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J. K. Rowling Wins $6,750 In Infringement Case
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "J. K. Rowling didn't make enough money on Harry Potter, so she had to make sure that the 'Harry Potter Lexicon' was shut down. After a trial in Manhattan in Warner Bros. v. RDR Books, she won, getting the judge to agree with her (and her friends at Warner Bros. Entertainment) that the 'Lexicon' did not qualify for fair use protection. In a 68-page decision (PDF) the judge concluded that the Lexicon did a little too much 'verbatim copying,' competed with Ms. Rowling's planned encyclopedia, and might compete with her exploitation of songs and poems from the Harry Potter books, although she never made any such claim in presenting her evidence. The judge awarded her $6,750 and granted her an injunction that would prevent the 'Lexicon' from seeing the light of day." Groklaw has an exhaustive discussion of the judgement.
"Please, Ms. Rowling, I'm so tired and bleeding from both ends..."
"Is J.K. gonna have to choke a bitch? Get me my money!"
I was not aware that society's subjective judgment of whether someone has made "enough" money from one's intellectual property was a factor in copyright law. Either there's a copyright infringement or there isn't. Rowling's wealth and success are irrelevant.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up a moment! NewYorkCountryLawyer, I normally respect your posts, but this one is in need of some serious scrutiny.
As it happens, I was listening to the details of the case this morning on NPR. The problem with this specific book is not that it focuses on the Harry Potter series. The problem is that nearly every description was lifted from the books in a reasonably clear case of plagerism and/or derivitive works. Most reference books contain unique descriptions and commentary above and beyond the information presented in the source material. However, this particular lexicon made no effort to add such value over the books themselves.
In effect, it was merely a reorganization of J.K. Rowling's books into a dry reference. Something for which only the author has a legal right to grant.
THAT is why the judge found against the lexicon. And he did so with a strong warning that this book is an exception to the usually legal practice:
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
*JK points wand at lexicon project*
Avada Kedavra!
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
When the verdict was announced in court, there was a big puff of smoke. I notice most of the media forgot to mention that part. You'd think someone would have pointed out that smoking in a public building isn't polite...
ed duval the very last person
But I noticed you accidently wrote at least one sentence that doesn't totally drip with contempt for this ruling. Please don't let this happen again - you know we /.ers don't know what opinions to have unless you spell it out for us.
It's my understanding that 80% the contents of the website on which the encyclopedia is based is copied verbatim from the HP books. How does that NOT fail the "fair use" test?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
is the /. crowd so out of topics that you need to take it to the intellectual level of a 50c magazine capable of nothing but celebrity gossip?
I would like to point out that Rowling has not gone after any of the other dozens of books written about the Harry Potter universe; she went after this one because it DID infringe on her copyright.
Why the bad attitude in the submission post?
Someone was trying to release a commercial product whose premise was stealing content from an established work.
If they didn't get hit hard on copyright infringement, they'd get hit hard on trademark infringement, and rightly so.
Like it nor not, J. K. Rowling created the series, and decided to turn it into a commercial enterprise. It's well within her moral and legal rights to make sure a bunch of idiots don't cling to her coattails trying to milk dollars from a popular franchise that they have no legitimate claim to.
It's been a long time.
I heard J.K. Rowling interviewed on NPR about this. She listed many of the books that are derivative works that she is thrilled about. The commonality with acceptable books is that they add original thoughts. The targeted book contained no original thoughts but just indexed material from her books, in many cases copying the content and even indexes from her books verbatim.
The lawsuit was to stop the publication of the book; it had nothing to do with the $6k.
I'm a big tall mofo.
I mean, really cares whether this lexicon is published or not? I am a fan, but Christ, do you mean to tell me that this decision makes a shit's bit of difference to anyone other than the poor fucks who had to pay the $6k? What the fuck has the world become where even Nerds have been tricked into the "bread and circuses" mentality. Makes me want to burn my dork card.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
That if there was more original text, and less direct copying from the books, this would not have infringed.
I guess the judge has actually seen the lexicon. He knows how much is original and how much is copied.
"Mr. Judge, you suck too! Go back to law school and actually learn something about fair use, derivative works, and copyright law!"
Sigh. RTFJ - he DID cite caselaw and Supreme Court rulings regarding fair use, and in his "judgement" (you know, where the title comes from), this work failed to qualify. Something like 80% of the book was copied verbatim from the HP books - that's not a lexicon, it's a Reader's Digest condensed version.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
I wonder, if Rowling had not had a similar product in the works, if the decision to sue would have been different.
Although it appears the fair-use of the subject matter was rightfully in question, I imagine that had Rowling not had plans for a similar "lexicon", then it would have probably been in her best interest to NOT sue, as the chance that it would actually INCREASE sales of her novels, had it been published, could be significant.
Hopefully, I am wrong on that, and Rowling sued as a matter of taking a stand on plagiarism.
