@ Elise, speak for yourself.

Please do not speak on behalf of the fandom (“Fandom shakes it head at you, Steve, even if you somehow win”).

Fandom of HP includes a significant number of people who do not necessarily think as you do.

If I am doing any head-shaking, it is at the whole sorry affair of this court-case, and how divisive it has been on the fandom.

Nick , there are plenty of bands that do :) Mary and the Grandpres for one… I’m pretty sure they take lines from the books, put them to music and sometimes slightly paraphrase. But otherwise I think that’s a good point.

To those who are showing SVA such hatred… let’s get things into perspective, he’s not exactly Robert Mugabe or King Abdullah.

People keep talking about “stealing”, I really can’t think of it as such in terms of JKR’s case. Nothing’s being /taken/ from her. I do, however, like the argument that what she’s doing will enable writers, who don’t have the power or the money, to protect their work. SVA’s book won’t affect her in any way, but she’s standing for people who could get hurt by such actions…

This really is a tricky case.

On the one hand, it actually would be nice to have an encyclopedia of harry potter information, i.e. alphabetised information about what canon we have so far, so if we ever want to check something, a fact etc, quick descriptions of one of the multititude of different objects and creatures in the books, we could find it with a quick riffle through the pages of this lexicon rather than searching through all the books. And also, I think this book would probably harm the selling of the Encyclopedia a bit, but not really that much.. since they cover two different things. JK’s encyclopedia is going to be of NEW information, whereas the Lexicon is going to be of OLD information.

However, there then stands this void of blatant plagiarism. I think using the information that Rowling has provided in the books is okay, and shouldn’t be deemed copyright theft. Every bit that has word-for-word copying should be quoted, with chapter references etc. If the book had that, and was written well, and offered all the factual information (and no conjecture even would be okay).. then I think it should be allowed.

It’s a tricky one.. because JK owns the rights to the books, so anything published should go by her. But then there’s the problem of future authors censoring books that they don’t like if they give unflattering opinions etc. We don’t want to live in a censored world, but we also don’t want to take the rights away from authors.

The Lexicon will be earning money for something that JK wrote; i.e. little work, stealing the ideas of others to get a profit. But there IS a market for such a book, and if JK isn’t going to publish it, then how do we get it?

I think the argument hear rests on whether the book is going to take profit from The Scottish Book. I think it will dent it by maybe 3 or 4 % max. Past that, it won’t have any impact.. so should be allowed to go ahead. There’s two different issues here though. In terms of author’s rights, it’s hard to think that repackaging someone else’s work for profit is right.. but how to fill that market gap.

I say that a portion of any critical commentary / encyclopedic information book’s profits, no matter how much info taken, and as long as there’s no plagiarism (i.e. everything is quoted etc as JK wished), should go to the author of the book. Say 25% of the profits. And every book about the book in question would have to go by them to make the decision.

This way, the author knows of all such books, can check over them.. and if they think it’s harmless, waive the rights to the profits. If they think it could be harmful to their profits, they can take the said percentage of the profits. If they think plagiarism is involved (only in the form of things that aren’t quoted and referenced) only THEN can they refuse to let it be published.

I’ve been going up and down, moving from one side to the next every other day, and I’m still not sure who’s right. Both sides have valid points; and the only way around it I can see is a compromise, of the form just described.

I read the declaration Mr VanderArk put down at the court filed on february 8 2008 . It consisy of a document and a number of attachments. In de document it is said the Lexibook has an alphabetic structure. In one of the attachments is mentioned that the sources used are all the books written by Rowling, interviews , etc. In another attachment there are copies of pages of the book (A to D) , I do not see any photo’s taken from the films or any quotes (cut and paste) from the books. This book is just a dictionnary and yes, most of the words explained are words from the HP univers. I have the impression most of the comments made are based on emotions. I do like to read the HPbooks, I read them several times, but that does not mean I have to like JK Rowling, as I do not know her as a person. I have used the Lexicon website to look up info, I found it useful, but again, that does not mean I have to like Mr Vander Ark. The decision must be made according American copyright laws, not according the emotions of HPfans.

I’m amused that Steve claims he is releasing his book “because the fans wanted the Lexicon in book form”. Why exactly is that so? Is it because they would rather pay money to read something that was otherwise free?

I hate to say this, but part of me gets the feeling that SVA saw the success of the Mugglenet book and that green monster of jealously started eating away at him. I dearly hope this is not the case, but if the point of the book was altruistic then it should given away for free (or better yet- proceeds donated to charity).

Jealousy is an ugly thing.

The point is that it doesn’t’ matter how much money she already has, the books are hers. If SVA is making a book that basically lifts from her than he is in the wrong, and with his back ground he ought to know better, he should have understood as most high school kids and college students do, if you take something from somewhere there is proper way to go about it.

