She, or at least her publicity machine, clearly understands that she is a special case.

Fan-published stuff is a commonplace, and welcomed by writers and producers as extra free publicity, but when it accompanies anything except Harry Potter it doesn't stand a chance of making any kind of bankable profit. In this case, I think it's pretty clear that Rowling, or her minders, want to mine the whole Harry Potter diggings for themselves, and are not about to sell the claim just yet.

And that's fair enough; they've got the millions to spend to back up their opinion. Heck, Rowling even has enough money to beat paparazzi into submission over publishing snaps of the Rowling babe out on public roads!

Now when the books are in their second or third decade of printing, maybe the Rowling machine will be ready to ignore fan-published eponymous stuff.

In the meantime, it would be a very silly author or publisher of anything other than the Harry Potter Intercontinental ballistic missile who clamped down on a clearly acknowledged guide to their work; they'd be spitting in the face of free publicity and I don't think the Rowling stuff will change the landscape at all.

But I'd definitely take down the whole fan site right now if I was the fan publisher, and leave it down if Rowling gets her way.

The problem is that this Lexicon guy is trying to make money out of something that is basically just a (bad) summary of the books. The website is full of interesting stuff, including some very good essays, but the snippets of the book that I've read are just ... they're not even well written, you know? There are tons of reference guides out there, but they add something to the books. The Lexicon book doesn't.

Basically, I really wish WB and JKR win. Not because the Lexicon guy and his publishers seem like arrogant jerks, but because I want to keep writing fanfic and things like that without the people whose work I adore being afraid that I'll be able to profit off it.

Fandom_wank off on Journalfen have summarised the situation pretty concisely including links to relevant court documents if anyone wants to delve deeper. You know it's bad when you're cheering for Warner Brother's lawyers.

It's one thing if the fansite or the book they want to publish were derivative of the Harry Potter stories, or fanfiction related stories...such as the ones that have been published based on Xena, Star Trek or any other fanfic type of material.

But it's an entirely different thing to create a lexicon BASED on the ACTUAL words, terms, and creative writings of J.K. Rowling, and then attempt to publish it as your own. That is not fair...and the Lexicon creator should know better.

J.K. deserves to be mad about this...because she treats her fans and those who respect her work with the utmost respect, she always has. For someone to come along and take advantage of that kindness is not right.

If the creator of the Lexicon is in fact a true Harry Potter fan, he will recognize the reason he even created a Lexicon - and that is that J.K. Rowling sat down and wrote a series of wonderful stories.

~Renée

This is in all very good for the fan's. JK will now be quick to write her Harry Potter "Encyclopedia". A book that once she gets started on will most likely generate new idea's in her head, idea's for further HP books.

 

-Nathiest
live for lust die for love

I agree with all of the above statements and think that this is actually a pretty cut and dry case. It is not a derivative work, and Rowling praising fan sites, does not constitute as permission to publish this thing. Also, this site owner should consider that what he is doing may have a negative affect on current and future fan sites. And where is the fun in that, if all of a sudden fan fiction is policed heavily? 

Fandom Wank is going crazy over this. 

I support JKR on this.  It's not like Steve wants to publish a critical anthology or something about Harry Potter, he's simply publishing an encyclopaedia of facts contained within the book series.  As regards intellectual copyright law, I don't really think he's got a leg to stand on.

HP Lexicon is a great site, but it doesn't have much original content.  I believe that there are some essays and the like, but they would have to make up a very small portion of the site. 

I don't even really understand the logic of publishing the book, anyway; Steve's stated that the Lexicon will stay online ... and inevitably the website is going to be mroe complete and exhaustive than the published version.  So yeah, it does seem like he's in it for the $$$.

I agree with the person who said that if it was anything but Harry Potter, it would probably not be an issue (most authors would tolerate such a work, or even be happy for the free publicity).  I'm glad JK is fighting him on this though; she deserves to win, and this case will set a precedent.

Jo Rowling's should absolutely win this battle. She's been one of the most supportive authors in the business when it comes to fanfiction and fan-created content, and except for the occasional person who doesn't understand, the fans don't try to make money off of their work in the Harry Potter universe.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened. As I understand it (and I've heard this without original sources, so I could be off-base), Mercedes Lackey was actually sued by a fan who claimed that Lackey had stolen the plot for one of her books from a fanfic, and the fan actually won in court. That's why most authors can't acknowledge fanfiction, even if they don't disapprove of it. There's been big-name Harry Potter fanfic writers who publish original work and delete their old HP fic just in case.

I get sad whenever I hear these stories. I've written plenty of femmeslash (lesbian fanfic) because of a lack of GLBT characters in my favorite stories.  Cases like these are not only making intellectual property claims more difficult for authors, they make it tougher for fans like myself who would never try anything like this.

