The JKR/RDR/SVA case

[pegkerr]

If you said, "Huh?" after reading the title of this post, you are clearly not in the Harry Potter fandom and have no idea of the DRAMA going on in a New York courtroom this week, so feel free to skip.

I wrote about this case before. There are excellent commentaries over at praetorianguard's journal and chaeche's posts at fandom_lawyers.

I still can't believe that Steve did it. I considered myself friends with him back when we worked together on the HPEF Board of Directors. I just can't imagine what he was thinking. It's extremely painful to watch him destroy his relationship with someone he absolutely idolized because he was either a) inexplicably greedy and/or b) inexplicably stupid. I don't know which it is, but watching from afar, either alternative feels awful.

I hope and expect JKR to win this case. I don't know if and how Steve can pick up the pieces of his life again when it's over. (And that's not even the considering the possibility that praetorianguard raised that his erstwhile publisher RDR might turn around and sue him because of the irregularities in the indemnity clause in the contract.) He'd quit his job, and cut himself off by his own actions from the HP community he loved and reveled in.

Hubris indeed.

Comments

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid fair use very well could and possibly SHOULD apply here. Reposting (small) sections of the books for commentary and criticism is utterly fair game. Search Amazon.com for 'Unauthorized Encyclopedia' and you'll see dozens of perfectly legal books that reprise, sort, comment and summarize lots of popular literature and media.

Yes, he was an ass about a lot of things. Yes, he could have worked with JKR. Yes, he probably SHOULD have and if he's persona non grata in fandom, I have no problem with that.

But legally speaking, IMO he's in the right.

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

From the US Copyright Office (and property there of) in regarding derivative works

A typical example of a derivative work received for registration in the Copyright Office is one that is primarily a new work but incorporates some previously published material. This previously published material makes the work a derivative work under the copyright law. To be copyrightable, a derivative work must be different enough from the original to be regarded as a "new work" or must contain a substantial amount of new material. Making minor changes or additions of little substance to a preexisting work will not qualify the work as a new version for copyright purposes. The new material must be original and copyrightable in itself. Titles, short phrases, and format, for example, are not copyrightable.

Me again...
This is case does not impact Cliff notes or academic musings on the size of Harry's wand or anything of that nature. This is PLAGIARISM plain and simple. If he handed this into any academic institution, they would not publish it and if this was his master's thesis he would fail and get kicked out of the university with a letter of Reprimand attached to his transcript. This is not a derivative work.

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

I'm aware of the phrasing of the law; I just don't agree it's a derivative work. Tim Wu's my favorite article on the subject to date: http://www.slate.com/id/2181776/

(I'd be more explanatory myself, but I'm at work so linking to an expert is a bit easier).

I also think this is one of those moments where reasonable legal minds will disagree, and it entirely depends on where you want copyright law to go. I'm firmly in the creative commons / remix culture camp; I know a lot of people are in favor of deeper restrictions a la Disney. We'll have to see what the judge thinks/feels.

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

The idea that reorganizing work -- information architecture, well-referenced encyclopedias -- is not 'original thought' is troubling to me. We don't allow 'database' copyrights -- that is to say, we don't allow a phone book to be copyrighted for the same reason no one sues Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Brittanica for their entries.

Yes, this is more in-depth. But we have to ask the question where to draw the line.

Are Wikipedia's entries acceptable? (Make no mistake, those folks are making money -- not for profit does not mean no one gets a salary at the Wikimedia foundation.) All right, how about an entire, chapter-sized section in a 'Sci-Fi/Fantasy' encyclopedia that goes deeper in depth? All right, then how about an entire volume of a multi-volume SF/F encyclopedia?

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

If he is writing his own copy about Rowlings's work, that's okay. If he quotes indirectly, that's okay, too. If he is quoting in a limited way from her works, that is also fine as long as he stays under the upper limit allowed.

Everyone knows that there's a limit for the maximum length of a single quote. There's also a top limit for the percentage of the work that is quotations from another copyrighted work, regardless of the lengths of the individual quotations. It sounds as though he's gone over the acceptable percentage of direct quotes.

Copyright is so very slippery.

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

The 'maximum limit' is slippery too, though. And context is so important. I really do think it boils down, in a big and real way, to how you view copyright, author's rights, and all those big weird areas of the law where the digital world is changing things.

[arian1.livejournal.com]

The maximum limits have been pretty well defined in precedent. I'll have to dig it up later when I have a chance.

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

Would love to read it!

[arian1.livejournal.com]

He's making a book, that is comprised of a majority of work that is not his, it's someone else's. "Unauthorized" or not, he's attempting to profit on something that he knows is not his. Unauthorized tell-alls and what not are for the most about a known topic, but actually written in original perspective. Not by using someone else's IP or in that right doing no more than parroting what someone else has said and done. The amount of *original* thought and work done by this guy compared to the amount of simple reprinting of other people's work is staggering.

He's got no leg to stand on legally and his strategy in this is to make as much of a stink as he can under "fair use" and then claim the whole "Oh I'm just a little guy getting picked on by the billionaire author who I love so much. Wahh wahh wahh." Cry me a river. I see people trying this same argument every day thinking if the they can make the "big bad studio/artist/IP holder" look bad enough then they can get away with it scott free. He is making money off of someone else's work.

I find arguments to the contrary a bit naive in their scope. JKR's claim to her personal IP should not be in any way diminished because of it's success or the fact she was kind enough to give a brief nod to a fansite.