In The News
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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“By the way, comments here about the overwhelming amount of Rowling verbiage in the Lexicon don’t strike me as plausible-or backed up by the transcripts.”
Posted by Ken Jennings on April 26, 2008 @ 05:06 PM
That’s the thing. In the transcripts, the defense never rebuts the line-by-line analysis provided by the plaintiffs from which the 91% figure was derived. So maybe we will just have to go on your conjecture that the defense is an ass.
“I haven’t owned a copy in decades but I believe Robert Foster’s Complete Guide to Middle Earth takes a comparable amount. I believe Bjo Trimble’s Star Trek Concordance does as well.”
Posted by Ken Jennings on April 26, 2008 @ 04:58 PM
Again, maybe the defense is an ass, but everything they produced could either be shown to have been produced with permission or after the copyright had expired. Were the two books you mentioned produced without permission and before copyright expired?
Anyway, I’m not bringing these points up just to be argumentative, these are points that actually inform my opinion on the case. If they were shown to be inaccurate (in spite of the defense’s inability to do so), I might change my opinion.
And finally, all hail LEAKY! Where else could I debate with a guy who could kick my butt at Jeopardy!?
@Tyler
Excellent last line…..and please remember all answers must be in the form of a question.
Okay, wasn’t going to post again, but this looks like a legitimate chance to maybe change some hearts and minds. So, one last post:
1. Yes, Star Trek and Lord of the Rings were (and still are) under copyright when those books were fan-press-published, with no license. I’m sure there are other, analogous examples from the (still copyrighted) works of Faulkner, Pynchon, etc.
2. Everyone here should be more credulous about the ridiculous 91% number. As we’ve been discussing over on the message boards at my site, the 91% number identifies 164,461 words of the Lexicon. That’s a book roughly the size of Deathly Hallows. Do you really think it’s possible that all that text could be quoted verbatim? Plaintiff’s exhibit very cagily refers to this number as “Rowling material,” hoping that people will misinterpret that to mean “verbatim text” when all it probably means is “material based in any way on facts from her books.”
Usually, when I come on here I defend Jo or copyright law or whatev. But with all that this case has brought out in us (and its not pretty) I’ve got to defend the other “Rowling-o-philes”.
Choosing to support JK Rowling in this case does not, in any case, make you a fanatic, a freak, a lemming, a sheep or any of the other ideas being thrown around. It means you believe in her SIDE.
I’ve read the court transcripts. They are hell to get through but worth it in the end. JKR sat at her kitchen table (Or perhaps it was dining room, I don’t remember exactly) with her young daughter and made charts of the several different areas where her work was stripped verbatim. There are extremely specific guidelines when it comes to referencing a work. If you are going to strip a sentence or paraphrase an idea, you still have to cite it. If you strip the whole sentence, there better be quotation marks. And in both cases, you need to have page numbers as well as chapter numbers.
In SVA’s testimony he talked about not using the page numbers due to the amount of different versions out there. That’s what a bibliography is for. SVA also spoke about his knowledge of the copyright laws and the fact that, as a teacher, he taught children how to cite.
So…why exactly didn’t you practice what you teach?
I don’t respect individuals like Orson Scott Card who feel the need to vilify another individual simply because they are taking a stand against an injustice against them. Individuals like JKR stand up for what they believe in. If she didn’t she would be vilified for letting RDR and the Harry Potter Lexicon walk all over her.
JKR is a wealthy woman. And therefore she’s facing a double edged sword. If she fights, she’s an “evil witch”, if she doesn’t, she has no spine.
I respect her for the hard choice she made to stand up for herself and fight for something she believed strongly in. I respect her for the fact that she had to face a man she knew idolized her and is probably troubling to her that she has to be attacking his work. And I respect her for not backing down, not letting the negativity of people like Orson Scott Card make her want to throw in the towel.
I love HP. But I love literature in general as well. And for the sake of literature, to protect all writers, creators and copyrighted material, I’m on the side of JKR.