I heard the same story on NPR yesterday. Here's a link to the story summary and the full audio with Rowling's explanation:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94407484
I'm a big tall mofo.
am I the only one wondering if the judge isn't under the influence of a well-executed imperius curse? and for that matter how do we know this so-called "judge" isn't Ms. Rowling's agent using polyjuice potion? I think DNA testing is in order.
I smell a rat - an animagous rat!!!
man, I could go on for hours... :D
As stated above, copyright law has nothing to do with whether someone is successful. The fact is that Rowling had given them permission to have their verbatim copied lexicon as long as it was only free on the web. As soon as they tried to change it into a published work the whole thing changed. She made them absolutely clear from the beginning that no permission was extended to copying her work directly and selling it. So, this is one of very few of these cases where I would side with the super rich, mostly because that's fair in this case but also because it's the actual creator of the work who owns the copyright. This is what copyright is for, protect the CREATOR of stuff from freeloaders so that original creators have an incentive to keep on creating. It is usually abused by corporations who have half enslaved a bunch of creators (music business), but in this case the rights reside with the author. And as the judge states, works like this lexicon are usually protected, except it just copies too much directly, therefore it is not protected. Fair cop
Wow, that's a proportionate response. You're a real piece of work, ain't ya?
Seriously, can someone explain why competing reference books rule out fair use, especially given that she admits she hasn't even started on her version, years after his has been done?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Harry Potter lifts material shamelessly from Enders Game, but she seems to have not noticed this..
Orson Scott Card has, but unlike her, he doesn't feel the need to take issue with it.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
And what is wrong with competition? So what if the site competes with Rowling's planned encyclopedia? Copyright is supposed to be about form, not about ideas. You can't copyright an idea. Others should be allowed to compete with Rowling. Otherwise, what incentive does she have to create something of quality? Does she now have a monopoly on anything that has the idea of Harry Potter in it? Does this mean that when someone wrote the Great Gatsby, no one else had the right to write about the characters or mention them by name? What nonsense that others cannot compete with her!!
"J. K. Rowling didn't make enough money on Harry Potter, so she had to make sure that the 'Harry Potter Lexicon' was shut down."
So much for "News for Nerds," huh?
of "Harry Potter and the Lawsuit of the Lexicon".
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Mussolini
I've read both. What was lifted exactly?
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
You both sound as if the highlights of literature to you are the letters in the front of a Penthouse magazine. Anything else is just drivel.
I guess it's typical with the Slashdot crowd to immediately favour the poor, defenseless little guy over the big scary corporation and rich author with their team of lawyers, no matter what the facts are. For those of you who couldn't be bothered reading four pages into the document before sharing your malformed opinions on Slashdot:
Oh, shit! Could this be a case where the intentions of the "big guy" were actually better than the intentions of the "little guy"? It can't be!
A programmer is a machine for turning pizza into code.
How much money J. K. Rowling made or didn't make is irrelevant to the infringement.
If anyone's undeserving of their success it's her. She's been sue happy ever since rising to fame and is misguided enough to believe she's above everyone else including the law.
She held up a plane because she didn't want one of her manuscripts to go in the hold as luggage despite it breaching the airport security carry on rules, she's sued over this, she sued over a newspaper publishing parts of the story of one of the new potter books before release, she's sued ebay for allowing sales of leaked books, she's sued over a Bollywood spin off.
She really is arguably the greediest bitch in existence right now, it's worth pointing out she was the highest earning celebrity on earth and is the richest woman in the UK and yet she still feels the need to sue everything from fans to newspapers to websites.
From a fandom perspective as well as for original creators. The clearest discussion of the ruling comes from a fellow fan.
http://transformativeworks.org/
When someone gets something in the mail that they don't like, is it illegal to "sign it" with an asswipe and send it back, or just improper form?
(pssst, don't pee in his Fruity Pebbles. That really gets him going...)
While the parent was flamboyant and somewhat over the top, I read it more as opinion and/or rant, rather than Troll -1. This is, of course, unless Troll now has a new meaning than what it once had.
I think G. Lucas should sue J.K. Rowling, seeing as how Harry Potter Is blatant plagiarism of Star Wars And several other Fantasy And Sci-Fi works...
Eating disorder?
now see what your court win against such a beloved fan site will do to your fucking profits in future.
then, you can shove each sent of $6k up your butt one by one.
ps : im no harry potter fan, but i know that you should never cross a fan base out of pure, unbridled, bitchy greed.
Just went out the window apparently.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
haven't read the lexicon so I don't know how much of it really is copying, but she's been a bitch about the situation while he's been nice and tried to do the right thing. He tried to work with her, she seemed hopeful for a while and then pulled all support. That was a pretty dick move on her part. I hope that he can edit the lexicon some more and try to publish it again, this time without including the reference works that Rowling's put out and with more of his own words than hers.
because the whores in warner told her that the lexicon would compete with the new encyclopedia they were planning to use for milking more cash.
the same whores who let Riaa cabal loose on legal system.
actually read it, please. It's linked there. The judge relied on VERY fair-use unfriendly Second Circuit case law to come to his conclusion.