I'm a huge Potter fan and was initially disappointed at JKR's response to this fan's effort, especially given she supported the website.  After reading the story here and the responses I am considering a change of perspective.  Internet freedom versus profiting from an existing body of work brings up many issues, and I can see JKR's point.

The fan fiction I am used to reading clearly gives credit to the originator of the characters and stories and makes sure the reader knows they are not linked officially to that.  I have also seen the 'official' people respond very favorably to the fan fiction, some of which is actually published.  One author went on to write professionally for the series in question.

I guess there are lines with this that need to be defined.

In addition, based on the coverage I've heard on Mugglecast (Slate's article was ridiculous and got many of the facts wrong), RDR has been a full set of assholes in responding to this matter. JKR has always been incredibly supportive of fan sites, but when her lawyers sent inquiries regarding the content of the book, a perfectly legitimate response considering the derivation concerns, RDR sent a letter back telling them to "read the website."

Isn't the Lexicon fan created? So does the Lexicon then own all those fan submitted essays? What about all the fans who pored over the information, updating after new books were released? Is the Lexicon going to publish and profit from their work?

Seriously, JKR doesn't even mess with the Tonks/Giant Squid porn. I think this attempt to make money without making soemthing new is stoopid and gross. 

So we've been talking about this case in my intellectual property class, and I'm going to be brave and disagree with all of the above commenters. I can't speak to RDR being jerks or JKR donating her profits to charity or who created the content of the website, but as far as strict copyright law goes, RDR actually does have a decent case. It's been well established that guides, even ones containing direct representations of the original creator's work, are not derivative works and thus are not infringing on copyright. They can't substitute for the original (no one would read the Lexicon INSTEAD of the HP books) and often serve a complementary purpose (sales of the guide increase sales of the original, and vice versa), which is the test a court will probably apply.

Rowling's strongest argument is her claim that the Lexicon will cut into her profits, but that's only one of the factors the court will consider. Her guide not yet being published will hurt her, as will the fact that the Lexicon contains some original commentary (or so I hear).

I also can't see how this case would have any impact on fansites or fanfic authors in the future. If anything, it will set some kind of precedent for how to handle this specific kind of situation, which shouldn't have much if any impact on creators of transformative works (i.e. fanfic).

Sorry for the epic! This stuff is kind of what I want to do with the rest of my life, so I get a little overexcited about it sometimes. (And Ace, by the way, your blog posts are my favorite - theatre and copyright law! What more could I want?) :-)

I would be oh so happy if someone could explain to me once and for all the need for the USA name change.....why not Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone ???

 And why we on the topic, how come Northern Lights becomes The Golden Compass???

There was an alethiometer but where was a compass???

For the ones interested in this topic, i thought you might enjoy praetorianguard's (many) posts analyzing the case:

Start with this one (http://praetorianguard.livejournal.com/270707.html#cutid1) :)

And to really get a full picture of RDR and SVA, I also recommend reading the Fandom Wank entries. These guys have managed to compilate priceless data, and if you are really, really interested, you could also check out the threads at Leaky Louge forum. There are a couple of users who saw Steve Vander Ark in a conference and he gave them explict confirmation about the content of the book.

"the first issue is whether the Lexicon constitutes a “derivative work” or a reference or critical piece. (The copyright holder has rights to the former; anyone can publish the latter.) Rowling, of course, holds that the Lexicon is the former, while the publisher and some others hold that it's the latter. I'm too far out of law school to really get into this issue, so I'll leave it to the court to decide."

:P To get an idea of what's in the book, just read RDR's statments. Via Leaky Cauldron, (http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2007/11/3/questions-and-answers-with-wb-and-rdr):
RDR spokesperson : "The book contains critical analysis from “Steven Vander Ark and his staff.” When asked what he meant by critical analysis Mr. Harris said, “You can go to the site and read the articles. I’m not going to itemize them for you.” Questioned further he said “the book was typeset directly from the site,” and that it was word-for-word taken from the web site. (The RDR Web site now says “The entire book is drawn verbatim from the material that presently appears on Steve Vander Ark’s website.”)RDR claims the book is not an infringement because “it’s a critical and educational review,”"

Check out The HP lexicon online and draw your own conclusions. There isnt any aditional content, no critical analysis or original material, and definitly not what one might call "an educational review", but there is a dangerous amount of direct quotes from the HP books (and also let's note the curious fact that the HP lexicon was built with the help of many contributors who had no idea of the publication of the book) and of course, a reorganization of data from books 1-7 in a quick and accesible way that made the site so famous, but confirms rowling's statements about the nature of the book.

"But what about the fan writer who was encouraged to write and put an enormous effort into the creation of a new work? Shouldn't that writer's efforts be protected as well?" Of course, the thing is that Steve Vander Ark didnt create any "new work". I'm all for crytical and educational analysis (and apparently so is JKR) of the books, but if the HPlexicon book doesnt fall into this categories and instead attemps to profit from someone else's (JKR) creative work instead of doing their own, well, i think it's clear which side i'm on .