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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.
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.
As evidenced by the thousands of Harry Potter supplement books that are already on the market, all this judge has done is slapped down a lazy, plagiarizing author.
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
You mean selected snippets of the Lexicon were read in order to trick the judge into believing that that was all there was. A clear logical fallacy, but common tactic in cases like this.
Did the defense not have a chance to demonstrate the unique descriptions and commentary above and beyond the information presented in the source material?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Of which the defense simply allowed without showing the substantive quantity of original text following the lifted text? Please. If any lawyer is that incompetent, he deserves to lose. Otherwise, for what purpose does legal defense exist?
I will reiterate: It is up to the author to decide how their work is used. Given that there was no charge to the readers of the site, and that web advertising rarely does more than defray operating costs, I can see how she would have given it a nod as an excellent fan reference.
That still conveys ZERO legal right to publish a work of plagiarism for profit. Only Rowling can make that decision. Which (if you read the decision) she attempted to convey in correspondence with the author and publisher. Correspondence that they chose to disregard.
You appear to think that one cannot plagiarize and yet be guilty of poor research at the same time. Allow me to disabuse you of that notion.
Let's say we have original text that looks like this: "Harry Potter's wand is a 14 inch long, magical instrument that is capable of some very powerful spells indeed! Yet Harry knows that its power is strong and that he should only use it only in dire situations."
Now let's create text that both plagiarizes and adds unsubstantiated claims to the text: "Harry Potter's wand is a 14 inch long, magical piece of wood that is capable of powerful hexes. Harry is a pacifist and thus feels that the power is strong and that he should only use it only in dire situations."
With those very simple changes, we have managed to achieve "getting it wrong" without adding sufficient research to be considered either for fair use or as an original work.
See, that is opinion. The facts presented in the case disagree with your opinion. Until someone demonstrates facts that are contrary to the judge's findings, then I'm afraid you have no leg to stand on.
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As a personal note, I'd like to add that I have no stake in wanting Rowling to win or lose this case. I have been avoiding the Harry Potter series since its inception and am entirely turned off by its premise. My only interest in this situation is the matter of law and justice. The decision, while an obviously difficult one for the judge, appears to be correct according to everything I have seen about the case to date. Until someone proves otherwise, NewYorkCountryLawyer's post is reactionary and defamatory.
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For not having read it you sure seem to know an awful lot about it and the authors intentions