@Athena: That may be a convincing argument, but the defense have not taken that stance. They admit it’s infringing. The question is as to whether it’s fair use.
@Ken Jennings: I addressed you directly in an earlier comment and it had nothing to do with you being a game show contestant. I’ll copy and paste it here for ease:
Ken Jennings says: “crummy $10,000 advance” and crosses it out. Um, what? That’s really, really good for an unknown with a manuscript that has a very small market (HP is huge, but companion books are not). Wasn’t Jo’s advance from Bloomsbury 3,000 pounds? That’s about $6,000 today. She had worked on it for seven years. SVA had worked on the manuscript for two weeks. I don’t include work on the website in this as even Steve says that the book is of lesser quality.
I think I may have to blog about this whole mess. My poor f-list who hasn’t been following this case at all or not as much as me…. If I do, I’ll link it here and refer people to the forums here and the documents and Leaky’s archive of articles on it.
I am getting so fed up with people constantly pointing out Jo crying, but not saying a word about SVA doing so. So, her crying is just an act and his is heartfelt? What? I thinnk they were both sincere. I’d cry too. I’m a crier anyway (I cry at Hallmark commercials for goodness’s sakes).
I need blood pressure medication just to read Jenning’s blahg (intentional).
As for us here at Leaky being angry at SVA, apparently he hasn’t read that deeply or he’d have realized how much we feel betrayed by him as well and how much he has lied. There’s not a comment place either. Maybe he’ll read this since his name is in the article:
Mr. Jennings,
For me, and I’m sure for others here, the reason we are so angry with Steve goes far beyond him trying to publish this book. He lied to us and talked about the fandom as if he knew what was best for us. We feel just as betrayed by him as Jo does. Most of us here who are on Jo’s side have read about all the events that lead up to the lawsuit and how RDR evaded. Why? Because he knew what he was doing was wrong and illegal, probably. He got lucky that the people at Stanford with the Fair Use Project stepped in to further their own agenda. We have read court documents. Some of us have already read the manuscript as well. We’ve read or are reading the court transcripts. We had three people present at the trial for all three days, while most media outlets got out of there as soon as Jo had finished her testimony.
I agree that people should be able to talk about art. SVA doesn’t talk about Harry Potter. He restates it. That’s all. There’s little to no commentary and no anaylsis. The citation system is very poor and confusing. In short, it’s not fair use.
Sincerely, Katie
Tyler, I also find it incredibly amusing that I’m debating with someone who could kick my butt at Jeopardy. Only on Leaky. It’s also the only place where a fan who meets Jo would play with her bracelet and ask if she would bail him out of jail if he ran through the courtroom yelling “Troll in the Dungeon!” Oh, John. You amuse me. :-)
Oh, one more thing Jennings, I don’t know if you’ve visited it, but here in the forums we’re on our eleventh thread discussing the case. It can be found here: http://www.leakylounge.com/WB-JKR-vs-RDR-SVA-Part-X-t61366.html&st=150&gopid=1595412#entry1595412
The arguments given there are more thoughtful than some of the ones here (for either side). We even have a few on RDR’s side and some lawyers and librarians giving their views.
I’m going to pimp my video one more time because it’s amusing and relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq0bZ7cAHlg
@ Ken Jennings -
JKR isn’t even claiming that the entire 91% is verbatim. What she is claiming is that its either verbatim or paraphrase. And the majority of that 91% isn’t properly cited.
That would be the basis of her argument. If in that 91% it was cited properly, and more commentary from the writers of the HPL had added to each entry – then we would have nothing to debate upon. JKR would just consider it another companion book that she was fine with. Like the several she spoke about on the witness stand.
Again…these are facts of the case. That I got from reading the actual text of the case. I know I’m not the only one begging you and everyone else to do this. Read the facts before you attack the individuals involved.
Re: Star Trek Concordance
Mine is over in the states in my office, however I’m an very sure that it is copyright Paramount, so that would have been produced with their permission i believe.
