JKR's suit against RDR Books

[pegkerr]

I'm really sorry to hear about all this. I certainly like the Harry Potter Lexicon, and I consider Steve Vander Ark a personal friend; Rob and I worked with him on the HPEF Board of Directors. But geez, if praetorianguard is correct about the sequence of events, then as a holder of copyrights myself, I have to agree with praetorianguard. I don't think that RDR Books or Steve have a legal leg to stand on, and they're gonna lose this case. As well they should. No matter how much they bluster.

Personally, I am going to find this all extremely painful to watch.

(A good chunk of the complaint and quite a bit of discussion over at The Leaky Cauldron here.)

Comments

[awelkin.livejournal.com]

Well.

It seems a fairly cut and dried case when you look at the material, the time line, and the attempts of the plaintiffs to investigate the case.

And that's all I should say about that.

Catherine

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Holy COW, these people are stupid. You answer. You answer courteously.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Yessss, that was my thought. And you try to work out a compromise. Is the profit a problem? What if we donate to charity? Is the material a problem? Ah, you're doing your own encyclopedia. Can we work out some sort of deal where we give you our material and you give us partial credit, a payment as freelancers, something? After all, the book's already written, all you'd have to do is make changes/annotations.

[pinguthegreek.livejournal.com]

But.....but..but...she wants to write about the world she created. Her world. Whereas he's taken it from the books. Just gone through the books and notated all the information down. Why on earth would she take help from someone else ? I accept the point that her story has ended up being inconsistent, but it is her world.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying that she would accept it, but that the response from the Lexicon people should have been to seek a compromise. There are plenty of authors who have accepted that assistance from people in creating companion books for their world (Anne McCaffrey leaps to mind). And why retread when someone has done all the heavy lifting for you? There are the resources, ready-made and drawn from your own material. You correct them where they're wrong, add material so people will pay for it, rejigger into your own style, and boom.

I'm looking at it from the commercial perspective of someone who writes medical textbooks on a tight deadline for a living -- we always use material that already exists where possible. Heck, the fiction author in me would be willing to accept fan help if it were forthcoming, because fans are, in general, much more exacting with details than the author of the original material.

If she wants to write about it, then hey, that would be a no, right? It's not like she has anything else she has to do (like work for a living ever again).

[pokeystar.livejournal.com]

What I'm not getting is:

if, as the publisher claims, the lexicon is a compilation of scholarly essays, why have they refused to provide a preview copy of the book?

[rachet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the whole thing makes me cringe.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

Ouch. This is not a happy scenario.

[post-ecdysis.livejournal.com]

Sorry to ask a newbie question, but why are unauthorized reader's companions a violation of copyright? A quick google search suggests that such things exist for Star Wars, LOTR, His Dark Materials, Babylon 5, and seemingly many other things. I'm thinking of a baseball analogy: Major League Baseball owns a San Francisco Giants game and you can't rebroadcast or re-enact it, but they can't trademark the fact that Barry Bonds hit two home runs that night. Is the fact that Harry is the son of James and Lily Potter or that Hermione cast an Accio spell in chapter umpteen of book blah any different?

Personally, I think that Ms. Rowling is selling herself short if she believes that this future book project of hers is going to be even slightly compromised by a project like this. She's going to write The Silmarillion, RDR is just trying to publish an index.

[pinguthegreek.livejournal.com]

No, sorry. I disagree. The whole Harry Potter world came out of her head. Rowling is very much alive and well. Nobody should be publishing any factual information about the world of the Harry Potter novels without her permission.

I think that some authors are less inclined to litigate when it comes to people taking their intellectual property. For her personally, I don't think it's about anything she does in the future being compormised. It's about the fact that someone who hasn't spent all the years she has coming up with this world will make quite a bit of money for relatively little effort. If that book is published, he'll be making money out of someone else's work. That just is not right.

