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JKR/WB vs. RDR Books Trial: Opinions
Companion BooksSeveral public figures have voiced their opinions on the JKR/WB vs. RDR Books court case:
Hugo and Nebula award-winning writer Orson Scott Card claims that J.K. Rowling’s “hypocrisy is so thick” that he “can hardly breathe”.
He goes on to say:
“Once you publish fiction, Ms. Rowling, anybody is free to write about it, to comment on it, and to quote liberally from it, as long as the source is cited.”
He predicts the outcome of the case:
“1. Publication of Lexicon will go on without any problem or prejudice, because it clearly falls within the copyright law’s provision for scholarly work, commentary and review.
2. Rowling will be forced to pay Steven Vander Ark’s legal fees, since her suit was utterly without merit from the start.
3. People who hear about this suit will have a sour taste in their mouth about Rowling from now on. Her Cinderella story once charmed us. Her greedy evil-witch behavior now disgusts us. And her next book will be perceived as the work of that evil witch.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE: With regard to Mr. Card’s statement that a published work of fiction may be written about or quoted “as long as the source is cited”, note that plaintiffs JKR/WB’s claim that the Lexicon book fails to properly quote or cite Ms. Rowling’s works. Exact testimony regarding such is available here in the trial transcripts).
Game show Jeopardy! wiz Ken Jennings writes about the trial on his blog in an entry entitled “Harry Potter and the Glossary of Doom”. He says:
“Books like The Harry Potter Lexicon are nothing new. When I was a kid, I had a bunch of unlicensed glossaries like these on my shelves: Robert Foster’s Complete Guide to Middle-Earth, Bjo Trimble’s Star Trek Concordance, etc. (Both of these books may later have been approved by their respective marketing empires, I’m not sure, but they were strictly fan-pub back then.) Even today, you can walk up to the TV/Movies shelf in a Barnes & Noble and find cash-in essay collections and reference works analyzing Lost, Firefly, The West Wing, and other hits. All these books profit by putting the Big Media Brand Name front and center on their covers–without the pop-culture teat, they wouldn’t sell a single copy. Profiteers, right, “Jo”? Burn them all!”
Jennings also notes:
”...the plagiarism claims are silly. Direct quotes from the books are rare, and are used only in epigrammatic fashion. Rowling may be referring to the fact that the Lexicon does faithfully describe facts and events from her series, and at length, but that’s an inevitable feature of any reference book. The literary references all look legitimate to me, as if due care has been taken to rephrase them away from Rowling’s language.”
On the subject of companion books, he says:
“In a free society, it’s good that people can talk and write freely about art. Good things come out of a society being able to talk and write freely about art–whether the artist likes it or not. Fan-published “derivative works” are a tiny legal niche, but they’re not an entirely unimportant one. Maybe you’re a Gilmore Girls fan who’d love to see an index annotating and explaining the show’s dense web of cultural references, or a U2 fan working on a complete concordance to their lyrics, or a Spider-Man fan with an issue-by-issue chronology of his Marvel Comics-owned “life” on your website. This stuff is going to keep disappearing if the legal precedents keep following the Twin Peaks and Castle Rock path.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE: With regard to Mr. Jennings’ statement that literary references are legitimate if “due care has been taken to rephrase them away from Rowling’s language”, note plaintiffs JKR/WB’s claim that the Lexicon book too frequently uses JKR’s exact language. Exact testimony regarding such is available here in the trial transcripts).
Finally, author Neil Gaiman follows up on his post from the 19th regarding the trial and fair use with two additional entries:
On the 24th, Mr. Gaiman’s clarifies fair use for a reader of his blog with:
“As far as I can see it’s only about a couple of really grey areas of copyright law—I suspect, and I am SO not a lawyer, that it will come down to whether or not what Mr Vander Ark had done to Ms Rowling’s work in his Lexicon was sufficiently “transformative” as to render it a new work.”
He offers as an example:
“If someone did a website in which everything in Sandman is listed in alphabetical order, as a concordance or lexicon… whether or not I was going to do one doesn’t matter. Whether or not someone else is making money off my work and words and ideas doesn’t matter. Whether it’s a good lexicon or a bad lexicon doesn’t matter. Whether it quotes me extensively may or may not matter (how extensively I’m quoted is a matter of Fair Use, but paraphrase me and you are home and dry on that count). What matters is whether it sufficiently transforms what I’ve done into something else by taking those entries and putting them into alphabetical order. “
Today, Mr. Gaiman writes a follow up on copyright, in which he posts a letter sent to him by one of his readers, a lawyer who co-authored a paper on fair use for the Journal of the Copyright Society of the United States. Leaky readers may find the letter informative.
Thanks as always to our readers who have emailed or posted links to articles or editorials on the trial.
Complete Leaky trial coverage can be found here.
