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.

It's been three weeks since our Money Face-Off feature ran here at BloggingStocks and on AOL, offering you the opportunity to share who you though had the financial edge in a series of twenty head-to-head match-ups. So I thought I'd take another look and see how things have worked out.

It's hard to pick just one big winner. In terms of the largest lead over a rival, Ivanka Trump easily beats Paris Hilton with 89% of the vote. Others holding big leads over their opponents include Tiger Woods, Warren Buffett, Steven Spielberg, and Rupert Murdoch.

In terms of receiving the most votes, the clear leader is the Oprah Winfrey vs. Martha Stewart match-up, with just short of 150,000 votes. Other big vote getters were Tiger Woods vs. David Beckham, Rudy Giuliani vs. Michael Bloomberg, and Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs. In terms of the liveliest discussions in the comments, the winners are Oprah Winfrey vs. Martha Stewart, Erin Burnett vs. Maria Bartiromo, and Bono vs. Angelina Jolie. Also check out the comments for the J.K. Rowling vs. J.R.R Tolkien, Tiger Woods vs. David Beckham, and Ivanka Trump vs. Paris Hilton posts.

As for the face-off posts here that got the most attention, the clear winner is Erin Burnett vs. Maria Bartiromo, with more than 13,000 hits. Lindsay Lohan vs. Britney Spears and Oprah Winfrey vs. Martha Stewart also attracted lots of readers.

Results for all the face-offs follow below, but keep in mind that the voting is still open. It's not too late to add your vote or let us know what you think.

For those of you who want to take part in the Harry Potter (Scholastic Press, NYSE: SCHL) water cooler chatter but don't have the time to plow through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we have prepared this summary:

The last novel of the series covers the culmination of Harry's war with the evil Lord Voldemort. The story begins with the servants of Voldemort overwhelming the forces of good magic, taking over the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts, where longtime evil ally Snape is placed in charge.

Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione are forced to go on the run to hide from Voldemort, whose single greatest ambition is to kill Harry, the only person who can destroy him.

Spoiler alert – if you have not yet read the conclusion to the Harry Potter saga, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, you may want to skip this post, in which the ending is discussed.

For companies such as publisher Scholastic Corp. (NASDAQ:SCHL), the US publisher of the books, Time Warner (NYSE:TWX), whose Warner Brothers Studios produces the hugely profitable Harry Potter movies, and General Electric's (NYSE:GE) Universal Studios, which will open a Harry Potter theme park in 2009, the seventh and final Harry Potter book must have come as a great relief.

Despite rumors to the contrary, the title character did not die, and thereby cast a pall on the series and its offshoots. Rather, as I expected, Harry prevailed, and in general the core cast lived happily ever after. Even Snape, as I predicted, achieved redemption, but at a mortal cost.

In the coda to the novel, Harry Potter and his wife, the former Ginny Weasley, watch their children depart for Hogwarts. Also placing their children on the Hogworts train are Harry's best friends, the married couple Ron Weasley and Hermoine Granger.

This final scene, nineteen years after the climax of the book, will no doubt inspire a great deal of conversation, as it keeps open a couple of possibilities for future novels in the Potter universe. Harry is still young enough to have more adventures, perhaps as he takes on the role of the era's greatest wizard, much as Albus Dumbledore was in Potter's youth. Rowling could also, should she decide to continue the series, reboot the series with the next generation of Hogwarts students.

I don't expect her to return to the Potter storyline for a long time, if ever, but the lure will always be there; a huge, thirsty audience ready to demonstrate their devotion with their pocketbooks.

More Harry Potter news

Tom Barlow: The Harry Potter Finance Quiz
Gary E. Sattler: New York Times bestseller list leaves Harry Potter out
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter ending: A water cooler cheat sheet
Zac Bissonnette: With Harry Potter done, is it time for Scholastic to sell itself?
Zac Bissonnette: Is the last book the end of Potter mania?
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter and the Pots of Gold
Barry Summerlin: Harry Potter doesn't even need Muggle marketing
Julie Tilsner: Not even Harry can save bookstores from their fate
Peter Cohan: Harry Potter and the Pot of Gold
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Will Rowling kill off Harry?

