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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I would like to echo an earlier sentiment of wanting to vomit.
I don’t care who’s side you are on. Steve’s, Jo’s, Santa Claus’s… the bottom line is, you don’t have to be a jerk about it when you are expressing your opinion. It doesn’t make people want to agree with you. Even if they DO agree with your over all argument, it strays people away from saying they are “with you” if only for the fact that you were so harsh towards the other side. Yelling rude comments at each other doesn’t win arguments. If it did Presidential debates would be a lot more interesting.
While from the moment I read the LexiBook’s pages I was on Jo’s side (I mean come on, I don’t even have my HP books with me in this State, in fact they are on the other side of the country than I am and yet I knew those were her words) I’ve never felt the need to be as harsh as the individuals who are being printed for all the world to see, and who are supposed to be respected.
I’m currently trudging through the transcripts of the trial (I’m about 1/2 way through day 2…)and its only become more clearer to me that if anything Steve has no defense while Jo is just damn lucky she’s with WB (would you want to be up against a WB lawyer? Cause they scare me). Every time RDR said he didn’t do something it seemed as though the WB lawyer could be like …ah ha! but look at this proof that I have with your signature on it! Do you not remember this?! To me… well that’s just being a killer lawyer. But it’s also a really good case.
It makes me sick to think that “respected” authors and individuals like Ken Jennings who many take as “one of the smartest men there are” (though I’m pretty darn good at Jeopardy! and I’m 21 so…) are still so cruel and ignorant about things.
If you’re going to write an opinion piece about a high profile case. That’s cool with me. But do the readers a favor and get all the facts before rushing to your computer and typing out words like “evil-witch”. Cause the internet is a powerful tool. And once it’s out there—- it will come back to bite you. Hard.
...Did any of these people even read the details of the case? Cause this makes JK out as greedy AGAIN, and.. ugh. Forget it. rolls eyes
Christopher Schiller (guy whose email is on Neil Gaiman’s blog) has interesting post discussing what makes a work “transformative”.
http://wise-old-sage.blog-city.com/gaiman_joint_authorship_and_transformative_works.htm
”... The question of transformative works is whether a truly derivative work—one that actually uses an original work as a basis for a new work—has transcended the influence of the original and established a presence and importance all its own, nearly independent of the original work. ,,, It becomes a truly independent work in the minds of the public.
”,,, Therefore it will be interesting to see how “transformative” the new book would be. My suspicion is that the buyers of such a book would be buying them with the intent to get a “Harry Potter” related tome which doesn’t bode well for the defendant.”
oi temper temper Mr.card and im sorry your wromng Jo is in the right here and has already won the battle inthe court of public opinion. I love Ender’s game but i dun the suthor’s atitude. at this point SVA has so alienated the majority of HP fans he will sell very few copies if he does get to publish which he should not
I just love how people who are well known think they are at liberty to give their views on things it’s likely they didn’t even research. All they said was that the Lexicon is ok as long as it does it’s cited properly and gives credit to Jo. Obviously, they couldn’t have researched this at all because the whole point of the case is that SVA/RDR didn’t do what they needed to in fairly publishing the Lexicon.
I will NEVER ever read any of orson scott card’s books after he said that about Jo. He’s dead in my book. This trial makes me so angry sometimes. :[
i just went in to my brother’s room to ask if i could rip up his orson scott card books. He said no lol.
@ibelieveinnargles
You never heard about his books? Well, that´s not too important, I assume.
Go JO! how dare these stupid people be so horrible!!!! I have made a top which i wear non stop(i wash it over night don’t worry!) which says ’ SUPPORT J.K.ROWLING the real H.P. author’! I’m glad neil gaiman seeems to be on her side! xxx
@ibelieveinnargles and FreyaStorm
There is being a supportive fan and then there is being a fanatic. Fanatics give the HP fandom a really bad name. Just saying.
Mollywobbles23 I just wanted to say I really respected your reply to OSC (don’t even want to say his full name) and his nasty rant. You did a great job pointing out where he was wrong in facts or over the line without descending to his horrible level. Well done. I agreed with you 100%.
I am still with Jo on this. The book simply is not transformative enough to stand and it makes me really sad that people don’t seem to see that and go for the hateful comments instead. It is a sad day when a person cannot even protect their work and draws nasty condemnation from those who have not looked at the facts. Jo does not sue every book coming out, just this one. She is right. It does not stand.
Leaky I know this is news (sort of), but it literally made me feel sick to skim just the little bit I did. In the future if you are going to post something like this, can you make sure non of the neg comments are “before the cut.” I’d rather have remained ignorant.
Although to be honest, as far as I’m concerned this is no more valid than any other random blogger’s opinion. And far stupider than most.
Just sayin’-Card’s a militant homophobe (yes, Orson. You are) and his words about a woman who ‘outed’ the sexuality of a popular character are to be taken with a grain of salt. Just nod and smile and recognize it for what it is-like I do with the Chinese who try to talk about Tibet. :P
Try again with no strikeouts. ....Just sayin’…Card’s a militant homophobe (yes, Orson. You are) and his words about a woman who ‘outed’ the sexuality of a popular character are to be taken with a grain of salt. Just nod and smile and recognize it for what it is…like I do with the Chinese who try to talk about Tibet. :P
There’s a really excellent definition of ‘transformative’ work in a link at the bottom of the copyright lawyer’s letter in the Neil Gaiman blog.