While the judge does admit that the author does not have control of these types of works, and the judge states that some types of works should be encouraged, the actual analysis of what would constitute transformation really does make the likelihood of such works being published less likely.
The judge left a pretty darned high threshold for what is considered "substantial" copying, and mentioned things like "fictional facts" and "paraphrasing" used to determine infringement.
In any rate, the ruling is vague enough in its analysis that I'm confident it will act as a bar towards publishing similar works, even when verbatim copying does not occur. I expect publishers and potential authors will be more reluctant to pursue such works in the future.
Sure.
A "Dry Reference" is a tidy work arranged primarily for the purpose of being able to quickly identify items or reach the information you want. Think most of the standard reference works (dictionary, Encyclopedia Brittanica, Star Trek or Star Wars encyclopedias, owners' manuals or service manuals for commercial products, various manuals for operating systems or software languages, journals for various professional organizations).
A "Wet Reference" is a reference work written largely in-universe and intended to be read cover-to-cover for its own reading value. Think of many of the looser reference guides to various fantasy worlds often written either by the author or with direct author involvement, such as the Dragonriders' Guide to Pern or the Silmarillion.
The term "dry", in terms of books, is often a substitute for the word "boring" - not that it necessarily is to all people, but in that a general reader (which is to say, someone without interest in the subject of the reference work) trying to sit down with it is going to have about as much fun as someone who forgot to bring a novel on their plane flight and is now stuck reading the torturously boring in-flight magazine.
society's perception does matter. because it sets the standard of the day for creating laws.
200 years before, slavery was legal. people perceived it as a normal thing. despite it was totally immoral.
230 years ago, aristocracy was the elite in france, with a god given right. it was legal, but it was totally wrong.
now here we are, in a world that has very bad distribution of wealth, and an abusable law system.
and we have greedy whores, greedy bitches, greedy fat cats, whatever you name.
literally in law, that kind of infringement may still be infringement. just like it was illegal to honor the priority aristocrats got, in pre revolution france.
something being law, doesnt mean that that something is right.
Read radical news here
There are fans out there who associate so deeply with their favorite writers that they mistake themselves as "owners" of the work. We see that all-too-often in the fan fiction arena.
Some writers and their publishers will jump all over these people with cease-and-desists. Viacom did that on fan-based Star Trek web sites for a time until CBS took control of the Original Series rights as well as (through their official magazine) lauding notable fan fiction such as the Star Trek: New Voyages episode project.
I'm a contributor on the Battlestar Wiki, which, as that lexicon web site did, serves as an unofficial encyclopedia on all aspects of the three Galactica series. We even have cast and crew visit and answer questions when they have time. It's a nice site. Plenty of equally great sites like it, too.
But the contributors on Battlestar Wiki, and Memory Alpha, and Wookieepedia know very well that we always enjoy what we do so long as we do not profit in any way, don't claim data as our own, or make derivative works (such as what that lexicon does). If any of these were done, the results that occurred for that lexicon would have been the same.
And I don't want to tick off NBC. They're grouchy.
The fact she only sued for a few thousand dollars shows she was out to prove her rights, not to soak the defendant. I'd be surprised if she bothers to collect.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
i wonder what would happen if the bloke took out the verbatim copying?....
kids, and even people need it because they want some SIMPLE stuff that doesnt have to stick with reality and what can be real and imagined to be real in future, to ease up their minds. modern life is too fast paced, too demanding on people. they dont want complex shit, per se.
Read radical news here
I'm reading this blurb like this, "Judges, in a remarkably stupid an uninformed decision, said that JK Rowlings can be a greedy bitch." Wow.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
Let's see:
AKAImBatman gets modded "interesting" for verbally insulting NY City Lawyer, a respected lawyer in intellectual property field.
Moryath gets modded "-1 troll" for calling AKAImBatman the troll he is.
Slashdot's fucked-up mod system at work again. Shame on the downmodders.
If you can read this sig, congratulations, you have your glasses on!
Lars Ulrich?
...she's oked the website to continue, it's not the lexicon she has killed but the Horcrux in the physical book, thus saving Ginny.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This case has been going on for months. The issue was not with the Harry Potter Lexicon, or other fan fiction sites, which she highly endorses on her personal website. The issue was with one of the sites deciding to publish a book of the fan stories for profit, without holding licensing rights. In fact, in the summery itself, it says Warner Bros vs RDR Books. Warner paid huge licensing fees to have exclusive licensing rights to the material, and they were suing to protect those rights.
Remember, fair use is only fair use if you 1) are not profiting and 2) are not affecting the value of the original subject (very badly paraphrased).
Also, JK Rowling / WB was not suing to recover damages, she was suing to prevent the books publication. The judge awarded the money.