Even with magic as strong as Harry Potter's, Publisher's Weekly reported today that bookstore sales continued to fall for the fifth consecutive month. According to the U.S. Census bureau, sales in May were down 4.3%, to $1.10 billion.

However, bookstore sales totaled $6.20 billion in the period between January and May. The retail segment in total saw sales up 5.6% in May, and were ahead 4.1% for the first five months of 2007.

How does that jibe with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the latest (and last) Potter tome selling an unprecedented nine million copies in the U.S. and Britain in its first 24 hours of release? Well it's all good, everyone agrees, compelling millions of kids to lay aside their Nintendo for the week and venture into bookstores. But as Sara Nelson, editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly recently wrote, there are still some problems in the numbers.

"Take, for example, the retailers, big and small. The former have made the dubious choice to discount HPATDH so drastically that even they admit their revenue – on the most popular book in history! – will be down this year. The latter can't begin to compete with the economies of scale and some may bypass their distributors and buy direct – at nearly the same discount – from Amazon or Costco."

A piece on Bloomberg offers a similarly dark assessment, suggesting that Big-box retailers like Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) and Sam's Club (A division of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) discount the book so deeply as to use it as more a customer draw then a revenue-booster. In the meantime, independent bookstores that can't afford to discount this most popular literary offering in history must resort to any tactic they can to draw customers in, including hosting Potter parties, and other community-building schemes.

I have another idea for keeping small booksellers and their particular brand of magic alive. Maybe every wealthy best-selling author (and Oprah, who's responsible for creating a few) could each sponsor an independent bookstore. Surely it's not too much to ask from someone who probably spent the better part of their youths perusing the musty stacks. Besides, what's J.K. Rowling got to do these days?

More Harry Potter news

Tom Barlow: The Harry Potter Finance Quiz
Gary E. Sattler: New York Times bestseller list leaves Harry Potter out
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter ending: A water cooler cheat sheet
Zac Bissonnette: With Harry Potter done, is it time for Scholastic to sell itself?
Tom Barlow: Rowling safeguards Potter empire
Zac Bissonnette: Is the last book the end of Potter mania?
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter and the Pots of Gold
Barry Summerlin: Harry Potter doesn't even need Muggle marketing
Peter Cohan: Harry Potter and the Pot of Gold
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Will Rowling kill off Harry?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling is scheduled to be published by Scholastic Press (NASDAQ: SCHL) on July 21, and some fans are speculating that Harry will die. I am quite confident in telling you that he won't, for several reasons.

1. The artistic.
Experienced authors will tell you that a satisfying ending is one that, after it happens, readers will see as inevitable, even if they didn't see it coming. For example, the ending of Sixth Sense, while a shocker to many (including me), worked because it neatly tied up loose threads we'd momentarily lost sight of. The ending completed the Bruce Willis' character arc.

Rowling has not established the need for someone to sacrifice his life so that Voldemort might die. In fact, she has already given Harry's parents and Dumbledore to the cause. Harry's death would be gratuitous, and, most importantly, inconsistent with the rest of the saga. Harry is the viewpoint character, and it is our vicarious enjoyment of his overcoming obstacles that gives the series such impact. It's hard to enjoy the denouement of a dead character.

Most importantly, though, Harry is not a flawed character seeking redemption through sacrifice. He is an innocent predestined to conquer the wicked AND LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

2. The practical.
If Rowling were to kill off her hero in the final book, it would not only diminish sales of this volume, but horribly impact the future sales of the series. Knowing that Harry was to die, (and who on Earth would not know of this plot twist?), would change the reader's experience, robbing each bit of conflict of its gravitas. Plus, fans would revolt. Arthur Conan Doyle learned this lesson when he tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes -- some plot reversals fans will simply not accept.