Regarding the copyright lawyer’s letter, my first thought was, never mind how much Neil Gaiman quotes from other work such as Kipling, his work is imaginative and original in its own right, so it’s just not the same thing as doing an A-Z index. So I think the argument in the letter is irrelevant to JKs case. The link at the end of the letter includes a definition of ‘transformative’ (as distinct from ‘derivative’): something that takes on an identity independent of the original from which it was derived. The example given is the Andy Warhol ‘Marilyn’ image. I’m glad someone has defined it in this way because that’s how I understand it.
IMHO (I’m not a lawyer though, but I am an academic), academic work such as critical analysis is something completely different from Transformative work because it’s scholarship and not artistic creation. So for me the Transformative argument shouldn’t even apply. But I’m not a lawyer, maybe it counts as the same thing in American law. I just don’t see it as the same thing, so I just can’t see HPL as transformative/creative work at all. Not to mention that I don’t even see it as academic scholarship either! I think it’s purely derivative.
I agree with the thoughts on NG blog that he or someone else? wrote, to the effect that a purely derivative work like HPL should get the author’s permission.
I’m not sure that the copyright lawyer’s letter was talking about HP or another case but anyway the references in it I found irrelevant. Shakespeare and King James bible were written 16th century and early 17th centuries, long before copyright law was even a glint in the milkman’s eye (it was born in 1710). JK Rowling is a living and still writing author so I don’t see why people keep bringing up long dead writers in their arguments! The idea of copyright to protect publishers (with the knock on effect of protecting and profiting the writers) was born because the spread of the printing press had begun to result in the widespread plundering of texts by pirate printers, sometimes even in the same year as publication of the original, which undercut the original creators and discouraged further creative work. So copyright in itself (even ignoring Fair Use) is not about stifling creativity at all, but it is about preventing pirates from stifling further creativity.
I’m a big fan of the HP books, but I must say I agree a bit with Card. I wouldn’t go as far as him to call Rowling an evil witch, but hypocritic, yes definitely! If I’m not mistaken, it was Vander Ark that made the HP-time line on his HP-lexicon and it was JK Rowling herself that thought it was a perfect timeline, however she never planned to put some dates in her books, he did a great job. That same timeline is used by WB on the DVD’s as an extra feature. So now is my question: who is the one that makes the mistakes?
“If I’m not mistaken, it was Vander Ark that made the HP-time line on his HP-lexicon and it was JK Rowling herself that thought it was a perfect timeline, however she never planned to put some dates in her books, he did a great job.”
Yes but her books are fiction, you don’t put exact dates in fiction, that would be completely anal and spoil their flow! Unless your fiction was in the form of a diary like ‘Dracula’.
You would put it in an encyclopedia though. I’d think it’d be pretty important. The question is, as JK created the fiction on which the timeline was built, when she does her own encyclopedia, doesn’t she have the right to include a timeline of her own? I’m not sure that WB had the right to use SVAs timeline, but has it been proven that they did copy it as opposed to creating their own? I don’t know because I’ve never seen either of them. Obviously if SVAs timeline was pretty accurate from the start then another timeline will look similar but that doesn’t prove it’s a copy, unless it was identical wording. It’s be like creating a timeline of some period in history; the end results of different people’s efforts will be largely the same, but phrased slightly differently and some more detailed than others.
Everyone has a right to voice their opinion. Damn democracy. This really should be restricted to only Jo supporters having this right…
I’m puzzled, why does TLC even bother to give homophobic creeps like OSC space on their front page?
Sorry, comments are closed for this article.
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Since DH was published, your interest in Potter fandom has:
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Rick:
“This really pains me as Enders Game is one of the greatest novels of all time.”
This is EXACTLY how I felt when reading that Orson Scott Card, of all people, has “gone negative” and denounced JKR in such a nasty, mean-spirited and woefully uninformed manner. This author’s not a slouch or a hack; he’s one of the greatly-recognized science fiction authors of the age, along with Isaac Asimov, Harlan Elison, Ursula K. Le Guin, and other notable greats. I imagine he’s earned a comfortable share of profit from his books, too, and would be just as vigilant in protecting his copyrights if his works were “stolen” as blatantly as Ms. Rowling has been.
I read his entry (more like scanned; reading his words felt like trying to see through a botched Lasik surgery procedure—endlessly painful!!) and just could not believe that these hateful words were coming from such a (formerly) respected author. It truly made me sick.
While I won’t deliberately run from his books in the future, my opinion of him as a person has just gone down about 75%. Needless to say, I totally disagree with his caustic assessment.
As for Mr. Ken Jennings, the highly-overrated Jeopardy champion, and HIS opinions on the case, I have this answer for him: “These four letters are used in ‘Netspeak’ to cloak an expletive along with a command toward the subject to be silent.” What is the question? If you know it, please do it!!