles.
A claim of copying being described as laughable by JKR.
I don't think Rowling should be able to kill the Harry Potter Lexicon either, but to call her "a pretentious, puffed-up coward" and "lack[ing] a brain, a heart and courage" is going a bit overboard. It's a tough case and certainly a far cry from the purposefully abstract "comparison" with Ender's Game that Orson Scott Card uses. Maybe he makes a different decision if someone publishes an encyclopedia on the very same characters and universe that he created, but let's not act like she burned an original copy of the First Amendment or anything. Reasonable people disagree on this one.
...why am I not surprised?
To clarify:
The Lexicon website consisted for the most part of entries where the editors had gone through the books, chopped out the various bits describing the element at hand and plopped them in the entry. The amount of straight quoting was huge, the amount of barely reworded items possibly even larger. Let's go to Dave Langford for a typical wordcount: "When I checked, the on-line Lexicon's 1500 words on Albus Dumbledore had about 300 words of direct quotation from Rowling (which seemed risky) and linked to a page with some 3000 words of quotes (which seemed suicidal)." This is certainly very useful to fanfic authors, and as long as it was noncommercial, Rowlings quite kindly tolerated it.
Then in a perfect storm of stupidity, RDR Books decided that obviously this meant they could publish it at 24.95 a pop. Rowlings and her publishers said "uh, no". I'll note that they spent two months trying to get a manuscript out of RDR or Steve Vander Ark, and were informed that they should "just hit print on the website." Yes, the website that *mostly consisted of quotes and rewordings*. Eventually they realized how suicidal that was, and produced a hacked down manuscript that *still* took large amounts straight from her wording.
And like most bad lawsuits, it'll make bad law. If she wins, other publishers and authors will no doubt push the boundaries to claim that any kind of encyclopedia of their fictional universes is unlawful, even if the writers actually do their own work; and if she loses (highly unlikely, but if) other authors will feel like they need to be a bitch to every online effort of this sort, lest they be seen as authorizing similar publishings -- one of the claims that RDR/SVA made was that by tolerating it, she was authorizing it.
Based on the reactions I've gotten, I realize that much of this is a matter of personal taste - but I still hold my opinion that Ender's Game was pap, suitable for consumption by adolescents.
Oh, and I had to stop the list somewhere. I'm sure there were probably better examples; these just sprang to mind.
The lexicon doesn't build a new story in the HP world. The lexicon does not create verbatim sections within itself beyond that amount considered de-minimis and therefore not infringement.
Or is the OECD a damn fine story for you?
Sorry - Card, Rowling, McCaffrey, they're all great if you're into adolescent or romantic fantasy. Just don't try to pass 'em off as serious authors. Even Piers Anthony hits higher than these guys, and sometimes I wonder how much effort he puts into his work.
Oh, try Dune, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, the Foundation series, Starship Troopers, . . . the list can get pretty long, and I don't even have to hit the "Classics" (War and Peace, A Tale of Two Cities, Paradise Lost . . .).
Still way too predictable to be entertaining, IMO.
..a cluster of Beowulfs. Wait, it has already been done?!
It's not about ideas or imagination. it's about stringing together words, or musical notes, or colors on a canvas in a way that's new to the world.
When Rowling created her novels, she created something she owned, lock, stock and barrel. She owner that unique sequence of words and every right associated with it. If she'd written gibberish, it would still be owned exclusively by her and be just as controlled to her copyright.
If I make something that has never existed before, I own it. No one has any rights to it unless I say so.
High-falutin' talk about ideas and sarcasm like "imaginary property" is cute, but it has nothing to do with reality.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
it had 'decimated' her creative ability. I don't see why she can't write a book with the other 90% of it, frankly.
FGD 135
Isn't this where the authors of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" came unstuck with Dan Brown?
My web domain.
Of course, ender's game is just a copy-cat of manga and anime, as the idea that only those below 16 can save the world, be heroes, obtain magical capabilities or whatever is inherently japanese.
I heard an explanation this was introduced to commemorate the schoolkids, whom the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings targeted deliberately. The bombs were dropped at the exact morning time when kids walked to school to maximize terror by maximizing the number of child casaulties.
Yet, it does not explain why manga/anime is so much feminist, with almost all focus on sailor suit miniskirt girls, much neglecting boy heroes in general.
BTW, Harry Potter is totally popular in Japan.
I'm a huge fan of Mr. Card's fiction, but I find his taking the moral high road on the issue of Dumbledore being gay rather disengenuous. He implies that he would have written his sexuality into the story when, in fact he's never had a gay character in *any* of his novels (at least, not the ones I've read). And, given his public stance on gay rights ("Gay rights is a collective delusion that's being attempted" - http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/card/index2.html ), there's little doubt in my mind that what he's really criticizing is the fact that Rowling admitted Dumbledore was gay at all, regardless of whether or not that fact is printed anywhere.