My husband said that there are books made all the time about other fandoms, and he used the bible as an example of a book that people make money off of all the time, the bible is in public domain and is not a legitimate argument in this case, JKR’s books are under copyright. He said he thinks copyright laws in the USA are too strict, and that JKR doesn’t need the money anyway. That is fine if that is what you want to think. But again it doesn’t matter how much money she already has. It doesn’t matter whether it was fair or not, it isn’t legal to essentially take her books and sell it was your own with little commentary, it isn’t legal. SVA went about it in a way that was very shady. He ought to have known better and if this is something SVA wanted to do, he should have attempted to do it properly and legally.

There will be repercussions from all of this, and this case doesn’t just effect JKR and Harry Potter. Its not just about this book, because if RDR and SVA win, any fandom will have fair game on copyrighted material LotR, StarWars and group, and their will be a major backlash of more strict laws and things like the leaky and conventions will not be able to go on. I know that which ever side wins it will probably go to the next court and eventually to the supreme court, but no where in all this should it matter that JKR is a successful woman, that she was money should not be an arguement because this on “the author’s” side is all about the work and the law and not the money.

I realize there are a couple of typos in my post, i apologize, I think you can get the general idea of what Iwas trying to say, “StarWars and [any] group” ... “JKR is a successful woman, that she has money should not be an argument…”

I’m actually on the fence in all this. I can see the wrong and the right on both sides.

OTOH, the only reason SVA could possibly have wanted to publish his book is for $$$ (though that’s hardly fresh news.) As a working adult trying to make ends meet in this world, I can understand him. School librarians aren’t generally wealthy. But I wasn’t planning to buy his book anyway, not because I have anything against SVA, but because a book is static. The website can be updated with fresh info infinitely. Once the book is published, that’s it. Nothing new can be added. Though the series is finished, I don’t believe that JKR is through revealing more new info about the stories and characters. And, of course, if/when she comes out with her own reference book, that will render his book and all the others like it obsolete (if they aren’t already.)

If I understand correctly, he is under contract to actively support his publisher’s position. But I would like to think that he is bitterly regretting not having consulted JKR in the first place and would withdraw in a second and drop the whole thing if he could.

I’m still a fan of the website, though. I hope they don’t take it down after this is over.

I can’t imagine that the Lexicon book would have much affect on the sale of the Scottish Book.

I think the length of time it takes for JKR to publish said Scottish Book will have a HUGE affect on the sales of that item, not whether there is something out already. If she published it within the next few years, while the movies are still releasing and the hype is still there – then YES…charity will make a killing! However, eventually the hype will die down and perhaps the need for such a book. I can’t say that in 10 years, reading that encyclopedia will be something I long for.

The general reader of Harry Potter may not even care about either.

I’m no lawyer, but I’m in school and frankly I know what the schools can do to plagiarizers! They can fail you at the drop of a hat.

The fact that RDR would even publish something that isn’t cited properly makes me wonder at their ability to edit at all! I don’t know SVA, I’ve never had any dealings with him, but for this all to happen in my opinion is the fault of the publishing company.

Do I agree with SVA’s statements – NO…does it make him look badly in the eyes of fandom, somewhat. Just from reading comments on this board about SVA’s statements its rather obvious he isn’t doing himself any favours.

I bet most of the fandom will boycott the lexicon book. Only a true fan of Harry Potter would buy a Harry Potter encyclopedia, and a true fan of Harry Potter i s also a true fan of J.K. Rowling.

I am 110% supporting you Ms. Rowling!

Let’s take an example of a wildly popular thing that has made loads of money. Let’s say someone organized all of the Beatles songs alphabetically, wrote a little summation for each song, and printed it. Along with the book there was a CD that contained a 30-second snippet each of the songs. Do you think anyone in the world would doubt that is copyright infringement??? People would be appalled if someone asserted their right to publish this (and make money) off of the Beatles work and would be dumbfounded that someone could say, “I worked really hard on this. I had it online and it was fine so what’s the difference?”

To me it’s the same thing. Words that are recognizable to millions upon millions should be protected the way a melody is.

“Fair use.” pff.

this story is going to make one great ‘law and order’ someday… what will be super ironic is that i bet sva will try to stop the episode airing, claiming the writers stole HIS story!

jeanne has caused aLOT of ruckus with one comment, i think thats funny

I’m absolutley with you Beckett, I can never understand someone who could call Jo, of all people, greedy! It’s ridiculous

All I can say is, “who did the interview? if SVA can be such a smoothe on Radio, why is he such a prat when on the witness stand?” I still think he’s a great Pink Paper Pusher – te he he!