I mean seriously here - RAY BECKERMAN is modded down as "flamebait", while AKAImBatmanTroll is getting "interesting" nods?
WTF is wrong with this system? A few minutes ago PP Moryath was at 5,Insightful and now it's "1, flamebait" - and for what? Because he let out salient points that backed up Beckerman's position?
Come on, enough is enough. Time to put a stop to the abuse of Slashdot's moderator system.
If you can read this sig, congratulations, you have your glasses on!
it may not be about monetary damages today, but about precluding competition for a first-party equivalent. I.e. as they said, a planned harry-potter encyclopedia, which will have it's own revenue stream. If an established resource is available, demand and interest in the first party equivalent on launch may be diminished.
It *can* be *more* about money than $6,750 implies.
Overall, it certainly seems within the rights of the Harry Potter IP holders. It doesn't seem *outrageously* out of bounds. It seems like enough of a hard smack to stop it now, and presumably have a gap to die down for a launch of their equivalent.
Though just an injunction may have been less ire-evoking, as the author benefited from their efforts, and merely stopping the effort would have been enough.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
For those of you who missed this the first time, you should really read his take on this whole mess.
$6,750? So that covers what? 20% of her lawyer fees?
Otherwise I'm sure she would have sued for millions, not a paltry 6,750. I'm fairly certain this is about her keeping control over her creation.
The courts AWARDED the minimum statutory balance, but that was the judge's decision.
The Battlestar Wiki and Wookiepedia are technically derivative works. We're pretty much relying on fair use for the legality of the wikis, and those arguments were weakened by this case somewhat.
I dont know whats worse, Harry Potter novels, or the fact that someone would actually waste time making a lexicon devoted to them.
Incidentally and slightly off topic, the really most popular British children's author, Jacqueline Wilson - who writes the books they actually borrow from libraries as well as have adults buy for them - has not made nearly as much money as Rowling, because between hype and solid virtue hype wins every time. Wilson has been involved in an issue thatmay amuse you. In one of her recent books one child calls another a "twat" -I am afraid that in our backward British society some children do occasionally use naughty words. Anyway, the Walmart subsidiary Asda didn't like it, and they had to produce an Asda edition with the word "twit" substituted. A linguistic historian obligingly commented that the word "twat" is itself a euphemism - it means a small cultivated area and occurs in some English town names as "thwaite". But what Asda wants, it gets.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
that people who were formerly poor and got extremely lucky still prove to be the biggest dicks ever.
Ave Molech Setting
The thing is, this ruling, which may be entirely proper in this particular case, has a chilling effect on other similar types of endeavors. I wrote a book I called "The Falco Dictionary" covering the Falco mystery novels. It has a tremendous amount of value-added information not found in the books. I have Google Earth coordinates of every single location mentioned in the books. When Falco mentions Troy, for example, I give you the precise geographical coordinates of the model of the Trojan Horse standing outside the visitor center. You can actually see and recognize it in Google Earth. When Falco says he walks past the Forum in Rome, I show you the building, which is still standing.
I show where the author made a few mistakes, having Falco go through a gate in the Aurelian Wall, for example, that was built several hundred years after when he lived. I talk about historical events, dissect names, both real and imagined, point out allusions, and identify mythological characters. From what I have read of the Potter case my book comes nowhere near that state of infringement and amounts to a critical work. But the author objected on the grounds that she might want to do such a companion piece in the future and if her publisher refused her publication on the grounds there was already something out there, this would amount to loss of income, therefore she would sue.
So, given the Potter decision, my publisher freaked out and withdrew the book. Now it's my loss of income.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
She's becoming increasingly twatty as she gets richer. Between this and the whole Dumbledore thing which either proves she doesn't care about gay rights and will exclude something like that just for the money or she'll make up things after the fact just to draw more attention to her boring characters.
I hope she chokes on a gay Dumbledore figurine....preferably one that depicts him with as a someone with a clown fetish.
>I've never understood these claims about Narnia being religious. I guess the last book in the series is a bit, but most of it is just a story.
I love the Narnia stories, and almost everything else C. S. Lewis wrote, and I think they're a valuable addition to English literature.
But I think you'd be hard-pressed to defend Aslan being tied to a stone and killed in place of someone else's sin, then coming back to life a couple days later and bringing loads of other people back to life for an enormous final battle to overthrow Evil, as 'just a story.' I knew quite well what Lewis was writing about when I read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe when I was seven years old.
The others -- Dawn Treader, Horse and His Boy, in particular -- are pretty easy to write off as just stories. But LWW and The Last Battle, which *were* the first and last books before idiots decided to start reordering the stories in their storyline order, seem to me to be pretty transparent in their re-presentation of Christianity. I don't think that's a bad thing, mind you: the vision Lewis had of how Christianity should be is a good, noble ideal. But it's never struck me or anyone I know as being particularly cryptic in its presentation.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Seriously, I get that there are a lot of fringe copyright zealots here on old \., but an author protecting her solely-created IP from some little fanboy trying to profit off her work and his "doesn't get out much" Potter addiction hardly warrants this kind of posting.