Correct me if i am wrong
I have never owned the other so can not comment. Plus there is a lot of difference between Concordance and the Lexicon Book
skimming through the comments, I see nothing but negative (and often unfair) comments towards those who disagree with Jo. Remember that this trial is really a matter of perspective. If anything, these quotes have made me think more closely about the situation. Is Jo really right to do this? Possibly your (and my) admiration for Jo is blinding you from the right thing. It’s good to have an open mind. It seems to me Leaky is being pretty biased in this issue, which is kind of surprising. This isn’t to say I want Van der Ark to win, I’m just not sure anymore. I suppose I’m neautral.
One mans terroist is another mans freedom fighter.
If you read Card’s whole article, it is so obvious he has been waiting to criticize JKR.
Quoting Card’s Article:
“Rowling “feels like her words were stolen,” said lawyer Dan Shallman.
Well, heck, I feel like the plot of my novel Ender’s Game was stolen by J.K. Rowling.”
Sounds like sour grapes to me.
If this stupid Lexicon book is ever published I will NEVER buy a copy. (But I cant wait for the “evil witch” to write her book and will be there the first day it comes out). I am getting so tired of people bad-mouthing JKR when it is so apparent that they have NO clue what they are talking about.
“As we’ve been discussing over on the message boards at my site, the 91% number identifies 164,461 words of the Lexicon.”
Posted by Ken Jennings on April 26, 2008 @ 05:32 PM
Oh, so THAT’s where I could debate with someone who could kick my butt at Jeopardy!. Oh well, but given the rest of the content on the two respective sites, Leaky still wins.
Ken Jennings provides some of the better arguments I have seen for SVA’s case, in that he sticks with the issues, comes up with better examples than the defense themselves did in the transcripts, and refrains from personal attacks (the fact that he rightly identifies OSC’s piece as “screed” is another point in the favor of his objectivity).
I still am on the fence as PJB just came up with possible proof and arguments to the contrary of KJ’s claims regarding comparable reference books, but I can at least identify KJ as someone who can objectively discuss these issues from the other side.
“skimming through the comments, I see nothing but negative (and often unfair) comments towards those who disagree with Jo.”
Posted by noodles on April 26, 2008 @ 05:56 PM
Hey, there are lots of us who aren’t being negative, unless you consider reasoned arguments to be inherently negative. Again, you say Leaky is being biased, but all they do is provide access to contrary opinions for every argument, which is the opposite of bias. I have seen equal negativity on both sides (OSC’s article being a prime example of the pro-RDR negativity). We could just as logically argue that pro-RDR people’s inherent dislike for JKR or rich people is blinding them from the right thing.
@noodles : Compared to most mainstream media outlets, Leaky is Switzerland. Do not confuse the comments with the reporting, which has been incredibly neutral.
@Jennings : For the Lexicon book to be considered a true concordance (the way I understand it), it would have to give a Book and page number for every time one of the creatures or characters or places appears in the series.
It does not even come close to doing that. I think it was Mr. “Hammah” (giggle) who had no idea what (HBP10) meant as a citation. Maybe the defense is just an ass. But, I doubt it. Many of the lawyers are associated with Stanford and its Fair Use Project. Not too shabby. I think they know a lot more than us, yet they still have yet to present a previous case that reflects the Lexicon case. They all give off an air of a used car salesman, though. Maybe that’s just RDR rubbing off on them. I imagine him to have really greasy, petroleum-jellied hair.
As for those who are saying that if the Lexicon would give commentary and such outside of what is said in the books, it wouldn’t be a lexicon anymore, I disagree. I have a Buffy companion book called The Monster Book. Not only does it list every monster ever in the series (as current as it could be as the series was still going on), it says which episodes they appeared in, even multiple ones. It also gave quite an extensive history of monsters in cultural history, particarly film and tv history. It still functions as a lexicon and gives original commentary.
