U.S. District Judge Robert P. Patterson has ruled Steven Vander Ark's "Harry Potter Lexicon" website and proposed book infringe on copyrights held by author J.K. Rowling, and awarded Rowling and Warner Bros. -- a division of Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) -- $6,750 in statutory damages. Given that Rowling earned an estimated $300 million last year, it's doubtful she was in this one for the money.While authors are generally allowed to use material from other books in reference titles, the judge ruled that this case went beyond fair use because it "appropriates too much of Rowling's creative work for its purposes as a reference guide."
Rowling had testified that the pending release of the guide had caused her great stress and interfered with her work on a new novel.
The hp-lexicon.org site has already been taken down. It's a little bit disenchanting to see Ms. Rowling suing a former school librarian for producing a work that is clearly designed to appeal to die-hard Harry Potter fans, but she's certainly within her rights.
Rowling's latest book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, will be released on December 4.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-09-2008 @ 9:08PM
Enrique said...
Well, I guess it's time to quit buying her books. After her personal experience of poverty and after her making all that money and after this person almost making a cult of her writing, one would think she would be thankful. Can you imagine the Star Trek or Star Wars owners suing for such a thing? No, it's free publicity. This author has an "I'm rich no and you're not going to be..." attitude. She's off my library card.
9-27-2008 @ 11:08AM
Chickenhawk said...
Whilst I do agree with Enrique somewhat and think this is a little unfair stance for a former struggling writer turned mega rich to take I do believe she was planning on writing an encyclopedia of the Harry Potter world over the next 7-10 years and then release it with all it's proceeds going to charity.
So really in my eyes it depends what this website had on it.
If it was just a compendium of everything Potter from the books then I'm disappointed in her, she claims her encyclopedia will take ten years to write, in which case it will be more than what is currently in the books, as such what harm could the website or book do her?
Also leaving it so long after the Harry Potter series has finished is definately going to hurt it's sales, and as it's being done for charity that can't be a good thing.
It is saddening to think she's gone this far but I believe the owner of the HP Lexicon website was close to overstepping the mark by considering releasing a book.