If this item had been posted as a response to an unbiased (yea, I know where I am) news item on the subject, it would have been modded Troll within minutes.
Seems to me that a lot of this depends on what was communicated between Ms Rowling and the lexicon author.
Did the author originally indicate it was a fan-intended/non-profit work?
Did JKR indicate that she was going to be making her own - official - Lexicon to the author?
As it's already been mentioned that JKR was involved in helping with the lexicon, how much communication occured with the author? Seems to me if I was dedicating my time and support to something which was indicated to be free, only to later find that it's going to make into a for-profit venture, I'd be rather pissed off myself. I don't have enough time to read a 65-page transcript to see if the info is in there, but it seems to me that a lot of this might depend on the above.
"The author said she is not sure if she now has 'the will or the heart' to write her own definitive encyclopaedia, the proceeds of which she had intended to donate to charity."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7346093.stm
I'm really tired of this sob-story dribble. Because of this book, which I now stopped, I'm going to tell charity that they're not worth my time. What a **** (insert any derogatory 4-letter word). Defend copyrights, fine, don't turn into some whimpering sob when someone who is a huge fan does all the work for you to publish your own Lexicon.
OH! Let's not forget the truly hypocritcal statement you made in the past.
"The Lexicon is a winner of J.K. Rowling's Fan Site Award. Rowling said:[1]
This is such a great site that I have been known to sneak into an internet café while out writing and check a fact rather than go into a bookshop and buy a copy of Harry Potter (which is embarrassing). A website for the dangerously obsessive; my natural home."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_Lexicon
So you obsessively use someone else's work to help you write your own Lexicon. It may be your original material but his efforts are his own. Prevent him from making money off your material is a good thing, being a lazy coward copying off his work that you have been sluggish about doing yourself hardly warrants any respect.
No sir. The travesty is not that people have been modded up and down for their opinions. Such is the normal course of things. The travesty is that Mr. Beckerman's lapse in grace and judgment was posted by the editors. Had they passed over his submission, no one would have known of his misstep and his reputation would have remained untarnished.
I am utterly saddened by what this story has done to a man that I deeply respected. This story will cause his future judgments to be called into question, which will significantly reduce his ability to communicate news to the Slashdot readership. A blow from which I can only hope he will be able to recover.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Fixed that for you.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Does this exchange seem weird to anyone else? It's like when a flock of Twitter sockpuppets gang up on someone.
NYCL's comments seem, I dunno, different than usual and his interaction with Moryath looks really sockpuppety.
Normally I like NYCL's posts, but this time they sound oddly shrill and off-base.
By the points:
1) I fail to see how JKR is "damaged" by this lexicon, unless it misrepresents her books, which there is no argument that ever did.
2) For JKR to claim that this "discouraged" her from writing her own encyclopedia (and giving all that money to charity, which is supposed to melt our hearts in sympathy for her), appears spurious and said to bolster her case is simply because it is so hard to prove false. One is left to believe that JKR has killed a superior work because she fears she can't compete with a better author here.
3) Despite the large amount of copying that weighed against the lexicon author I find his work transformative rather than mere cut & paste because:
a) A huge amount of original research, organization, and sheer effort was put into its creation.
b) How can you write any lexicon without referring directly to and quoting the original facts in their most original (hence correct) form?
c) This is not intended to, nor would it ever be confused with, being a new, unauthorized HP novel.
4) JKR is a very controlling author. You need only refer to her tightly demanded release dates for each new book and their draconian enforcement of early released copies for no apparent reason more than to bring additional fame to herself and allow her to read a couple chapters to a few children on the first night of official release.
5) How could this have ever been infringement at all when it was never published due to prior restraint shown here? There should have been no statutory damages at all!
To me, when JKR put HP out in the world (and was rewarded more than handsomely for it) it became part of the world at large. It succeeded because we cared about it so much. To then say that only JKR can dictate who is allowed to comment on it afterwards defys logic, humanity, and reason.
That JKR found a judge to agree with her is equally sad.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You've bought into the myth (drunk the Kool Aid) that JKR was poor. While she may have been personally at the moment she sat at that Edinburgh coffee shop with her young child and started HP1, her family isn't and she was never in any danger of starving or being homeless. But then that spoils a great story now, doesn't it?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
There's a story about Washington D.C. that if you want a friend when you go there to serve in government, bring a dog.
The amended version is that you need to bring 2 dogs, since one of them will surely turn on you.
JKR may be about to find out how quickly fans can turn on you as well. If so, it will be a great life lesson for her.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
A) "Bias" is the wrong thing to talk about. Which part of it wasn't factual? You said it "distorts the facts" but which facts does it distort?
B) You call her wealth irrelevant. This proves your ignorance. Please read the four-factor copyright test for fair use. How it affects the market for works is one of the factors. But you wouldn't know that, not being a lawyer, would you?