I don’t see why the HP-Lexicon couldn’t do the same. Other than laziness.
@ noodles
I do agree with you that sometimes we do get carried with our “Pro Jo” sentiments. I stand by my other comment that a great many here have done a lot of reading and research regarding this issue. I am certainly not any kind of legal or copyright expert but I personally find this fascinating from both points of view and have learned a lot. I am mostly interested in how this will eventually impact publishing rights and internet fandom, I am sure there will be fall out of some kind regardless of the outcome.
@ Ken Jennings
Answer: A heated, passionate discussion about all things “Harry Potter”.
Question: What is The Leaky Cauldron? (and welcome)
We may not agree but the conversation is exciting, educating, infuriating and sometimes hilarious.
There’s still only the “Ouch” comment over on Card’s blog.
At least Ken Jennings was brave enough to enter the lion’s den.
Orson Scott Card should do what Orson Wells did and eat himself to death and rid us of his idiocy.
This is an issue about compassion for another person, a thing that seems to be horrible lacking in the world today. RDR Books have no compassion for J.K.’s work and seek only to capitalize on the series that she has brought to life. Any work of this magnitude in the Harry Potter line not bearing J.K. Rowling’s name on the front is a travesty.
I am very saddened by the way I feel things are going on Leaky and I think that I like Cam will get my HP fix elsewhere until this case is resolved. I used to love coming to this site and feeling a connection with other people who liked HP as much as I did. I still have not made a conclusion about who I think is right in this case, but I am sad that a compromise could not be made. I am tired of the negativity and I am sick of coming to the site and hearing nothing but bickering and frankly it is depressing. This article and the responses to it were pretty much the last straw. TTFN Leaky… I will miss the way you used to be.
You know, people keep saying they’re leaving Leaky temporarily because of negative comments (which are really few and far between). None of us are any more or less passionate about this case than we were about whether Snape was good or evil and other theories. In fact, comapered to the shipping wars, this whole thing is a lovefest.
Also, if you don’t like the comments, don’t read them. It’s that simple. Leaky hasn’t changed a bit, it’s just that we’re debating something real this time. That’s the only thing that has changed.
For Kevin’s and other’s information – Mr. Card wrote the Ender series (Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide).
I’m a huge fan of Card’s work, and I respect him a great deal. He’s an avid Potter fan himself, so I think everyone should think twice before we start bashing him here. He’s uniformed about the case, and shouldn’t be making staements like this because of that, but we need to be a little more civil. Its not like there aren’t quite a few people who are less informed than Card on these boards. And, you guys take it too far when you insinuate that Card is prejudiced against Jo because he is homophobic (which i doubt is true).
Sorry, comments are closed for this article.
Leaky Poll
Moving the HBP film to July 2009 is:
- Completely unforgivable74 (39%)
- Annoying, but I'll get over it75 (39%)
- Not something I care about.9 (4%)
- Cool; who wants to go to the movies in the winter anyway?3 (1%)
- Awesome! I get to save $10 until next year.10 (5%)
- Awesome! I get to save $10 because now I'm skipping this movie!9 (4%)
- I've made a Facebook group, started a protest, called my local councilman, staged a sit-in, started a boycott, and organized a million-fan march because we won't stand for the - wait, what was this about again?9 (4%)
Athena: If you had read the transcript of the case, you’d see that they went through several of those previously published books and explained WHY Ms. Rowling did not find them to be infringing. Jo went as far as to say that she really liked one of them. They added substantial commentary or background alongside the information taken from the books. The Lexicon adds next to nothing. What this case is about, as Jo has said a few times now, is that the Lexicon takes too much and adds too little. That is the reason why she never tried to block publication of those other books. She has been talking about doing an encyclopedia for the last five years or so.
Interesting that there is only one comment below Mr. Card’s rant. None of us are stupid enough to think he would not have recieved a load of comments by now. Censorship anyone? Yeah, makes you look really good, Mr. Card.