A spokesperson for Warner Brothers and J.K. Rowling issued the following statement following Tuesday’s legal proceedings in the trial over whether the publication of a print version of The Harry Potter Lexicon should be blocked:
“A fan’s affectionate enthusiasm should not obscure acts of plagiarism. The publishers knew what they were doing. The problem remains that the Lexicon takes an enormous amount of Ms. Rowling’s work and adds virtually no original commentary of its own. As we’ve said in court, it takes too much and adds too little. Authors have a duty to prevent the exploitation of their works by people who contribute nothing original, creative or interpretive.”
Leaky will have additional information on the case as the day progresses.
If Mrs Rowling had been dead for a 100 years and someone had decided to create an encyclopedia to accompany the works of the author it would be a different story. But knowing perfectly the intention of the author to do such a thing and decide to beat her to the wire is srticly dishonest, period.
Does anyone else think that, if RDR had provided Steve Vander Ark with a good editor none of this would have happened? RDR just wanted to go to the website and hit print 10,000 copies. There might have been a good book in the Lexicon somewhere, but no one seemed willing to find it.
It seems like SVA intended to create a book similar to one I used while studying art history called “The Abacus to Zeus”. That book basically provided definitions of technical terms and basic information on mythology, religious themes and common imagery. While ready the HP books I used the Lexicon in the same way I had used my Abacus to Zeus, to jog my memory about characters I recognized from previous books.
I agree with JKR & WB, the Lexicon is poorly written and relies too heavily on previously published material. However, I agree with RDR and SVA that their book would have limited impact on the market for the Scottish Book. I would have never considered actually buying a HP book written by a third party, but I’d want to be first in line to purchase JKR’s encyclopedia. I’m sure the general public would feel the same
What about books like Fionna Boyle’s that’s an inferior version of the Lexicon? It’s nothing but a reference guide to the material, with NO sources cited or no critical essays.It’s full of potion and spell lists, and that sort of thing. If that’s okay to print, then why not the Lexicon?
Rowling must be deeply insecure to feel threatened by the Lexicon. If she feels that it would eliminate the need for her own encyclopedia, then feel must feel that she has nothing more to contribute to the Harry Potter universe, which is ridiculous.
I love the Harry Potter books, but I’m not going to pretend that Rowling is a saint…she’s not. In fact, she’s incredibly two-faced, at one time praising the Lexicon and now being incredibly dismissive of it (which is incredibly unprofessional and downright rude), by calling it sloppy work. I’ve done bibliographic work. Making catalogs and indexes are hard work.
Rowling is most definitely not standing up for authors everywhere, only the ones who want complete and total control over their work. Most authors aren’t that delusional. When authors write creative works, most of them realize that those works will turn into something else in the readers’ heads and that will come forth in fan fiction, films, etc.
A great example is George Lucas and the creation of Star Wars fan films. People are free to work in the playground, because in part, no one’s going to mistake Darth Vader for being property of anyone but Lucas. Granted, these people aren’t doing it for profit.
Speaking of profit, SVA or RDR books don’t stand to make much profit from the book anyway. Publishing is a notoriously hard business to break even in and those relatively few huge best sellers every year make up for the rest of the books publishers publish.
I don’t want to bash Rowling unfairly, but her words and her actions are making her look like the jerk kid on the playground who likes to burn ants with a magnifying glass, simply because she can.
Authors can be notoriously cranky when it comes to research…a recent example would be the case of the Estate of James Joyce…they tried to stop a scholar from using his materials in her research. It’s not a coincidence that Standford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society represented the scholar then and is representing the RDR books now.
Actually, the way he/she is describing it, RDR can’t really bother suing him because based on how she’s describing it’s been worded, RDR might just technically have to cover Vander Ark’s costs for getting sued by ANYONE, including by RDR themselves. But since she knows best, I’m assuming she’s right in that they CAN later sue him if a court rules his Lexicon as plagiarism.
I pretty much expecting WB coming out with this statement. There’s no way they will allow themselfs to be scared into a settlement. They believe that they are in the right, which I think they are. This is nothing but plagiarism.
