rol, I’m not suggesting that the Title/Cover is the whole argument. I said it was part of the argument. That is one reason why JKR’s encyclopedia is relevant, which you said it was not. That’s what I was arguing.
I don’t have a problem with Steve. He just didn’t use very good judgement in my opinion.
Steve is oldest than J.K 0o
I want Lexicon published, but if J.K doesnt wanna, i will wait the official Encyclopedia of J.K
To rol: Actually, copyright law is a little more complicated than that. Yes, Jo Rowling holds the copyright to each individual Harry Potter novel, and she gets to decide how those novels are reinterpreted into other media. If someone were to create a graphic novel version of the series, they would have to have Jo’s express permission. But, under the current copyright law, she also holds a copyright on the bits and pieces that make up the series. Her plot developments, characters, and made up magical spells and objects are covered by copyright law.
It’s like the brick wall in my back garden. I own the wall. I built it myself. But in order to build the wall, I had to buy the bricks first. So yes, I own the wall, but I own the bricks, too. If I were to decide to take my wall apart and rebuild it in another configuration, that’s my right as the wall’s owner.
But my next door neighbor has no right to take my wall apart and rebuild it, no matter how kind and friendly he might be. He may have watched me build the wall, he may be quite fond of wall building himself. But in the end, it’s my wall, and my bricks, and I get to choose what gets done with them.
Steve may be a very nice man (I believe he is, though I have not met him personally), and he may hold a very strong personal interest in Harry Potter and its contents. But that doesn’t give him the right to take the story apart and put it back together in alphabetical order. The Fair Use Exemption to copyright does not cover that kind of a work. If the art or the essays from the site were to be included, that might improve RDR’s case because it would be adding some sort of transformative quality to the book. But as it stands now, I don’t believe this book will be published.
Echoing budb and others on here: thank you Leaky for remaining objective and keeping us updated with news regarding this case.
The whole situation is a shame, but I stand by what I have said before: Harry Potter is JKR’s work, if anyone else tries to publish for profit that infringes on her rights. It’s her world and she has given the fandom a great deal more leeway than some authors would have allowed. Let’s not abuse it. It is all because of her that we have Harry and his world to begin with. For that I am eternally grateful and I respect her wishes.
Thank you JKR and Leaky!
quote: You know, I’ve always thought Steve Vander Ark was a little creepy… in interviews on tv and DVDs… he just seems a little full of himself to a delusional extent…
Posted by no hate on January 16, 2008 @ 10:11 AM
You obvious never met Steve in person, otherwise you would not say that.
mollywobble, I wonder if “Sleeping Dragons” is one of those Chinese langauge HP tales that were spawned some years ago? (and y’all can look up the international copyt right/intellectual property law suits those fake HP books generated!)
re Lexicon vs Encyclopedia. One ingredient none of us posting here has is the exact content of the manuscript SVA turned over to RDR. Yes, I do know the snarky comment made by a RDR staff member when this mess started, suggesting in essence that the manuscript was straight off the lexicon website, word for word. But that snarky comment is not proof, just snarky. A lot hinges on exactly what the manuscript contains, and how much of it is SVA or others vs JKR’s words.
I’m glad to see folks have shifted from demonizing either SVA OR JKR to recognizing this matter is now between the attornies for RDR and those for WB.
snip < I’d like everyone to maybe take a step back before jumping all over SVA. I don’t know him personally, nor do many, if any, of you.>
I do. He’s wrong. It breaks my heart. Estel
What I can’t stand about the whole situation is that JKR let herself in with a lawsuit about an encyclopedia that will be obsoleter by the time she writes her own….. as she made pretty clear in the BBC docu, that is 10 years in the future. With all this fuss Warner and she made, taken completely apart from copyroghts and the rest, IMHO she is more or less obliged to the fans to sort out her scrapbooks and start writing NOW.
Goodness gracious secunda. You never stop do you? She is not threatening fan fiction. If you actually READ what the claims were, you would have seen the part where it says it is important for her to win this case because it will show that fan websites can continue to opperate the way they are, as long as they aren’t published for profit. Basically, if RDR’s argument that JKR gave Steve permission to publish the Lexicon in book form because she liked the website, future authors and artists will have to ban fan websites to prevent this from happening. That is when we will lose fanfiction and wizard rock.
As for Melissa, she is a great person. Knock it off! Yes she probably makes money through Leaky and Pottercast because it earns money through advertisment. It’s still not the same thing as asking Potter fans to pay a membership for the information. Why are you calling her a coward?
I don’t know why you keep coming back here and making ridiculous arguments. You’re just making yourself look bad.
Secunda: Jo and her people can’t have spies placed in every store around the world to police for copyright infringement. The fact that you’ve seen Harry Potter cake decorations does not mean that they were authorized, nor does it prove that Jo and WB should allow anyone to create anything HP related and through their ownership of the franchise out the window.
Also, Jo is not threatening fansites. She is expressing a very rational fear that, should RDR win this case, authors may be declared to have lost their copyright by allowing fansites to exist. Can you imagine what might happen if that’s declared to be true? Would the next big author allow his or her fans to write fanfiction? To post fanart online? Not if that means allowing their own legal rights to be weakened.
The whole reason for the existence of copyright, according to the U.S. Constitution, is to “promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” How, then would a victory for RDR promote any incentive for future artists? If their work can be hijacked the way Jo’s has been, there’s very little reason to put in all that effort.
“Through” in the first paragraph is meant to be “throw.” Sorry. Forgot to proofread. :)
One more thing: Melissa Anelli is an honorable woman, and nothing she’s said or done about this case can be construed as cowardly. She does a lot for the rest of the fandom, and I for one won’t stand for her being slandered.
I haven’t had time to read the whole post, but I want to say thanks to Melissa and the rest of the Leaky staff for their tireless reporting on this case.
One comment on the parts I did read: I’m not buying the claim by the WB/JKR side that the Lexicon is not a reference book. I use the Lexicon website exactly as I would use a reference book. Reference books don’t have to be original or creative, do they? Regardless of whether or not their other arguments are valid, it seems that the suit is trying to give the impression that the Lexicon is worthless, when in fact it is a very valuable resource—a great reference for readers of the Harry Potter books.
Poor Steve! He’s like the professor in the movie The Blue Angel. He’s been destroyed by his passion for JK Rowling. He can’t help it. He thinks he’s more mature than a teenaged fan with a website, but he sure has behaved like a teenager.
I think it’s strange if someone might think that what Steve has done on his site is merely a “summary”. I actually have fun reading it, and it’s totally different from reading the novel. Thus, I do consider Lexicon is a work of originality. Also Wu in his article commented similarly: “This and other entries [referring to the HPL entry for house elves] aren’t, as Rowling seems to suggest, anything like an abridgment of the originals. No one would read the Lexicon as a substitute for the Potter books; it is useless unless you’ve read the original, and that makes all the difference.” Jo creats her own world and let others know about it. She should be more generous when people need a guide to know her world better, and the guide can come from anyone who might have a better reading and researching the work than the others. Just my small piece of thought, nothing to do with the law :)