I noticed (thanks to my threshold) that nobody is passing 2. I assume this is a bug, as it affects the recent stories.
Is that Rowling's series doesn't try to insert right-wing propoganda at every opportunity. Okay, so maybe that's mostly the Shadow series.
But as a fan of both series (not so much the Shadow Series... but Speaker fot the Dead was amazing), and having read them back to back, I can honestly say that there's as little similarity between them as you can get, outside of the fact that they're both novels in the fantasy/sci-fi genre.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Orson Scott Card attacks Rowling's flawed logic. You on the other hand attack the man. Given what you're accusing him of, that's one twisted double standard.
I am not a Harry Potter aficionado. I've never read a book in the series. This topic has been sufficiently raked over the coals from a legal perspective by people who know better than me.
I do know that derivation is one source of creativity. It's a tricky source - get too formulaic + too derivative while writing a song or a story, and it can bomb out the original idea.
This can even be true for authoring or reading /. posts. Most days, my eyes roll on the classic 1.xxxx 2.yyyy 3.??? 4.Profit!, but every once in a while, i"m knee slapping from the gut up.
Derivative works *can* be nothing but a cultural drag/dupe. However, they also can be a support for the interested reader, an impetus for a whole 'culture of xxx' thing that creates a previously unimagined phenomena.
I read the lexicon site for a while tonight. It's pretty damn cool (but I like that sort of thing (shameless plug for Simon Winchester and the OED).
I don't care how much money Rowling has already made - meaningless to me. I only care that she made the characters and settings up should someone appropriate the characters for the writing of another fictional story in a similar setting.
However, a work which slices and dices the facts, foibles & follies of an existing fictional story must, by definition, overlap the detail and content of the original work. That's what it is all *about*.
More importantly, it affords an opportunity for the author's work to step out front of the cultural curtain and make their work not just a story, but a view into the cultural details of our present-day world. Foolish to skip out on that one ...
Rolwings is missing a major opportunity here, perhaps on the bad advice of a lawyer obliged, by a crappy IP law landscape, to offer a good legal interpretation. Major bummer, but at the end of the day she's the one making the money call rather than the cultural call.
[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
So, eh, Card has stopped goose stepping and saluting Brigham Young long enough to do something besides oppose freedom of the press at last? And this is all he can do? Pitiful.
I know you're trying to be funny, but yes, that's his point *exactly*. Got it in one.
"Rowling was planning to publish her own encyclopedia to the Harry Potter world"
Irrelevant to the case at hand.
"as one of her charitable publications"
Completely irrelevant.
Besides which, the woman is worth multi-billions of dollars. She could drop $10 million to charity the way you or I might drop a $20 to charity.
Note that is irrelevant as well, but you started it.
if your into potter and older than 12 than you're a fag. go suck another dick you stupid fucking homo.
Potter's won half a dozen other awards that have as much weight as the Nebula's. Plus it really is just another book award-and honestly I'm not that impressed with the winners;I've read a couple of the classics and well I like HP just as much, if not more-just different standards for evaluating lit.
open source modern art: laser taggi
Get back to writing and stay out of politics.
Wait, your books are full of political screeds anyway.
Maybe you should just stop writing.
go read what that story is about sound familiar? That was written 34 freakin years ago.
You know I'd have to say that I only agree with this arguement to a certain degree. It would be one thing if the book was called something like, "The magicians guide to non-muggle words" but instead he used Harry Potter as a title which I think is the real issue at hand. Of course using Harry Potter will sell more books, but in all honesty he mislead anybody who bought the book, and he undermined J.K Rowling. By writing, and titleing a book after one by another author, the main assumption would be that there was an agreement between the two. In this case no communication like this happened. That is the issue, and based on the laws of publishing he should give her the royalties that she should have received in the first place. Also, it is true that authors commonly use eachother's idea's, but comparing two books like Ender's Game and Harry Potter is like comparing apples to oranges. The books are similar idea's but completely different stories.
I'm poor. Please donate. http://albanypcs.com
For a place that hates IP more than any other place on the internet, you guys sure are going to bat for JK... Why is it ok for her to sue her fans but if the RIAA sues its fans that is anathema?!? There isn't a single recording artist that is worth a billion dollars, yet we whine and moan that the millionaire recording artists are being greedy when they want to get paid for every single use of their songs.
Look, She wrote 1 children's story that happened to span 7 books. She is worth more than 1 billion dollars. Why can't she take her billion and go away?
No instead, she is going to maintain that this guy who has spent huge portions of time promoting her work is unable to make any money whatsoever off of his time and energy. She has to be the most greedy evil person I've ever heard of... well aside from the Waltons.