C) Some of us do RTFA. That's how we know about things like the four-factor test.
D) KDawson is the editor, but NYCL is the submitter. You're talking to him, but you don't seem to even realize that NYCL wrote the phrase you're complaining about. There's a firehose link to the unedited summary. Read it sometime?
E) The partisanship of a source is irrelevant; their accuracy is relevant. You can't claim that someone is wrong merely because they're a "liberal" or "conservative" or a "lawyer" or whatever other label you might wish to use. You have to rebut facts with facts.
You have ignored all the facts. You have shown no evidence of having read the decision. You merely pronounced NYCL as "biased" because you did not understand his reasoning. But you made no attempt to understand it whatsoever.
Please, before you go off about "bias" whenever something doesn't agree with you, examine the facts. It's true that cherry picking facts can be misleading, but then it's up to you to supply the missing facts. You can't just say "it's biased" and wash your hands of the matter.
So please, do you have any facts at all? I have already rebutted your claim that wealth is irrelevant; the only claim in your entire post. Why don't you tell us why you still think it's meaningless while taking the four-factor copyright test into account?
Of course, you'd have to read the decision and find out what that is, first...
It's obvious this guy is (was) her #1 fan in the world. If she would have worked with him, the book itself my have been better for ALL Harry Potter fans.
I do realize she is under not obligation to do so. But she had to see how much passion he had for her stories. It probably would have been so cool for the guy if the two worked together.
Perhaps that was his dream.
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
Actually, there is no way to give up your copyright, either. At least, no easy way. That's why public domain licenses exist. You still own the copyright, but license it with no strings attached.
This is simply not true (at least in the U.S.). Please do not spread this misinformation.
First, there is an easy way to renounce your copyright and place a work in the public domain. You simply declare that that work is in the public domain; e.g., by a statement saying "This work is in the public domain."
But don't just take my word for it:
It is well settled that rights gained under the Copyright Act may be abandoned. But abandonment of a right must be manifested by some overt act indicating an intention to abandon that right. See Hampton v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 279 F.2d 100, 104 (9th Cir. 1960). Micro-Star v. Formgen Inc., 154 F.3d 1107 (9th Cir. 1998).
FYI, that is from Judge Kozinski's decision, not just some random judge.
The reason people claim it's impossible to do this is because they are afraid that someone, having placed something in the public domain, might come back and claim copyright to it, and that a court might uphold it. That may very well be an issue, but it certainly doesn't prevent you from renouncing your copyright - it simply means that some people might still refrain from using it.
Secondly, there's no such thing as a "public domain license." The very idea of the public domain means that the work is free for anyone to use in any way, without any license. You're obviously referring to copyright licenses like Creative Commons, which seek to provide an expansive, non-exclusive license along with a work. In these cases, you do still retain copyright, but this is not the same thing as the public domain.
For more information, visit http://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
BITCH!!!
it'd be nice if there were slightly higher standards here.
you must be new here
On one hand I respect NewYorkCountryLawyer because he's smart and regularly submits interesting news stories. But now jlarocco has made a RTFA reference *and* bemoaned the quality of a /. news submission!
*unplugs com
Quack, quack.
Whats going on with our legal system?
How is this not fair use?
Too many biased idiot judges in my opinion.
What sham of a trial.
I used to work for a large company where we used to get a lecture every year from the company's intellectual property lawyer. The point I remember is this. If you want to protect a copyright, you have to protect it everywhere. If Rowling wants to protect against "Gary Gotter and the Goblet of Glaze", then she has to protect it against unauthorized encyclopedias as well, no matter how innocuous or well intentioned. This provision invariably makes the big guy look bad.
True, but it would be foolish to want it any other way. If you let someone copy your work, and even take credit for it, there is no incentive to produce the work at all.
Let's take a look at how software is developed. Probably at least 96% of code written is proprietary. In other words, the authors expect to get money and want to earn a living by making it. The rest is open source. But in open source, the vast majority of the leaders (and aspiring leaders) all have huge egos. They may or may not be paid, and may or may not want money, but the vast majority are motivated by something: the desire for recognition. If you remove copyright, anyone can take something and put their name on it and sell it, effectively depriving BOTH groups of the reason they create software.
That argument doesn't really work. When someone like Rowling writes a book for society, there is a trade. We say, "We'll give you money and we won't let anyone else copy and sell your book", and she says, "Ok, in exchange I'll write a cool book for you." You say we are under no obligation to give her the copyright, which is true, but it is also true that she is under no obligation to write a book for you. That's the way any trade or negotiation works. Both sides come to agreeable terms and agree to act on them. If we try to take away one or both of those terms from her, would she still be willing to write the book? Maybe, maybe not... but most likely not, because she had kids she had to feed and clothe, and if you can't make money on books because everyone copies them, then it isn't worth it to try to write one. The time would be better spent getting a second job that actually pays.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
Actually, she had a problem with it because she was writing her own. While it's true that it uses a lot of her material (hence the statutory minimum for damages), she praised the book in the past. But that was before she wrote her own.