[joel-rosenberg.livejournal.com]

It all depends. A "reader's companion" can be a compilation of scholarly and/or fannish essays on a writer's work (clearly not a violation of copyright -- Bethke recently wrote yet another piece for a series of books from a publisher, whose name I forget, that seems to specialize in doing not terribly but definitely arguably scholarly pieces on various famous stuff that they couldn't get the rights to play with if they had to buy or ask) or nothing more than a bunch of cut-and-paste's from the writer's work (clearly a violation), or something in between (which is what the lawyer's get paid for, if it gets to the lawyers).

But it's not just copyright; there's other IP issues, like trademark law involved, too.

My own take -- as just a guy who knows a bit about the issues and who took a quick look at a couple of JKR-related websites today; IANAL -- is that a lot of the fannish online stuff (particularly slash, which isn't the issue here) exists at the sufferance of the writers/copyright owner, and that JKR gets to decide if and/or when it comes down.

[folk.livejournal.com]

IANAL either, but to my mind slash (that is, not-for-profit works about same-sex relationships where existing characters are either explicitly or implicitly straight) actually has a lot more in the "transformative work" of the fair use doctrine.

In other words, if I write a "year 8 at Hogwarts!" fic where Harry, Hermione, Ron and all our chums return to Hoggy Warty Hogwarts, fly around on Firebolts, shoot off Accios and Alohomoras, fight off Death Eaters and have a rip-roaring time, it's much closer to what JKR might eventually write. She therefore has a much better argument for me not writing it than, say, me writing a story where Harry is an airline pilot who falls in love and has lots and lots of man-on-man action with Draco, a baggage handler, and they both discover they have this weird amnesiac past that I only make vague references to without using her trademarked or copyrighted materials. (We know, of course, since she sent a C&D, that she personally disapproves of me writing explicit man-on-man, man-on-woman, or man-on-Hippogriff action using her characters. The C&D wasn't followed up by her legal team, though, so my guess is that they realised that they couldn't prove financial damage.)

[joel-rosenberg.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, whenever the owners have tried to shut down the publication of derivative fiction, they've been able to.

The fact that a writer can't afford to (obviously not a problem for JKR) or chooses not to go sic the legal sharks after a slash writer doesn't mean that that it's okay, or legal. (And financial damage isn't necessary in proving and punishing copyright violation -- that's the reason for punitive and exemplary damages, after all.)

Which seems fair to me. My own take on my own stuff is that I don't want to know about any such happening. Frankly, the notion of other folks playing with my characters without my permission -- and supervision -- squicks me out. Or even with, sometimes. When Feist and I were writing Murder in LaMut, about the only serious disagreements we had were some very, very minor issues with regard to internal and external dialogue of exactly two of my characters, and they bugged me far more than they should have, even though we resolved them very easily.

Which isn't to say that I think people should be prohibited from writing/publishing slash; I just think the creator's views should be honored, even when they don't consist of sending in a wolfpack of lawyers, or even a cease and desist demand.

[folk.livejournal.com]

In paper; certainly. Online, yes, but IMO because of the chilling effects that a C&D has on ISPs and fans, even in the age of the DMCA. Essentially, if the DMCA means that when WB comes to my ISP about my Bugs Bunny fanfiction, my ISP comes to me and says "you need to give WB all these details so they can sue you", I've not got the resources to say "fine, sue me!". Interestingly, the fan archive plan that's resulted from this summer's series of "LJ-vs-fandom" activities* has one of its aims as being prepared to defend legally the rights of fanwork creators against primary creators.

*this is, at least, how some fans see it.

I'm certainly split about that being a good idea, of course. Part of me thinks that having some legal backing would be great, but part of me's concerned too about losing and then our fannish playground being shut down by The Man.

I certainly think that different authors have different feelings about others playing with their characters; philosophically, I tend to come down more on the side of the fans here, while ethically I generally side with the authors.

[folk.livejournal.com]

Note: I'm not a lawyer; I don't even dress up as one on festive occasions or for furtive nookie, so this is in no way legal advice. :)

Obviously, none of us who aren't Steve, RDR or his/their people know what exactly is being published, because the exact nature of the book hasn't been released. However, assuming that it's essentially a printed, indexed tree-ware copy of the Lexicon, JKR and her publishers have lots of reasons to object. Peg linked to praetorianguard's excellent post that explains why the rights-holders are objecting, but they basically boil down to:

1. It's JKR's material, rearranged. Most companions or compendiums include some analysis, critique or backgrounds that add to the story rather than just repackaging it. Many of her invented terms are themselves trademarked (see all of the merchandise with a little TM after every other word), so it's hard to see how someone else is allowed to use them in the same arena.