Personally I disliked the harry potter books, I thought they were poorly written and incredibly stupid. I really don't like her as a person. She has always come of greedy and hyper-controlling to me. Her insane secrecy rules, suing everyone who touched one of her books 10 minutes before they were *supposed* to be released. She has this nice sob story about being a broke single mom... I wonder what happened to her kids when she got rich? Probably shipped them straight to boarding school and hasn't spoken to them since.
Like it or not, isn't this exactly what copyright law was intended to protect: the right of an artist to profit from their own creative work? The motivation being that they more than other people depend on their creativity and the fame that follows for their livelyhood.
Whether this is the right way is an altogether different issue, and perhaps not one that is as clearcut as we would imagine. In recent years we have seen how both copyright and patent rules have been abused to hurt the free market, so I think it is time we made some serious changes to the whole IP concept. Perhaps the Open Commons idea is the way to proceed - something where a creative mind case establish a name and a reputation and which can serve as a basis for earning a living.
In many ways I don't think works of creativity should be anybody's property. The very essence of ownership is to exclude others from what you own, which in the case of works of art will mean that fewer get to enjoy it, and also dimishes the creativity, both of the 'owner' and of others who might have been inspired by it.
I have written 3 novels and won't name or link to them so that everyone knows I am responding to this thread and not just trying to astroturf a little.
Yes, I have been influenced by other writers, films, news events, songs, things I overheard on public transport, something I misread on some junkmail etc. etc.
Appreciating the literary and cultural heritage of where you are in the long line of all that has gone before is a crucial piece of awareness to possess as a writer, but there is a huge difference between similar concepts and actual specific content.
It really comes down to how much thinking one has to do. If someone takes a similar concept and comes up with something new with it then that's fantastic, but if they just copy, paste and tweak a bit and don't do anything new then that's deplorable.
But just because there are no new ideas that doesn't justify stealing created content, which is different from building upon a similar foundation.
Let's all make a cake... I use flour, you use flour. I add eggs, you add eggs. That's all fine. But if you start slicing into my own cake and eating it then I am going to smack you in the mouth.
Rowling's suit is about someone using her material, from her books, to compile another book for his own profit (and that of a different publisher). She's saying, "No, you can't profit off of my stuff without my permission." I hope she wins.
Further to that...
I think this sort of debate is always problematic as it deals with vague concepts of ownership of ideas.
There are many lists on the web of 'the basic 20 novel plots,' there's also the basic 8 and it even gets down to the one basic concept of all novels which is conflict, whether it's an actual conflict between 2 great powers or just the inner conflict inside someone's head, they are all about conflict.
So let's imagine it as a tree. The trunk at the bottom is conflict and it keeps splitting as new additional ideas get added and branch off.
Somewhere up the trunk there is a branch that splits off called 'small seemingly insignificant person we can all relate to gets summoned by marginalised guru and taught their true destiny.' Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and a whole raft of others come off of this branch.
No one owns that branch. BUT, the branch further up that is labelled 'Wizard called Harry Potter goes off to Hogwart's with enchanting consequences' - that branch is the property of Rowling.
You can slide a bit back down the tree and start your own branch off of the 'normal boy becomes wizard/superhero/radioactive chicken' branch without a problem. But if you want to start adding new branches to the 'Wizard called Harry Potter goes off to Hogwart's with enchanting consequences' branch then you need to respect the wishes of the branch owner.
The irony is that if someone complained about people who become billionaires either by inheriting it or exploting political connections, you'd probably accuse them of being communists. That's how much of a stupid fuck you are.
"Boo hoo, JK is filthy rich and famous and I'm not! No one wants to make movies of my books, wah waaaah. Liberals humped my hippo!"
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
I do have to ask one question about Rowling's lawsuit. I understand it's inevitable, due to the nature of the fan-based encyclopedia and the pressures on her by her publishing company, but some of the quotes about the lawsuit that had her name attached to them were less than thrilling to read. Now, I'm not the sort of person to trust everything I read on the internet 100% (I'm an anonymous coward on /., what more proof do you need?), but it seems to me that she is conveying the message that she feels "hurt" by the lexicon's makers. Seriously, is this necessary? Odds are the original "compilers" (I like that term, it diminishes the concern about where the information in the lexicon comes from) saw nothing wrong with the idea when they decided to publish it, and by time J. K. Rowling and her publishers got wind of it and could tell them it was a no-go, the lexicon makers had already signed contracts and were thus under pressure by THEIR publishers. Seriously, this is a lose-lose situation here, and the last thing Rowling or anybody needs to do is make it personal.
