J.K. Rowling VS. Potter Lexicon

[Tripe]

Ok, not the biggest fan of J.K. Rowling (I just don't like her stuff, not telling anyone what they should and should not read) but seriously she has every right to sue this little bugger.

I don't care how successful Rowling's books have been they're still her intellectual property and some little berk can't come along and put out a book about it and simply make money of her intellectual property. This goes way beyond fair use.

[bettertomorrowamy]

[Tripe]

See though admiring what your nerdy fan does doesn't give them the nod that you owe them anything.

Making a website that I presume is free to look at is one thing, turning it into a book published for your, the nerdy fan's, profit is stealing.

[Junkyard]

Kinda an idiot there.

Helpful hints, buddy:
1: Ask permission BEFORE you quit your job to pursue that which you should have asked permission for.
2: There's a reason there aren't a crapload of books based on fan sites.
3: Try to be less of a raging, all consumed fanboy.
4: Especially of something like a children's book.

However, for the sake of good publicity and maybe a hint of humanity, maybe they should try to come to some kind of publishing agreement, instead of suing the pants off of some hapless idiot.

[anais.jude]

It's not like J.K. actually needs the effing money now is it? No one is going to assume that nerd boy wrote these things, but he did do the work of collecting them.
i am more pissed off that people want to seel potter fans more crap! Why don't they just take my firstborn?

[Tripe]

"She can afford it" is a fallacious argument. It doesn't matter how successful a product is, the creator of it retains their rights to it. I can waltz along and make a film featuring clips from Star Wars and expect Lucas to leave me be.

But you're right a second irksome thing about this is it's yet more marketing.

[mrbasehart]

It seems a little idiotic of the guy not to realize what kind of minefield he was walking into with this book - as well as the publishers, shouldn't they know something a little about this? - but it's hard to knock his devotion to Harry Potter (however misguided).  I don't know why the two sides can't come together to reach some sort of agreement that favours both.  Perhaps the book being released by Warner Bros?

[Tripe]

And she has every right to do so.

I think her work is terribly derivative but since nobody is calling her on it then she still retains the rights to her intellectual property.

[Fortis]

So does anyone know about this? This is the lawsuit Rowling and Warner Bros. filed against the librarian Steve Vander Ark, for his fanmade Harry Potter encyclopedia. Apparently this encyclopedia is way indepth, giving annotations and such to all of Rowling's work.

Personally I think Rowling and WB are full of crap for filing a lawsuit against this guy. Especially when Rowling has been quoted in saying that she used the encyclopedia for continuity purposes while writing her final books, and now she is saying that it is a lazy encyclopedia and wouldn't have the quality that she could give out. What about all the other Harry Potter books that aren't by her? All those, Harry Potter essay books. And Comparing and Contrasting Harry Potter to Tolkien crap. None of these people are getting sued. They are suing this poor guy because Rowling is a greedy witch in my opinion.

How many of you have encyclopedia's for Star Trek, and Star Wars, and all other kinds of video games and TV shows imaginable. Well according to Rowling and WB's case, all of those books are infringing the copyright of the author.

I don't know about you guys, but I predict the judge dismissing the case and Rowling having to pay off this Vander Ark guy.

So what do you guys think about this, is there a case here? Would his book sales infringe on hers at all if she were to come out with her own Harry Potter encyclopedia? This is a lot of bull in my opinion...what do you think?


What makes me kinda sad is I heard this Steve Vander Ark cried in court or something because he loved what J.K. Rowling did for writing his favorite books and now she is suing him. Poor guy, I guess I would cry too if my hero sued me for copyright infringement.

[RoninFox]

I'm not sure where I stand on this really.  I remember hearing that there was no case at all when this guy just maintained a fansite with all this information, and that the only problem was that he was intending to publish in book form, making a profit.  It does seem like a bit much considering all the other HP reference stuff that floods bookstores, but I haven't looked into who's published those to see if there's a legal connection.  I do know that once I did own a Star Trek Encyclopedia, but that it was an officially licensed book written and edited by people who worked on the actual shows.

[Queen Shadowrama]

Yeah, JKR has definitely said she's used the Lexicon for her writing and that it's been very helpful. And yeah, there are plenty of books written about other books all the time and nobody gets their panties in a knot over it. If he were writing a piece of Potter fanfiction and trying to sell it, then yes, she would have every right to sue because he would be trying to write using her characters. But he's not doing that. He;s writing a reference material. It's not the same thing. Besides, it's not like Rowling couldn't write her own encyclopedia if this guy does! More people would be likely to buy hers anyway.

This should not be a big deal.

[anais.jude]

Old news. Us book readers discussed this in the Book section awhile ago.

and comes tripe with the link up

[ebeth]

I think Rowling should back off.  It's not as if no one would buy an encyclopedia from her if she wrote one.  Fans of the Potter series are as committed to preserving the integrity of the story as much as Rowling herself.  Having a fan, whom she herself has even said contributed to her success, write something as involved as an encyclopedia should be considered a compliment to the universe that she created.

As an ardent fan of the series I feel that she is doing a disservice to both herself and the books.  When fans love something as wholeheartedly as Harry Potter they will support the vision and, if the encyclopedia is horrible, those fans will light up the fan boards with their dissatisfaction.  Look how we Misties responded when our beloved show was getting the axe...and how we are still, after all these years, still passing around the shows.

In my opinion this could seriously backfire on Rowling in a big way. 

[Tripe]

and comes tripe with the link up

What?

[ImOscardotcom]

and comes tripe with the link up

What?

Here you go.

http://forum.rifftrax.com/index.php/topic,6407.0.html