J. K. Rowling didn't make enough money on Harry Potter, so she had to make sure that the 'Harry Potter Lexicon' was shut down.
Since when does the amount of money made on any work have even the least bit to do with whether or not someone can plagiarize such work? Infringement is infringement no matter how much the creator has made. This judgment was just, fair and well deserved.
I am Jack's smirking revenge.
a nice thing for her to do.
I know that doesn't count much to some, but it matters to me.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
"but I get the impression that these books mean much more to her than as something"
I doubt it. She made the last book unreadable. I'd say she hates them at this point.
Normally I'd be disagreeing with Rowling, but the case clearly comes down to how much of the book was verbatim. The reason that matters is that if anyone is allowed to take a great deal of original text and add very little to it, reselling it, then yes, that is a violation of her rights. In our system, you have to protect those rights by suing in all instances such cases arise.
On NPR the other day Rowling made this argument cogently, and pointed out there are countless other works she has not intervened on - for precisely the reason that those works add a great deal to her original material.
The Lexicon may be a work of love - and if the A Canticle for Lebowitz taught me anything, it's that works of love are awesome things - but the expression of that love is important. It can't be mere copying, not if you're planning to sell it. Is there any reason to believe the judge didn't rule fairly on that matter?
[Ego]out
The end of the Dawn Treader is the most blatant example of Aslan as Jesus, but it was kind of tacked on to the end. I did like Eustace's story as another example of redemption.
Mods, pay attention!
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
The opinion is actually pretty mild, and is about as friendly to the defendant as it could possibly be, without changing the ultimate ruling. As the court says, "[w]hile the Lexicon, in its current state, is not a fair use of the Harry Potter works,
reference works that share the Lexicon's purpose of aiding readers of literature generally should be encouraged rather than stifled."
Rowling does not have a right to prevent the publication of third party reference works such as this. It doesn't matter that her work is creative, and it doesn't matter that she is considering writing her own. But this particular reference work happens to cross the line. As the court implies, if the Lexicon was whipped into shape, pursuant to the flaws identified in the opinion, it very likely could ultimately be published.
The two mistakes made by the author were 1) he quoted too much; 2) he didn't make the quotes clear enough, and he didn't cite them well enough. The first point actually strikes me as a little funny, since a good legal brief or law review article usually is little more than direct quotations artfully arranged to form arguments. The audiences for those works are not interested in what a lawyer might think about the law, they're interested in what a lawyer can show about the law. Original writing is not all that valued. Anyway, the problem was essentially that when Rowling would describe something with flowery language, the lexicon author would not paraphrase, or write more plainly and directly. Instead he'd quote directly. That's okay to a degree, but there was really just way too much of this going on.
The other mistake was that the quotes were not always printed as such (e.g. no quotation marks) and usually lacked citations. Where citations were present, they were quite vague, pointing merely to a chapter, rather than to a particular page of the first edition in which they appeared, or some such. This isn't strictly required by copyright, mind you. Plagiarism is not the same thing as copyright infringement -- some acts of plagiarism are legal, some acts of infringement are not plagiarism, and sometimes a particular act is both. The Lexicon authors claimed that their work was a serious reference work (not a work of literary criticism; that's different), and therefore was protected by fair use. That's true, being that sort of work would tend to indicate fairness. However, the lack of proper quotes and cites made them a really lousy reference work, and undercut their argument significantly. Requiring competence for a use to be fair seems a rather novel theory, but it's not wholly unreasonable, at least where measuring it wouldn't be overly subjective (e.g. saying that a parody isn't fair merely because the judge didn't think it was funny).
Anyway, I disagree with others that this ruling could chill other guide authors. I think it is actually a lot friendlier to them than, say, the Castle Rock case was. The guide at bar happens to make a poor showing, but it would be pretty easy to work around the limits the court suggests. I would quite like to see the author of the Lexicon revise his work substantially, probably improving it in the process, and coming back to get the injunction lifted so that the second edition could be printed.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
She encouraged him! ...(*) ] Bros. v. RDR Books, claimed.
The 'award' was desiroy.
GEDDIT?
The judge did.
LOL!
A JOKE - CONsidering the 'damages' she/Warner [MAAFFIIAA
Oh, I forgot, we are in THE 'FAMILY' (*) DIVISION OF COMMERCIAL' [divorce?] COURT(S)' NOW.
LOL and GAGG!
MOD ME WAY DOWN.
YOU NEVER MOD ME ANYWAY!
RR
Ok, I'm not a Harry Potter fan, didn't read a single book, and while the movies are entertaining, I've never been to the theater to see them.. I wait until I can rent the DVD and watch it at my leisure.
Still, there is a large following, for sure, I have to admit.
