Thanks for the info, Roonwit. I guess RDR will use up all the time available to compile their defense and submit very close to the deadline.

Yes, I can’t see RDR submitting early, and it will probably be a day or two before we find out what is in the submission.

mbats,

The problem is that some of the information we have here, does not match what we have gotten from SVA in the posts you want us to read. And what we have here is written under penalty of perjury, so I trust it more that a post in the Whats New section of a web site. In the comments section in one of the posts he says “I contacted everyone I could think of in the spring and summer of 2007 and they wouldn’t make time to talk to me. ” But now we find out that Steve was in contact at this time with the The Christopher Little Agency requesting employment on the official encyclopedia. That was a back and forth E-mail conversation where someone did take the time to talk to him, so how hard would it be to for him ask the person about the lexicon book in addition to the job.

That does not even include the e-mail where SVA said that “Jo has reserved all publishing rights to her intellectual property, which means that she’s the only one who may publish any book that is a guide or encyclopedia to her world.” And face it, the Lexicon is an encyclopedia. So what changed between then and last summer?

I want to see what the response from RDR books is going to be, but I am wondering what they could possible say in response to some of these points. But if they have good responses to these points, it will make it much more interesting.

Just my thoughts

soo sad this had to go so far. I love both Jay-Kay and Steve, but why did this have to happen? I mean, she gave him a blasted FSA!!! Now he just blatantly violates hers, and WB’s, copyrights of HP? What happened? I’m not trying to be mean to Steve, but really, he could have thought about the CONSEQUENCES before he tried to publish the ENTIRE lexicon! I just hope the injunction is allowed. I hope it teaches him a lesson! DON’T MESS WITH JAY-KAY!!!!!

I’ve been hoping to hear an answer to fab4mom’s interesting question. She states that SVA has also sold Star Trek and Hogan’s Heroes compendia without problem. I haven’t researched OR VERIFIED this, but one big difference in the Star Trek universe is that works of fiction not authored by Roddenberry have been out in paperback form forever, so apparently Roddenberry sold or permitted some rights that Jo has not. As for Hogan’s Heroes, that’s pretty special interest, and was probably under the radar.

I’ve tried to stay sympathetic to SVA and how he slid down this slippery slope, from working his * off on a nifty web site to trying to publish a clearly illegal book. Many people see him as the victim of RDR. But let’s face it; SVA is a big boy. He’s older than Jo. If he’s really this naive, he needs to get out more.

Part of my understands what might have been SVA’s motivation—he has spent years of his life on the Lexicon with no compensation except for personal satisfaction, and I suspect RDR mislead him about the legality of it all. SVA is at a certain age when you start thinking about socking something away for your old age (I’m about the same age).

But SVA didn’t create it ALL himself - other people have contributed to the Lexicon. Years ago I submitted one tiny factoid under the furnunculus curse (to produce boils) about my speculation that the name of the curse was related to the word “furuncle” which means a skin boil. I submitted it because I thought other fans might find it interesting. If I thought someone would take that, and all the other contributions, and try to sell them in violation of JKR’s copywrite, well, I never would have sent in the entry. And I certainly haven’t heard from RDR about throwing me - or any other contributor—a few coins for our trouble. (I wouldn’t take it if they did, but you get the idea.)

This whole thing is so sad. I admired the Lexicon and its creators, and looked forward to “Canon Conundrums” on the Pottercasts. When the truth is all out, SVA is going to look bad, whether venal bad or deluded bad, who can say?

All those years of building up goodwill and admiration from his fellow potterheads, and now it’s all gone. I’ve been involved with other fandoms besides Potter (Star Trek, B5, etc.). Fans NEVER forget a slight against the creators of their favorite universes. I feel very bad about all this.

Don’t know why part of my post got crossed out above. Sorry ‘bout that.

@ Claire

This isn’t even going to just be remebered by the HP fandom. This is going to set a precident for anything like this in the future in any fandom. Which is why I pray that SVA loses. I love Fandom I don’t want it to be frowned upon or feared by writers or movie makers,(I know there are several People that look down on it) that if they create something that becomes successful that people are going to try and profit off their ideas.

I personally don’t see where he has any room to say that he is in the complete right to make a book version of his site. The only reason that fandom is even tolorated by people like JKR and George Lucas and others that have a large fan base is because we give credit to them and that we don’t profit off what we’re making. Fandom is suppose to be all in good fun. Him thinking that he could make a book from this website is like me thinking I could have my fanfiction published. (and atleast fanfiction is more creative then gathering information from the books and putting them in ABC order)

Wow, SVA wrote the Star Trek Lexicon? I think I have a copy of that somewhere. Did it have hard plastic covers and foldout pages with floorplans of the Enterprise? If it’s the one I remember there was TONS of original material in it. It wasn’t just summaries of all the episodes. I mean there was stuff about Star Fleet Academy, etc. that made the world seem very “real,” at least to this dumb kid. I would think that was more than enough to count as fair use. Now I need to see if I can find it…

Averyfan, here’s a link from the GVSU forum he spoke at in early December that shows what his Star Trek Lexicon looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha_X9v1BEWo

Averyfan – that’s interesting, but it’s the HP lexicon on trial here, not the Star Trek one.

Um, why is everyone saying that Steve must’ve misunderstood the contract and not examined it properly, and that this is somehow not his fault but the publisher’s fault and Steve just made an innocent mistake?

It says, perfectly clearly, in this news post, that the contract says that RDR takes full responsibility for copyright infringement claims. Why would RDR shoot themselves in the foot? If Steve wasn’t even going to read the contract, they would make HIM the scapegoat, not take responsibility themselves.

The contract shields Steve from repercussions, so he would have no reason NOT to agree to it, I'm 99.9% certain that this clause was his idea.

I am sitting in a room with every book ever published about Star Trek, its shows, spinoffs, characters, by the actors, about the actors, etc. I went through all the encyclopedias, compendiums, concordiums and guides, about 60 books and found nothing by SVA. (my husband has been obsessive about it since child hood and we have started a second room for them)

Then Ally posted the youtube link-thank you. He made all of 40 copies of that Star Trek book, mainly for himself & the fanbase in his local area. If he had just went and printed up 40 copies of his HP dictionary (sounds more like that than an encyclopedia), he would not be in this controversy. Instead he and the publisher wanted to go national and international.

It sounds like it stems from bitterness (not getting hired to help JKR) and greed (why keep the Floo network from getting any profit from promoting the book).

I don’t believe he went into getting this published blindly, not knowing about copyrights and fair use. He is a librarian and has surely learned of such things. The librarians in our local library will not hit the copy button on the copiers if you are having trouble because of those pesky copyright laws. Seems if you are copying a page or two for personal use it is OK.

So Steve has published previous lexicons. Interesting. Ally, thanks for that link. Thats a good capture of his personality and way of thinking. He certainly does love his work and is fairly good at presentations talks. I dont see a naive person but a calculated and driven one, a determined character who may want to reap reward for his hard work. Looking at his personality in that video, I find it a little hard to believe he is an innocent victim of RDR. Of course judging one’s personality is soo open to favaourable or unfavourable perceptions! But that is my perception. I await RDR’s presentation to see the other side of the coin.

Steve talks about his Star Trek: TNG encyclopedia on the Lexicon website. I doesn’t sound like he printed only 40 copies. He talks of having a publisher, a cover artist and of taking it to a Trek convention to sell. Is there more to the story than that? Maybe Steve is having deja vu all over again.