In The News
Fanfic and False Press - The Real Story on James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing
FansMany of you have written to us regarding the Web site for James Potter and the Hall of Elder’s Crossing, which looks remarkably similar to an official Harry Potter Web site that might be put out by Warner Bros. As earlier reported, the site heralds a fanfic written by George Lippert, a 37-year-old Web designer from St. Louis, MO, who wrote the book-length fic for his wife and children and plans to release a chapter a day in December.
Some papers, including The Scotsman, have reported that J.K. Rowling’s representatives are threatening legal action against Mr. Lippert. This is entirely false, and some papers have retracted that information publicly.
Mr. Lippert contacted TLC to tell us the following (which has been backed up by the Christopher Little Agency, the entity that would pursue a legal action if there was one to be had):
“Information regarding any ‘legal action’ on the part of Ms. Rowling is quite false. I sought contact with Ms. Rowling via her agent, offering her an advance copy of the story for her perusal. This was accepted (at least by her agent), and presumably they are currently perusing JPHEC at this moment to assure they have no problems with the content. Additionally, they have assured me that as long as I have no intentions of publishing the book for profit, that it is appropriate for children [no pornography], and that I do not intend to attribute it to Ms. Rowling, they have no problem whatsoever with my free release of the book.“
Again, the Christopher Little Agency also told TLC of the phone call, its contents, the requested provisions regarding the work, and the request to share the fanfiction with J.K. Rowling (though whether it has indeed gone to J.K. Rowling herself is unconfirmed).
Mr. Lippert has said that he’s quite surprised by all the attention to his work and didn’t intend for the story to become so egregious.
Thanks everyone!
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Demetry… maybe the person you’re looking at is Teddy, Remus and Tonk’s son?
Amanda last I heard the timeline was this.
Mr. Lippert wrote a story for his family about Harry and Ginny’s firstborn.
His family, and their friends, loved it and challenged him to put it online.
Being a web designer he took up the challenge in a big way.
People who stumbled onto the site mistook it for an official prequel/sequel story by JKR and contacted WB for clarification.
Mr. Lippert contacted JKR and company to make sure there were no further misunderstandings.
EVERYONE’s HAPPY and waiting for a new fanfic!!
Lippert not Little, damn me posting five min before i go to sleep
After all this hype, it better be good. Some fanfic is lousy, but if he puts the same effort into writing as he did for making his site…. Can’t wait to see it!
Finally had time to skip over to the site and thought the man did an excellent job. Found it entertaining in collecting the four passwords. You can tell it is designed for younger fans because of the ease in finding the clues.
Kudos to Mr. Lippert for going to great lengths in making it possible to be able to share it with us.
I personally am look forward to giving it a try.
I am very excited to read this new book in the HP world. I have been jonsing for a fix sense the last book came out. So bravo to this guy for giving us all what we wanted. And yeah its free cant beat that. I hope its a good read. I have all my passwords and I am ready to go. And so what if he wants to be published if its a big success, Jo already said she wasnt going to write anymore in this world. So let him make a buck if hes good at it.
I’ve just read the first three chapters and so far I’m impressed. His sense of humour and writing style seems to be very similar to Rowling’s, so it’s been a bit difficult for me to think of it as a fanfic. What I’m enjoying the most, though, is his use of logic in Technomancy. I don’t read fanfics either, to those of you who have mentioned the same, but I think he’s done a commendable job so far and hope that everyone will give it a chance.
All of the insults and slander are entirely uncalled for, in my opinion. I don’t understand why people are mad because he made the site look good, like this Amanda person. He wasn’t trying to fool anyone…He’s a web designer by trade and simply did his job well, so sue him (because JK and Warner Brothers aren’t going to =3).
There have been no comments here for the last 2 days. Curious! I’ve read the first 5 chapters and I find the story very interesting. I wonder why the hard core bloggers here are so silent all of a sudden. TLC hasn`t posted anything about Mr. Lippert and his work either. What is going on here?
I just finished the story and LOVED it!
GEO as people have taken to calling Mr. Lippert is an excellent writer, and has spent a good amount of time responding to critics and fans. I for one hope he continues writing these fictions, and from what I see on the messageboard/guestbook I am not alone.
Easiest link to the full story: http://www.elderscrossing.com/muggleentry.html
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Leaky Poll
Moving the HBP film to July 2009 is:
- Completely unforgivable33 (45%)
- Annoying, but I'll get over it27 (36%)
- Not something I care about.3 (4%)
- Cool; who wants to go to the movies in the winter anyway?1 (1%)
- Awesome! I get to save $10 until next year.3 (4%)
- Awesome! I get to save $10 because now I'm skipping this movie!4 (5%)
- I've made a Facebook group, started a protest, called my local councilman, staged a sit-in, started a boycott, and organized a million-fan march because we won't stand for the - wait, what was this about again?2 (2%)
Demetry… maybe the person you’re looking at is Teddy, Remus and Tonk’s son?
Amanda last I heard the timeline was this.
`Mr. Little wrote a story for his family about Harry and Ginny’s firstborn. `His family, and their friends, loved it and challenged him to put it online. `Being a web designer he took up the challenge in a big way. `People who stumbled onto the site mistook it for an official prequel/sequel story by JKR and contacted WB for clarification. `Mr. Litte contacted JKR and company to make sure there were no further misunderstandings.
EVERYONE’s HAPPY and waiting for a new fanfic!!