@Dustin: Rubbish. Total rubbish.
Let’s take a different example. Bill Gates has billions of dollars, but the average Joe can’t just repackage and sell Microsoft Office for profit. It doesn’t matter how much money Gates has, or that Microsoft is a huge corporation. Theft is still theft. Gates and Microsoft would be entitled to protect their property from someone seeking to profit from their hard work.
JKR and WB are no different. It’s not about money as much as it is protecting what belongs to JKR and WB, and maintaining their legal rights to all things Harry Potter. You can’t just do what SVA is trying to do. The law doesn’t work that way, even if JKR and WB are rich.
Yes, rubbish.
He’s repackaging and retooling information from her books for his own profit, and without her consent. That’s theft.
I don’t care how rich she is. I don’t care how many books she’ll sell on her own, or how many people will stand in line at midnight to buy them. She’s still entitled to protection under the law because of the copyrights she holds on her work. And WB are entitled to having their trademarks protected for the same reason. Period.
This whole scenario is just unfortunate. Alot of people are confused as to why people feel bad for SVA, but its because like Melissa, John, and Sue he is someone that we “knew” through pottercast and he was/is a respected Harry Potter Fandom member. Its like if your Cousin Barry got sued for stealing someones ideas….you’d still feel bad for him even he was totally in the wrong. I still maintain that RDR and not Steve are the ones making the horrible choices in this matter, although…I’m starting to doubt that.
Melissa, I just want to echo everyone else’s praise for you remaining dedicated to reporting and not becoming biased. We all know you are busy, and truly appreciate all of your efforts.
BTW, point #2 in the list of relevant facts that Melissa posted is interesting.
If I am reading that correctly, SVA not only planned to profit from his sales on his own site, but he also planned to take half of all of the revenue generated by the other Floo sites as well if they promoted his book. I’m sure that went over like a lead balloon when TLC read those words.
Not only was SVA planning on making money off JKR’s back, but on the backs of the rest of the Floo Network. That takes serious cojones.
Thanks for the updates, Melissa & Leaky. What a tour de force of distilling a giant legal document!
I’m very sympathetic with the claims of the complaint, but I cannot agree with the statement that the Lexicon (whether online or in print) serves merely to ‘repackage [the original work—i.e., the HP series] to entertain[the original work’s] viewers.’ I don’t go to the Lexicon to be entertained; I go to it when I’m reading or discussing one of the Harry Potter books and need a quick way to recall a detail about a character, item, place, or plot point. In other words, I use the Lexicon as a tool for enriching my reading and discussion of JKR’s books.
I’m not trying to say that RDR is in the right. I just think that some of the other sides claims are misleading at best.
@Minnie,
I totally agree, I forgot to mention that Floo Network business in my first post! I was appalled to read that and am still hoping that I don’t understand it. I’m afraid that I do, and that is really shaking the moral ground.
That point in particular, makes the TLC stance even more honorable.
To clarify my previous post: I realize that the above quotation referred originally to the book of Seinfeld trivia, but I presume that the complaint, at least by implication, is applying the same words to the Lexicon.
As an online tool, the Lexicon has its value. Even JKR and WB see that, since the suit doesn’t target the online Lexicon at all. They’re going after the published book.
It’s not that SVA has all the info freely available online. It’s that he’s trying to make a buck off of it in stores even though he’s not able to legally due to the fact that JKR owns her copyrights and WB has the HP trademarks.
To people who claim Jo is too money hungry…. she’s intending to donate the proceeds TO CHARITY, just like the other companion books. Keep this in mind when you accuse her of being selfish – she may actually be trying to maximise profits for the charities instead.
From the quoted expert on what’s scholarly and what isn’t: “The Lexicon remains silent on its logic of definition or etymology.”
What does that mean?
Dustin, You’re forgetting one major problem. Steve is publishing what was a free fan website, and publishing it in book form. If JKR and WB did not argue against this, future fansites (not just Harry Potter ones) could do the same. For example, JKR has said she liked certain fanfiction websites. If Steve was able to publish the Lexicon, then a fanfiction website could be allowed to publish all of their best fanfiction pieces in a book simply because Jo said she liked the website. I think most of us would agree that that would be wrong. But RDR and The Lexicon would set a precedent, which would be difficult to overcome.
From the U of C law professor: “The HP Lexicon and Ms. Rowlng’s planned volume may be close substitutes as gifts for Harry Potter fans.”
That’s actually kind of convincing. I mean, a hardcore Potter fan isn’t going to choose SVA over JKR, but a slightly out-of-it grandmother might easily pick up Steve’s instead of Jo’s as a gift for her Potter-reading grandchild.
From the quoted expert on what’s scholarly and what isn’t: “The Lexicon remains silent on its logic of definition or etymology.”
I believe that what Jackson is saying is that the Lexicon doesn’t explain how it decides how to define a term (definition). As far as etymology, that’s the study of word origins and evolution, so my I guess is she’s saying that the Lexicon doesn’t get into how/why Rowling made up the words that she did. Anyone else want to do a better job than I did with that question? :)
Sorry Amanda, my response above was for Serafina. And to Devin, JKR doesn’t sue the many Harry Potter companion books because they incorporate some of their own insight and research based outside of the Harry Potter series. He has basically copied right out of the books. The reason we have copyright laws is to protect authors from people like Vander Ark.