OSC's later writing. His columns are not only right wing but he writes right-wing fantasy novels in which the liberals who hate America reveal their true terrorist natures by assassinating the President and splitting off from the "real" USA. He's a Bushie asshat.
I would suggest the following theme:
Valdemort appears once again, letting loose a malady upon the world that causes lawyers to metamorphosis into disgusting slugs, putting them in great danger as they must daily run the gauntlet of a new and bizarre recurring weather phenomenon - salt storms.
In desperation they turn to Harry Potter, who struggles valiantly to save their lives (if not their souls).
Just as Harry is beginning to turn the tide, one of the disgusting slugs sues him for allowing his pants to be splashed with salt during an epic battle where Harry is greatly distracted by being forced to risk his life in battle with over 100 different avatars of Valdemort.
In disgust, Harry gives up and turns his back on the lawyers, at which point an ancestor of Obi Wan Kenobi says "Welcome back from the Dark Side, Harry.".
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
If you want hot tentacle action, you'd be better off with Ghastly's Ghastly Comic.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
In response to Card criticizing Rowling:
:
:
http://www.linearpublishing.com/RhinoStory.html
Card said in this article criticizing Rowling's originality:
"The difference between us is that I actually make enough money from Ender's Game to be content, without having to try to punish other people whose creativity might have been inspired by something I wrote."
Might I remind readers of Card's fundamental flaw in basic logic: the above cannot possibly be true, Card having written the essay with at least some form of castigation in mind for Rowling! This also reveals Card is not near the contentedness as he claims.
Is this not hypocrisy at it's most blatant and clear?
*****a great article on Card's breed of dogma is:"My favorite author, my worst interview" :
http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/card/index.html
Is being hate-filled a sure sign of low intelligence?
Does Card have a history of being hate-filled person? Here are some indicators. (How can his new jealousy of Rowling be any sort of surprise?):
http://atheism.about.com/b/2004/01/03/orson-scott-card-criminalize-homosexual-behavior.htm
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2005-05-15-1.html
http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.html
Literary criticism of Card by respected and award-winning author John Kessel:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Demonizing.html
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm
Card as could-be Hitler-apologist in 'Ender's Game':
Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman (20 Years Later) - Elaine Radford's analysis of the Ender and Hitler connection:
http://peachfront.diaryland.com/enderhitlte.html
possibility that Card's Ender's Game itself was stolen from the 1984 film the Last Starfighter
from digg.com, comment by Dysarthria on 06/16/2007:
http://digg.com/gaming_news/Orson_Scott_Card_Reveals_Plans_for_Video_Games_based_on_Ender_s_Game
"A few points:
1) The movie of Ender's Game (published in 1985) has already been done, it's called the Last Starfighter (1984). While not identical, both are about boys who save the planet by playing a video game. When I read this novel about 20 years ago, I felt like it was it was kind of a rip-off. Great story, just not that original.
2) I think the most boring game in the world would be an adaptation of a novel about a video game. Guys, come on. Enders game was a nice little unoriginal story published 20 years ago."
Also, remember this man criticizes Darwinismin.
The following link to another of Card's essays is from digg.com's insomniacal on 06/16/2007
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2006-01-08-1.html
I'm 29. I read the Harry Potter books because my wife is a fan, and it was only fair that I read the books she liked after I made her suffer through Michael Moorcock and Robert Graves. You know what? I liked the books. They made entertaining bathroom reading.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
The way things are going, in 500 years, Rowling's works will still be protected.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
seems more sensible. It comes down to how much originality and how transformative the Lexicon book is. Since it's not been published, I don't see how all these bloggers can render judgement when they've not even read the book (not the website, which may not be the same).
Interstingly enough, if they keep their own interpretation of "alohorama (whatever)", it would help their defense! As it could be view as as an original interpretation. Even by incorporating JKR's explanation in the court, the Lexicon is still adding information not contained within the books. By faithfully using quotes, they are actually diminishing their own defense!
How is that a bad thing? It clearly shows that it's not just a concordance.
Once something is reworded or paraphrase, copyright no longer applies.
There could possibly be a trademark issue though.
Secondly, links to an external site is irrelevant in juding how 'transformative' a text is.
I believe that he does go by Scott to his friends and family, so you're cool.
I really love Orson Scott Card's work, (I also love JKR's work) but I have to say that his argument confuses two legal principles, and thus doesn't work (and yes, I am a real lawyer, not an "internet lawyer"). :) I actually was writing a post about that when I found this reference to his article (while Googling to see if he'd commented on the case before).
In case anyone's interested in what is amiss with what OSC is saying, here's why it doesn't work: http://foresthouse.livejournal.com/463201.html
Please note I am not saying that JKR will definitely win, here. But the lawsuit isn't frivolous, and his argument as to why she's a hypocrite is completely wrong.