2. It's confusing. See the proposed UK cover, compared with the UK adult edition of HBP. Same font and style, and that's potentially an attempt to pass off someone else's book as JKR's.

A note on 1: many fan works are not infringing because they are transformative works: in other words, there is substantial new material and situations in the new work. Think Gregory Maguire's Wicked, or the musical of the same name, and how that's allowed to coexist with L. Frank Baum's books and the movie The Wizard of Oz. A fan work where, say, Draco Malfoy is a noir LA private investigator would be pretty darned transformative. Also, the vast majority of fan works are not for profit (or at least nobody's making megabucks off them -- advertising does sometimes exceed hosting and admin fees for fan sites, for example, but it's not a huge amount).

[pinguthegreek.livejournal.com]

On point two, John. I wouldn't see it as an attempt to pass someone else's book off as hers. It's an attempt to make the book seem like it's legitimate and it's very much looking to people who buy the adult versions of the books.

I know he can't say anything because it's all in the hands of the lawyers, but I would love to know what made Steve think it was OK to go ahead with this being published.

[folk.livejournal.com]

Well, "passing off' is what the legal terminology is, I think. Basically, if my gran goes into a bookstore, sees seven books with HARRY POTTER AND THE ________________ and one that says HARRY POTTER LEXICON in the same font, then she's likely to be confused; that's "passing off". Remember way back when that first unauthorised HP companion book came out, and it was bright purple and didn't have the HP fonts or anything? That's why they did that, and I can't figure out why anybody thought doing it this way was okay.

Ditto.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I hadn't even heard that Steve was planning to publish a paper Lexicon until I heard about the suit. I was quite shocked. I can't imagine what Steve was thinking.

[folk.livejournal.com]

Me neither, on both counts.

[legionseagle.livejournal.com]

Also, if it is "a printed, indexed tree-ware copy of the Lexicon" (and the comments made by the publisher including the preposterous "if you don't know how to print..." one suggest that it is) then it contains a lot of articles written by fans who did not give consent when posting to the site for the republication of their work, for gain, at a later date and in a different format. And as one of the essayists concerned, I'm pretty put out about it.

[folk.livejournal.com]

I can quite imagine; this does go back to the "what was Steve thinking?" question.

[pinguthegreek.livejournal.com]

Interesting point to consider : reading the comments on the Leaky Cauldron story, one of the posters mentions that Steve left his job three weeks ago. That could only be because he's either found another job or there was something that made it impossible for him to stay in his job. He has to have money to pay the bills from somewhere. Oh and he just so happens to be involved in a book version of his very respected Lexicon......

I'm just pointing a few things out. I just find it hard to believe that a grown adult would agree to publish anything to do with something so popular just out of the goodness of his or her own heart. And it's not like he's a young naive grown up either..... ldea

Please don't think I'm saying he's a money grabbing wotsit. But it will be interesting to find out what his side of things turns out to be.

[legionseagle.livejournal.com]

Though, to be fair, he has now indicated that there are no essays in there.

[pinguthegreek.livejournal.com]

So......that still begs the question of how he could justify what he's doing on an ethical level. I think that it's a no brainer that there is a legal case to answer.

[elfundeb.livejournal.com]

I find it impossible to form an informed opinion on the lawsuit because we really don't know what the content is. However, I suspect that the publisher and/or their counsel is way out of their league; I found the content of RDR's rebuttal a bit embarrassing. I tend to doubt that was vetted by a lawyer (e.g., "the international law firm that purports to represent WB") -- or Steve.

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I have been following this over at Praetorian guard's post, and a few other places. I don't know Steve personally, but I do know (and care about) other people involved. It's tremendously sad and it's going to be painful to watch this unfold.