Many 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.
Yes, I agree that the Lexicon has quite a bit of analysis in the form of essays, etc. on their website. However, the majority of the content of the lexicon is either direct quotes from the HP novels or summary. Neither of those is original content, and even though they put a lot of hard work into organizing those facts, that does not matter under copyright law. In copyright law there is a limit to how much material you can use directly from a source and still legally publish. As far as I can tell, the Lexicon goes over that limit.
I’m not sure what your evidence is on JKR’s handlers being adversarial to the online community. So far, they have only contended a work intended to be published and sold in print. In fact, JKR and WB have given the websites quite a bit of recognition. Jo has her fan site award, WB is in direct contact with the fansites, treating them as bonafide media outlets by inviting them to press releases, directly giving them news information, and inviting them to the HP movie premiers. How is that adversarial????
I am also not sure why you think that JKR’s handlers have preferrred Elder’s Crossing over any other fan fics. The only people we have heard from about Elder’s Crossing is from the media (incorrectly) and from the author himself. As far as we know, all of the online fanfics have equal approval. Fan fic hosting sites (mugglenet, hpana, etc.) have been around for years, and won fan site awards from Jo. Thus, fan fics obviously have her, and her lawyer’s, approval. So naturally, when the auther of Elder’s Crossing asked if he had approval for his fan fic, they said yes. The only reason we even know he has approval is because of the mess the media made of it. For some reason (probably just to get more readers) the media decided to say that JKR was challenging the Elder’s Crossing website. To set the record straight, the auther of the Elder’s Crossing fan fic revealed that he did have approval. This is all such a big deal because the media and the fans made it a big deal. The only thing JKR’s circle did was answer a question.
For those people who are asking about the fanfic’s cover art it is on the site, just follow the link for the site on this page, click the bean and start looking for the passwards. It’s a great site, I had fun going through it. I agree the hype behind his site isn’t entirely innocent, I think he is proud of his fanfic and wanted to get people to read it. And he succeeded. I want to read it and who know Jk might even read it, but it isn’t anything to get grouchy about. *Quick question: Is it about Harry’s dad or Harry’s son. I’ve heard both. It’s great that the Harry Potter universe is getting expanded on with a new book and it FREE!!!
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.
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 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?
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
I am one of G. Norman Lippert’s loyal readers and would like to encourage everyone to read both "James Potter and the Hall of Elders’ Crossing" and it’s companion book, "James Potter and the Curse of the Gatekeeper". The stories may not be strictly "canon" but they are both enjoyable and exciting to read. There are so few good "fan fictions" on the web to dismiss these stories without even reading them is completely uncalled for. George’s stories have been read worldwide and translated into several languages by fans of the stories. I feel that George’s talent has been ignored by the majority of the "fan fiction" community, which has been their loss. If anyone associated with The Leaky cauldron reads this post and wants to delete it, so be it. I thank you for reading this post.
"Harry Potter managed to escape Lord Voldemort," said Dumbledore. "He risked his own life to return Cedric's body to Hogwarts. He showed, in every respect, the sort of bravery that few wizards have ever shown in facing Lord Voldemort, and for this, I hono
although this fanfic sounds highly interesting and i will most likely read it. i hope it does not distruct the vision of harry potter i have already.
oh and in regards to this amanda persons comment…. quite rude. quite rude indeed