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I agree Justin the Mighty. Jo should win! She worked for SEVENTEEN YEARS on the HP series, when someone (SVA) just slammed her work altogether and decided ‘there’ and that he was ‘done’
well, everybody has the right to have an opinion
i’m sorry to be rude to mr. card, but why do i sense, that he has been waiting for this time to come to jk rowling.. he sounds really bitter
my question: are these people experts on copyright laws etc?
I agree with Justin the Mighty. Orson Scott Card has every right to express his opinion, but when he starts using terms like “evil witch”, even in his own blog, he sounds more like a grumpy old warlock (to use a phrase it seems Mr. Card would find appropriate) than an intelligent author of speculative fiction.
Mr. Card’s comments were very harsh. I disagree with his predicted outcomes. JK Rowling has no problem with other books being written like the ones by John Granger so, obivously something is wrong with this book. She created this world so, it is her right to protect it.
Any why do we care what these people think? I’m more interested in what the judge or a real copyright lawyer has to say. Not really interested in what some very bias people like this Card guy or that MSNBC people has to say.
I have John Granger’s book. There were a couple mistakes I noticed. And ya, Hermione <3>
OSC seems to be like the ANTI-JO.
The people who wrote his WIkipedia page either hate him, or he’s just evil and stupid (sorry, OSC. I gotta calls it like I sees it).
Love how the pic on his BLOG page is that of a handsome dashing young man (hot, even!) but he’s ACTUALLY much older and heavier. Why wouldn’t he be using an up-to-date pic? Talk about hypocracy.
It seems to me that the real issue is if Steve plagiarizes Jo or if he is properly quoting her and “due care has been taken to rephrase them away from Rowling’s language.” We only have WB’s testimony to go by on this case so we don’t have a good idea what is going on. I think all the copyright talk confused me into thinking WB and Jo were claiming that the lexicon infringed on the copyright of the characters or something so I didn’t understand all the support they got but now that I know it’s a question of plagiarism vs fair use the issue is much clearer to me
This is sad, because I quite like Orson Scott Card and would regard his opinion if he didn’t miss the point completely. I’d even respect his disagreement with Rowling if he exposed his thoughts coherently, but it was as if he was talking about something altogether different.
The part that most of these people in the article seem to be missing is that there were little or no citations in the lexicon. It is one thing to create a book that gives a reference on the Harry Potter series, but you should cite your sources. We don’t get to get away with that in school, why would we get away with it in the real world. Using someone else’s words with out citation or permission is plagiarism pure and simple. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but they should make sure they have all the facts before they decide to malign someone’s character which is what I think Mr. Card has done. Unfortunately for him Harry Potter fans are dedicated enough to know every little bit that is said about Harry or Ms. Rowling.
I like Orson Scott Card’s books, but frankly his opinion is ridiculous. I think most people who are speaking out against JKR have no concept of what the Lexicon actually is and how much of Rowling’s exact text it copies.
I was also deeply disappointed to see Newsweek brand JKR as a greedy elitist who made a poor, sad little librarian cry on the stand. Their facts were inaccurate and it’s shameful that a magazine I had some respect for would jump on the “let’s-all-bash-the-wealthy-person” bandwagon.
Those authors don’t know what they are talking about. Have they ever had somebody take their work word-for-word and publish it for profit? Are they even fans of Harry Potter? Maybe they are down-playing HP so they can make more money for their books…
Card is a mediocre writer with a suspicious obsession with homosexuality. Where he needs to go with his bitter little diatribes is not his blog, but a skilled physician.
Um, Ken Jennings? Why exactly is anyone interested in hearing the opinion of an old Jeopardy contestant from like, what, 3 or 4 years ago? Is Mr. Jennings a lawyer as well? I’m not being sarcastic, I’m actually asking.
I rather hope he is a lawyer, because then it would help me understand why anyone is dying to know what he, of all people, thinks about this trial. Otherwise, I’m going to start thinking that we’ll be hearing from the latest contestant on The Price Is Right next (“Come oooooon down!!!”)
Although I love Mr. Cards work i don’t agree with his opinions .
I would think he would be sympathetic towards Ms.Rowling,
But I will never judge an author by the books they write.
It should come as no surprise that Orson is a homophobe. Indeed, I sense a sexist backlash to this whole case. It is disgusting how many negative comments directed toward JKR refer to her gender.
BTW, either Jennings is a collector of rare editions or he’s stretching the truth. He was born in 1974. That year The Guide to Middle-Earth was published in an official Ballantine edition. And the Star Trek Concordance was published by a mainstream press in 1976, copyright Paramount Pictures & Bjo Trimble.
Where’s Card’s blog? I want to leave him a nasty comment so I can get banned. I consider being banned from such a man’s website a high honor.
darn i love that jeopardy guy too bad
and whoever the hell YOU are mr. card, get your facts right
thats about half their case, the fact that it isn’t cited well.
Leaky Poll
Who should win the JKR/WB vs RDR lawsuit?
- JKR and WB: The HPL takes too much and adds too little6358 (78%)
- RDR: Lexicons are fair use1329 (16%)
- I'll answer in the comments365 (4%)
Wow… that seemed unnecessarily harsh.