6000 dollars in 8 years averages out to 750 dollars a year. Thats enough to cover web hosting costs and onsidering the former floo network started paying for hosting the site, I would say 6000 dollars isn’t bad. There might have also been a form of revenue sharing when the floo network was in existence. I’m sure leaky makes substantially more than 750 dollars a year. Also, lets not forget the pseudo fame the site brought him. Steve was a sought after speaker at HP convnetions, and added commentary on HP DVD’s. So while 6000 dollars seems like a pittance for 8 years of work he should have more than made up for it in speaking engagements at conferences, DVD’s and television promos(I think he has been on one of those morning shows before an HP release, not sure).
Don’t know how much someone gets paid for an HP conference they might do it out love for the books for nothing or less than nothing. But there is still costs for the plane trip and food while at the conference so he would be stupid to do it for nothing, or get less than his expenses on the trip.
As for DVD commentary and T.V. he does get paid. He might even get residuals from DVD sales each time they are re-released in some special format if his commentary is included, special editions, blu-ray, HD-DVD.
So lets not assume that Steve’s passion for HP (of which I do not doubt) has been only a labor of love and sacrafice because the website has only generated 6000 dollars. He fails to mention any other HP related endeavor that he has made money from because of his dedication to his website. I am not saying Steve made substantial sums of money, but I am sure he could of nicely supplemented his regular librarian income with HP related endeavors.
Steve Van Der Ark should have listened to that little voice inside him that said ‘this is wrong’. Those little voices that niggle away at us have proved over the centuries that they are NEVER wrong. We should all follow our instincts, that’s what they’re there for.
Dumbledweeb, the reason for claiming he made personal profit off of ad revenue from his site was to show that Rowling and WB, knowing so, did not choose to take action in shutting the site down. Therefore, if Rowling and WB allowed him to profit off of the Lexicon from the web, then what’s the difference if he continues to profit from the Lexicon both for being on the web and in print? This was not about Vander Ark crying about making ONLY that much money.
I totally agree that it should never have gone this far. I so feel sorry for Jo having to go through all this. She is protecting HER creation … just like any mother would protect her offspring from any threat. (Lily/Harry, Molly/Ginny, etc)
The WB statement is quite succinct and correct.
If SVA just said “No” to RDR (and honoring his promise to Jo) .... but he has shown that he is not worthy of the trust that Jo afforded him. Early on she told him that she did not grant permission for publication.
Then RDR and SVA acted like spoiled children by doing what they were asked not to. RDR and SVA are the ones that forced JKR and WB to take the more forceful actions they did.
SVA is showing his true colors … a disreputable weakling (is HE looking for sympathy crying on the stand???) .... greed got the better of him.
We ARE the choices we make …... and it is clear that SVA is a unscupulous, treacherous con man.
Hmm….after all this talk about how the book “adds nothing” and only tells the reader (paraphrasing) “on which pages things were said and done”, maybe they could call it the HP INDEX…...?
If you look at filing 83 exhibit A (scroll to the end of the filing) there is a pie chart that alleges, based on WB count, that over 91% of the SVA book uses reformatted JKR text. This leaves virtually NO ROOM for commentary and makes the possibility of calling it ‘scholarly work’ rather dim. In addition – in SVA’s own testimony – what little he has contributed contains at least one inaccurate definition. My library director (my boss) commented that RDR’s best solution would have been to settle quickly and walk away. HMMMM
Thank to whomever posted that BLOG. Its amazing how I’ve spent the last couple of days reading news articles about the case only to have a non-journalist (I’m assuming) clear up the whole issue for me in a few paragraphs about derivative versus transformational.
The point of my previous post was that the online Lexicon seems derivative, like the raw data you collect at the outset of a project. Steve Vander Ark needed a good editor and a great deal more work to create something transformational.
I’m glad that smarter people than me are handling this case.
"Thanks," said Sirius, opening it, grabbing a drumstick, sitting down on the cave floor, and tearing off a large chunk with his teeth. "I've been living off rats mostly. Can't steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I'd draw attention to myself."
As I suspected. Can you post the url to this blog? Thanks.