She was in the right to defend her copyrighted material. Yes, for sure, too bad for those who created a lexicon without her consent.
Had these people (RDR Books) approached her and asked for her permission, she could have refused or not, or might have asked for a share in the proceeds, but that, is the nature of business and again, the Harry Potter franchise, is her work and she is the rightful owner. They did all this work, and you know, in a way, they deserve to lose, it is arrogance to appropriate yourself of someone's hard work and make a profit on your own, without even their consent.
Imagine if someone decided to do a "un-authorized" lexicon to Disney Characters?
Same difference.
Without Disney's permission, no way they could pull it off legally.
I'm surprised it took 68 pages of PDF for her to even have to explain herself.
She is the rightful owner of the Harry Potter franchises and the characters associated with it.
Vander Ark, may have been praised by Rowling for his website, but, even he knew that he wasn't allowed to publish any content in print.
Vander Ark, indeed, may have seen himself as the ideal candidate for editing the encyclopedia that Rowling was going to write, but again, it's not his choice. As passionate as he may be and as much of an expert as he can be in the world of Harry Potter, Rowling is the owner, and he forgot his place.
She owns Harry Potter.
That is all that is required to start and to finish with in this case.
Charity begins at home. We all know how she struggled at the beginning and was, pretty much penniless. So, Harry Potter, took her from poverty to fame. We could judge her as being greedy, or, well, you know, had she not had the inspiration and the tenacity, even when broke, to create this character and this world of fantasy, she would still be broke and nobody would care.
It's a harsh world. I understand why she's defending her property and ownership of this character. She worked hard for it.
...to ensure that your work is quickly forgotten is to write crap. The second easiest way is to attack your fans like this.
let me spell it out for you:
Interesting = the new funny
Funny = deprecated unless you want someone to lose karma
troll = the new interesting
all clear now ?
MP3 Search Engine
To wish for someones child to be killed is one of the most crude things I've ever come across on the net. I suddenly realized what the 'foe' setting is for.
You really are beyond the pale. And if you only forgot to check that 'post anonymously' thingy then thank you for outing yourself. Asshole.
MP3 Search Engine
.
What Disney copyrights is its own interpretation of the story:
Rogers & Hammerstein didn't need Disney's permission to produce their own Cinderella. - and neither do you.
.
In a motion for summary judgment, the court looks at the law and the agreed-upon facts in the light most favorable to the opponent of the motion.
When the deck is stacked your favor and you still hold the losing hand, it is time to cash in what remains of your chips and go home.
That's a good point. They were violating the license agreement. The information wasn't under the GPL after all.
But this raises another question in my mind: Why didn't she just hire them to provide the content to her "Official Harry Potter Encyclopedia"? They've already done a lot of the work. Just download it to a local computer, update/modify it as needed, and print it.
Then you make the existing website the "Official Harry Potter Encyclopedia" website, with the "Blessed by J.K. Rowling" sticker prominently on the front.
The website owners win because they get some financial reward for their work, and J.K. Rowling (and the publisher) win because a lot of the work of consolidating the info has been completed.
But there I go, being all logical again.
I remember reading some of her testimony when the case started, and while I agree with her copyright claim, some of her statements were right off the wall.
Claims of emotional distress, and mental anguish, being unable to sleep.
I mean really, is it that hard to sleep on piles of cash?
I understand that just because she is rich does not mean she has to lose control of her work, but let's put things into perspective.
I just really hate over-exaggeration.
"I'm a humble person really,
I'm actually much greater than I think I am"
If you read the Judges actual ruling, it shows that he considered all of those factors. Not only that, he indicated that the defendant had good faith reasons to believe he was acting under fair use. The only reason that the judge ruled against the lexicon was that there was an excessive amount of direct copying - the level of quoting & paraphrasing passages exceeded the norm for this type of work.
In Cliff Notes entire pages are condensed into a single paragraph with a few interspersed direct quotes that are important. The lexicon included a substantial number of entries where individual paragraphs were either directly copied or rewritten rather than new paragraphs synthesized.
In this particular instance, I don't believe this is a mis-application of copyright law. What I'm not sure of is how to handle it from here. In accordance with the judge's ruling, rewriting passages in the lexicon so it conforms more closely to similar works would remove it from it's infringing status. In that case, does he have to go back to court to get a pre-emptive judgment that it is non-infringing before publishing it?
How much of the new work is copied material is not a factor for fair use analysis, and NYCL's fear that this case will be widely read and cause misunderstandings in copyright law is already coming to fruition as evidenced by your statement.
The only similar fair use factor is the amount of the original work was placed into the new work. In this case, it's something along the lines of one percent.
You've bought into the myth (drunk the Kool Aid) that JKR was poor. While she may have been personally at the moment she sat at that Edinburgh coffee shop with her young child and started HP1, her family isn't and she was never in any danger of starving or being homeless. But then that spoils a great story now, doesn't it?
It was on Robot Chicken, it must be true!
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?