3. The financial.
With two more films on the planning board (including Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, due for release July 11th by Warner Brothers, a division of Time Warner, NYSE:TWX) and a theme park in development, I can't believe these companies would invest so much in a closed-end storyline. And while Rowling may have all the money she needs, keeping the tale open-ended is a much shrewder business decision.

So I'm not worried about Harry. My prediction -- he'll defeat Voldemort with Snape's help, assume Dumbledore's position as head of Hogworts, marry Jenny Ginny and stand as best man at Ron and Hermione's wedding.

Harry Potter can't die. Trust me.

More Harry Potter news

Tom Barlow: The Harry Potter Finance Quiz
Gary E. Sattler: New York Times bestseller list leaves Harry Potter out
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter ending: A water cooler cheat sheet
Zac Bissonnette: With Harry Potter done, is it time for Scholastic to sell itself?
Tom Barlow: Rowling safeguards Potter empire
Zac Bissonnette: Is the last book the end of Potter mania?
Tom Barlow: Harry Potter and the Pots of Gold
Barry Summerlin: Harry Potter doesn't even need Muggle marketing
Julie Tilsner: Not even Harry can save bookstores from their fate
Peter Cohan: Harry Potter and the Pot of Gold

It's been a decade in the making, but the seven-volume story of Harry Potter and all of his friends and foes is finally getting ready to come full circle. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in the series by J.K. Rowling is scheduled to hit shelves on July 21, 2007. In the U.S., all you Yank muggles will be able to snatch up your copies at midnight local time. Bookstores including Borders (NYSE: BGP), Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) are planning accordingly for the mad rush, taking advance orders for the sought-after volume. In fact, retailers have said the number of pre-orders for Deathly Hallows has already set a record. Also setting a record? The number of copies -- 12 million -- being churned out in the initial printing.

The book is a whopper, at 608 pages for the British edition and 784 pages for U.S. readers. Rowling promises a satisfactory end for the characters so many of us have grown to love (or hate!) during the past decade. Shortly after penning the final sentence in January 2007, she reported on her website that "'Deathly Hallows' is my favourite [of the Harry Potter series], and that is the most wonderful way to finish the series."

Will all of our favorites from Gryffindor house make it out alive? Is Severus Snape good or evil? And what becomes of Lord Voldemort He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? Spoilers (which may or may not be true) abound online, but true fans will be waiting a couple more months for these and many other answers to be revealed.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

In a move which shall surely tint the color of eBay operations, Harry Potter creator and author J.K. Rowling has prevailed in an Indian court and has won an injunction against eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) demanding the immediate suspension of sales involving pirated copies of her many books.

A report in the Times Online states that the court action, which was initially brought in 2004, has resulted in a court issued dictate which for the first time requires that eBay shall police its site for specific pirated copies of material. This one court order results in a tremendous "Catch-22," in that if eBay fails to exercise due diligence in manners which are known and available it shall be in violation of a court order and risk the penalties brought on by a finding of contempt of court. The catch is that in exercising due diligence to satisfy this court order, the groundwork is then laid for similar requirements in all similar situations. eBay clearly has its back against the wall here. The court order is binding until the hearing resumes on May 23, 2007.

His name is starting to pop up again. A year and a half after the release of "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince," Harry Potter is returning to the scene. Trailers for his latest movie, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," have begun popping up on the internet, and just yesterday, author J.K. Rowling announced the title to the seventh and last of the Harry Potter books - "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

All of the Harry Potter books have been released in the summer (between June and September), and with the title to the seventh installment being announced now, it looks as if the "Deathly Hallows" is likely to hit bookstore shelves in the summer of 2007.

Since the explosion in popularity of Harry Potter, the release of the books has catalyzed Scholastic's (NASDAQ:SCHL) shares; In the three months prior to the release of the last three books, Scholastic shares have risen ~30%, ~25% and ~7%, respectively. The shares have then tailed off each time, creating a release-based cycle. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the final episode in this seven-book series, should boost the publisher's stock in similar fashion.