p2pnet - rss feed: Harry Potter goes to court: Rowling case
p2pnet news | Freedom:- The Stanford Law School’s Fair Use Project is acting for RDR Books in the copyright lawsuit lodged by Harry Potter author JK Rowling and Warner Bros against a small online publisher.
“The Harry Potter Lexicon - This is such a great site that I have been known to sneak into an internet café while out writing and check a fact rather than go into a bookshop and buy a copy of Harry Potter (which is embarrassing). A website for the dangerously obsessive; my natural home.”
The quote came on the official JK Rowling site, p2pnet posted in February.
And that was strange, we noted, because billionairess Rowling said she’d feel ‘exploited’ if the online Harry Potter Lexicon, an unofficial reference guide to the Potter series, is published as a book.
Now a federal court in New York will today hear opening arguments that independent book publisher Steve Vander Ark (right) has the right to publish his Lexicon, says Stanford.
This decision, “could have a far-reaching impact on the literary landscape, and beyond, to discussions of any fictional work in any medium,” says professor says Lawrence Lessig, founder and director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society and the C. Wendell and Edith M. Carlsmith professor of law, who’s co-counsel on the case.
“It’s essential for copyright law to leave room for others to build on creative works. That’s the point of fair use.”
‘Actually a big fan …’
But Rowling, “is eager to tell a judge this week that one of her biggest fans is in fantasyland if he believes a ‘Harry Potter’ encyclopedia he plans to publish does not violate her copyrights,” says the Associated Press, going on:
“The showdown between Rowling and Steven Vander Ark is scheduled to last most of the week in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
“Rowling is scheduled to testify Monday in a trial that is sure to generate huge interest among Harry Potter fans and the public, says AP.
“Her lawyer has arranged with the judge to have a private security guard for Rowling in the courtroom and for the author to spend breaks in the seclusion of a jury room - away from any die-hard Potter fans in attendance.”
Rowling is, “actually a big fan of the Harry Potter Lexicon Web site that Vander Ark runs,” the stor states, going on, “But she draws the line when it comes to publishing the book and charging $24.95. She also says it fails to include any of the commentary and discussion that enrich the Web site and calls it “nothing more than a rearrangement” of her own material.
Rowling lawyer Dan Shallman says Rowling, “feels like her words were stolen.”
‘ … asserting a startling claim …’
Attorneys from the Fair Use Project of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, along with co-counsel, will argue RDR Books has the right to publish the Lexicon under the fair use doctrine.
“The doctrine safeguards the use of copyrighted material so long as it is used transformatively and does not damage the market value of the original work,” it says.
“J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. are asserting a startling claim,” says said Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project and counsel on the case. “The right to create literary reference guides like the Lexicon has remained nearly unquestioned for hundreds of years. The Lexicon is a valuable resource that helps people better understand and enjoy the Harry Potter books.”
And that’s exactly what copyright law should encourage, not suppress, Falzone states.
He and Fair Use Project associate director Julie Ahrens join RDR’s lead trial counsel David S. Hammer, a former federal prosecutor, and RDR counsel Lizbeth Hasse, founding partner of the San Francisco-based Creative Industry Law Group.
“All of the material that’s going to be published in the Lexicon has been available on the Harry Potter Lexicon website for a long time without objection from Ms. Rowling or anyone else,” says Hammer.
“To suggest that the Lexicon might affect the market for a companion guide Ms. Rowling plans to publish some day, perhaps years from now, is inconceivable given her stature and reputation.”
Posted Vander Ark in February >>>
Last night I finished entering Quidditch Through the Ages into the Portkey database. That’s the last of the books to be entered, so now the Portkey covers all seven novels and the two Schoolbooks, as well as all the Famous Wizard cards. Surprisingly, there was actually an earthquake just a few moments after I entered the last part of the book into the Portkey. Kind of made it feel like a momentous occasion.
The Daily Prophet newsletters are next. The first issue is partly entered already. I think I’ll do some non-Portkey work on the Reader’s Guides first, though. There are a lot of chapters that have no commentary yet. Just remember, Reader’s Guide commentary automatically appears in the Portkey entries for the passages from the books, just another example of how the Portkey pulls everything in the Lexicon together in one easy-to-use research tool.
Harry Potter ‘rip off’
There are currently L’Encyclopédie Harry Potter (in French) and El Diccionario de los Magos (en Español) and “coming soon,” Russian, Chinese, Dutch, Hebrew, Italian, Arabic, Portuguese, and Hungarian versions of the Lexicon, promises Vander Ark.
But not in book form, declare Rowling and Warner.
“I believe that RDR’s book constitutes a Harry Potter ‘rip off’ of the type I have spent years trying to prevent, and that both I, as the creator of this world, and fans of Harry Potter, would be exploited by its publication,” Reuters has her saying.
RDR Books had planned to release the Lexicon in the United States on November 28, 2007.
The 400-page book is a print counterpart to the fan-created website, the Harry Potter Lexicon, which includes information on the series’ characters, places, animals, magic spells, and potions along with atlases, timelines, and analyses of magical theory.
