JKR v. HP Lexicon

In the past week, JK Rowling has been in court, suing the Harry Potter Lexicon's attempt to turn their website into a book.

Summarily :

JK's argument is that the printing of a HP Lexicon book would take her copyrighted material without adding much of anything original. She is distressed that this matter has taken its toll on her creative facilities this past month, and, of course, says that authors have a right to protect their work against plagarism.

Lexicon's argument is that many other fantasy books have "guides" printed to help readers understand the more in-depth themes of their corresponding books.

After three days in court, the judge ruled that the parties ought to try to come to a settlement, citing the "Fair Use" law, which dictates the amount of copyrighted work another artist can use in their own work. It's predicted that the parties will take a long time to come to a settlement, and that JK might try to take her case the Supreme Court.

For complete details, including statements from both sides, visit Mugglenet.com and browse through their news.

What a horrible ****.

I've been laughing at the people going on about how JKR is a horrible mean b!tch over this when it's clear that they don't know the specifics.

She didn't have a problem with the HP Lexicon online, but when they wanted to publish it, she said no. They went and did so anyway despite receiving cease and desist letters from JKR's lawyers. And the Lexicon? It has next to no original content - I saw a chart a week ago that showed the word counts from the Lexicon and something like 91% of it was straight from the Harry Potter books, aka JKR's words. Nothing was credited to JKR, either. And on top of THAT - JKR was planning to write her own HP encyclopedia and sales from that would go to charity. The Lexicon being published would hurt that a lot.

So between the copyright infringement, plagiarism, ignoring the cease and desist, and profiting off of someone else's copyright while causing them to lose out...yeah. People who say JKR is being unreasonable about this are morons who need to get a clue about what actually happened.

....To be fair, such reference works have been published in the past - of course, they almost always have the express permission and consent of the author for their publication.

Also, HPL has brought up somewhat convincing evidence in the past which makes it seem as though the WB production of the HP-films actually plagiarized information taken from their website.

There is a full transcript from the trial portion of this case now available on Mugglenet.

I agree that the author's permission should be given when something like this is to be made about certain books. But then, I've been confused about people who are able to write very in-depth Lord of the Rings guides. Perhaps because it's sixty years past the date of publication?

This also brings to mind books like "Wicked" which is, essentially, fanfiction. Also, authors can have their say on whether or not they even want fanfiction published (on fanfiction.net, they have a list of authors that you can be sued for writing fanfiction on, including Anne Rice.)

I dunno, it all seems really hairy (no pun intended) to me. It'll be interesting to see if the two parties can come to a settlement. It certainly puts the Lexicon maker into the victim's position, and JK into the "big bad comglomerate" position, but I think that nothing could be further from the truth. When someone spends almost two decades of their lives on something, I think they certainly have the rights to protect it.

Both sides have good points. I don't see the harm in Lexicon making their own encyclopedia. Alas, when you look at what Rowling wants to do, she wants to donate the profits to charity, and what will Lexicon use their profits for?

Its too legal yet, and legality is the issue at stake here. It has nothing to do with the good intentions and JK tryies to portray her self as very vulnerbale and a "saint" in the same time. She should allow the Lexicon and then publish in the same time her own, and thus show who's better. No one will go VDR lexicon (Legaly speaking the Lexicon is right)

(Although I have used it quite often as reference, the website is very much ok and a lot of work has been done by who ever updates the website

Originally posted by siriuswriter
There is a full transcript from the trial portion of this case now available on Mugglenet.

I agree that the author's permission should be given when something like this is to be made about certain books. But then, I've been confused about people who are able to write very in-depth Lord of the Rings guides. Perhaps because it's sixty years past the date of publication?

This also brings to mind books like "Wicked" which is, essentially, fanfiction. Also, authors can have their say on whether or not they even want fanfiction published (on fanfiction.net, they have a list of authors that you can be sued for writing fanfiction on, including Anne Rice.)

I dunno, it all seems really hairy (no pun intended) to me. It'll be interesting to see if the two parties can come to a settlement. It certainly puts the Lexicon maker into the victim's position, and JK into the "big bad comglomerate" position, but I think that nothing could be further from the truth. When someone spends almost two decades of their lives on something, I think they certainly have the rights to protect it.

As far as I'm aware, the more reputable and better written guides (of which I have one) have the express permission of the Tolkien Estate.