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.

Comments

Hold your horses!

[AKAImBatman]

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.

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:

Issuing an injunction in this case both benefits and harms the public interest. While 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. As the Supreme Court suggested in Campbell, "[b]ecause the fair use enquiry often requires close questions of judgment as to the extent of permissible borrowing" in cases involving transformative uses, granting an injunction does not always serve the goals of copyright law, when the secondary use, though edifying in some way, has been found to surpass the bounds of fair use. Campbell, 510 U.S. at 578 n.10. On the other hand, to serve the public interest, copyright law must "prevent[] the misappropriation of the skills, creative energies, and resources which are invested in the protected work." Apple Computer, 714 F.2d at 1255. Ultimately, because the Lexicon appropriates too much of Rowling's creative work for its purposes as a reference guide, a permanent injunction must issue to prevent the possible proliferation of works that do the same25 and thus deplete the incentive for original authors to create new
works.

Re:Hold your horses!

[morgan_greywolf]

Bingo. Coppying excerpts for purposes of ccommentary and criticism of a work is generally an acceptable practice that is considered fair use. Compiling a bunch of excerpts and publishing them as a lexicon without adding anything original and of value is a clear case of infringement.

Re:What does her wealth have to do with it?

[sammy baby]

Not only that, but Ms. Rowling explicitly said that she had no objection if the Lexicon continues to be published for free on the web.

It's really, really hard for me to get worked up over this.

Re:What does her wealth have to do with it?

[morgan_greywolf]

You're confusing 'standing to sue' with 'losing a trademark'.

In the U.S. (and probably in the U.K., too), if you become financially damaged in a given situation, and you knowingly allowed that situation to occur, you lose your standing to sue by failing to mitigate your own damages. This is called the 'doctrine of laches' and is a form of estoppel.