The site has an estimated 25 million annual visitors and content is free.
“The importance of this case goes beyond the world of Harry Potter and its fans,” says the Stanford Project.:
The case, Warner Bros. Entertainment In. et al v RDR Books et al, is being heard by Judge Patterson at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in New York.
Fair Use Project - Stanford Law School’s Fair Use Project Defends RDR Books Against Copyright Lawsuit Brought by J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros, April 14, 2008
p2pnet - JK Rowling vs The Harry Potter Lexicon, February 29, 2008
Associated Press - Harry Potter Author Goes to Court, April 14, 2008
Reuters - J.K. Rowling says rival Potter book would exploit her, February 28, 2008
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April 14th, 2008 at 6:24 am
If she wins, wouldn’t that make all the “technical manuals” for science fiction franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek, illegal? Also, what about guidebooks for computer software?
April 14th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Star Trek tech manuals are written by the writers of Star Trek, not unknown 3rd parties.
This is a case of a person profiting from her ideas and publishings. I think she has a clear case. An innocuous website containing information is not the same as an ambitious plan to leech profit from the ideas and creations of a completely different author, by beating them to the draw, and publishing a book that should (in all fairness) be written by the original author.
She should fairly get dibs on this publishing deal, and stand to profit from it.
April 14th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
@ Stray Mongrel once again I am forced to agree with you on this one, if it was just the matter of a website making no money off of her works then there wouldn’t be a problem at all, but once someone starts charging money for it, it becomes a whole other issue. This is not at all the same as claiming that people sharing movies, music, and software are criminals (which is wrong because they aren’t making any money off of it), but more similar to the issue of people actually selling the publisher’s works as their own (for instance bootleggers selling fansubs to anime followers).
April 14th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Actually, the original Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual was written and illustrated by fan of the show. While it did have Roddenberry’s blessing, that only happened after he had already begun working on the illustrations. If he’d tried that in today’s world, he’d never have been allowed to publish it. Incidentally, that book started the whole idea of reference books for fictional universes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_Trek_Star_Fleet_Technical_Manual
April 14th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
@Rekrul
Not likely. They got permission for publishing the Star Trek stuff *for profit*. The for profit part is very important.
“While it did have Roddenberry’s blessing, that only happened after he had already begun working on the illustrations.”…
You said it yourself. This book did not have her blessing.
That’s the part the Lexicon people didn’t do. They didn’t get permission to go to print and sell Harry Potter. This is a betrayal to JK and I don’t blame her. She was fine with the lexicon because it was free info, that any fan with a computer could access, and they reached out to her. She felt good about that. It sat right with her. She said it on the news in front of the TV cameras.
The philosophical and ethical difference in this book version of the lexicon vs. the original web site should be pretty stark. There’s a big difference in intent. I am a creative person myself. I’ll do anything for anyone. I’d happily let others use my work for their songs, but there’d be a royalty agreement, up front that we agreed on.
This move by them is also extremely disrespectful(not to mention illegal). I’d be pissed off too, especially because of the way they did it.
She’s doing the only thing she can do since she has some self respect. The lexicon people are being downright slimy and evil.
If a musician samples from someone elses record and makes it into a new song, they have to do the same thing, or they get sued, even if it’s just a snare drum. This lexicon book is way more extensive. It’s akin to producing a documentary about Madonna, including every Madonna song ever released, and selling it without getting permission from the people that own the publishing rights. Madonna would be livid and in court.
If it was on public television, not produced for profit, and permission was asked, maybe not.
If they’d have:
A. Asked her and her publisher for permission
B. Gotten the proper agreements done
C. Offered input, editing and co-authorship (or whatever she asked for) privileges to her
There would be no problem. This agreement would most likely also result in the wiki being bought by WB so he’d potentially profit from it in addition to the book. This guy wasn’t in bed with the owners of Harry Potter so there’s a problem. They are, like she said, exploiting Harry Potter for monetary gain now and that’s game changing.
If they don’t ask her first and offer a big chunk of it to her, that’s big trouble. It should be if it’s not.
I fully support JK Rowling in this and hope she is successful with the litigation. Harry Potter belongs to her and her fans, not one fan with a website about Harry Potter.
-Viz
April 15th, 2008 at 8:33 am
You all make it sound like he’s rewriting the stories. He’s not. He’s writing a reference book. Try visiting a library sometime and you’ll find dozens of examples.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:38 am
“That’s the part the Lexicon people didn’t do. They didn’t get permission to go to print and sell Harry Potter.”
Which she most likely wouldn’t have given, considering how she keeps insisting that she’s going to write her own one day.
“There would be no problem. This agreement would most likely also result in the wiki being bought by WB so he’d potentially profit from it in addition to the book.”
I’ve seen what happens when a fan project is bought by a large company. They can never resist adding lots of flash (both in the figurative and literal senses) to it, changing everything around and generally destroying everything that made it popular in the first place.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:29 am
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