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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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“Does anyone else get the sense that an awful lot of mediocre writers are hitching their cart to this anti-Jo bandwagon.”
Oh yes! EVERY writer who DARES to disagree with JKR is mediocre.Think of Ursula Le Guin – an awful writer, really!
Until they praise her, it’s O.K., but in this case there’s great no, no, no! How could they not see us, so greatly enlightened, our best reasoning!
I hope SVA will win.
@ daughter of librarians
The lexicon is an infringement of JKR work. Steve hardly puts in any new information. He is merely repeating stuff already written in the HP books, but in a different order and paraphrased. How can it not be an infringement. And that’s the reason why JKR is suing the lexicon. Not because she wants to write her own encyclopaedia (that would indeed be ridiculous since you can’t copyright an idea) but because somebody has the audacity to put his name on JKR work. When you read the lexicon, you will read JKR and not SVA. The difference with other reference guides is, that when you take away all the JKR stuff, they still have some contents left. The lexicon however will be nothing more than some incoherent phrases. How much fun and useful the lexicon is, it does not intend to sell own work, (also different from other guides) it intends to sell Jo’s work. SVA did not came up with Harry potter, sectumsempra, Dexter Fortescue or any of the entries mentioned in the lexicon but JKR did. Yet he’s trying to sell those specific contents of HP. And that’s what Jo, quit understandable, is objecting to. Whether SVA meant to or not, in a way he’s stealing JKR’s work.
Jo should win. ther is no question. she worked for 17 years on these books and deserves all the credit for them. Steve is way out of line with this and shouldnt get away with it.
And ya, this does seem a little harsh.
From the way Mr. Card speaks of this issue, he seems to believe that the law is absolute. Ok, as much as 99% of us wishes it will never happen (include me in that 99% too), RDR might be able to wriggle through the loopholes of fair use and publish the encyclopedia _.
BUT!!! The law isn’t absolute-especially with copyright, fair use and so forth! This court case is another reason why there needs to be additional tweaking to the current copyright laws, and there can’t be change without standing up and doing something about it. For doing just that, Mrs. Rowling is a winner no matter what-in my eyes at least.
The fact that Jo is just now having a problem with the Lexicon now that it will be published and sold for profit is what makes her seem greedy and selfish. Granted it makes Steve seem that way too. But how can Jo praise it on the web and now condemn it? Doesnt make sense to me.
OK, Mister Card, “people who hear about this…will have a sour taste in their mouth about you from now on”, because everybody will see what a selfish small person you are, full of prejudice, who completely missing the whole point wants to show himself better and cleverer than another person, stupidly putting his ego above common sense. Good luck.
“Sorry, guys. Fandom is probably going to hate me for this, but I think this guy has a point. Steve is not going to steal any money from Jo or her charity – what sort of fan dedicated enough to buy a fan-made Harry Potter encyclopedia isn’t going to buy Jo’s version, which will go into much more detail and have hundreds of extra facts?
Steve is just trying to help the fandom… sorry, but I think all the abuse he’s getting is totally unwarranted.
M’kay. Feel free to bash me now. =P”
Posted by CrystalP734 on April 26, 2008 @ 12:22 PM
I’m not going to bash you, but I will disagree and here’s why: Jo has the right to protect her copyright and she feels that the Lexibook is incredibly infringing. When she gave that fansite award to it, it was much different than it is now. But, even the website has essays, where the Lexibook does not. Also, Jo has said, under oath, that she basically gave the fansite award to the Lexicon as an “A for effort.” It was not an invitation or permission to publish it and profit from it.
Also, I don’t think the Lexibook will do much harm NOW, with this whole mess. But, at the time of the lawsuit (which was done to prevent it being published in November before they had a chance to see the manuscript, which they had requested a couple of times and never received). It was a necessary thing to ensure the protection of her copyright. With RDR’s evasive tactics, they became suspicious that maybe it’s really infringing and that’s why they sued. It could have all been handled outside of the courtroom had RDR just cooperated. If it had gone ahead with publishing, they could still stop more printing; it’s beend done before. Anyway, it was about it’s POTENTIAL market harm and it does have that potential.
As for the “abuse” that Steve is getting: I see mostly people showing anger and disappointment in him. We thought he was better than saying Jo was making a “power grab” and claiming he knows what’s the best for the fandom, even though a good majority of the fandom is on Jo’s side in this. Some people have gone overboard. I don’t think SVA acted maliciously, but he does act arrogantly about this whole thing. It’s a mid-life crisis combined with a powertrip.
Okay… If you go get your ‘Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire’ copy, And turn to page 360, Then, about have-way down the page, Find where Karkaroff gives harry a four, then find where Ron is yelling at Karkaroff….That’s what I’d say to Mr. Card!
Oh, and LOL @ the fact that Card’s blog still only has one comment, though I know at least three people from Leaky have commented and one of them (DaisyRenee’s) has no reason not to go through.
Who’s the coward? Not Jo, certainly.
Whatever people’s opinions of the case, it is very unprofessional and childish to make personal attacks on JK, as Card did. They may disagree with her take on the case, but to think that a legal opinion reflects on her character is ridiculous. She is doing this because she legitimately feels that the book violates fair use, not because she is selfish, wants to make more money or wants to prevent all companion books from being made.
Perhaps some of these commentators should look more closely at the facts of the case before flinging around personal insults.
Finally, someone comes out with the truth. JK Rowling is nothing more than a greedy, megalomaniac and overly sensitive fop. I used to follow everything about Harry Potter and I used to revel in it. Now, it has been ruined by Ms. Rowling and she will lose her “case”.
@ crookshanks
“The lexicon is an infringement of JKR work. Steve hardly puts in any new information. He is merely repeating stuff already written in the HP books, but in a different order and paraphrased. How can it not be an infringement. And that’s the reason why JKR is suing the lexicon.”
Dear Crookshanks
The lexicons and encyclopedias are NOT books into you “put any new informations” (created by your own mind, that is). That’s not their nature and sense. They should EXACTLY “paraphrase, ensure different order and repeat stuff, that was already written”. By adding something creative, new into them you’re falsificating and deforming the reality, they’re discrebing (in our case: the world of HP). The Lexicon/encyklopedia should be drily, in matter-of-fact way and ABSOLUTELY FAITHFUL to the primare source.
What a jerk Jo did an AMAZING job on her books why the hell should some so-called fan be allowed to profit from copying her idea JO YOU DESERVE TO WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Those articles are completely ignorant. It seemed like the authors had no idea what the case was about- all they saw was “powerhouse” Jo going after a small website. The whole point of this case is that the book IS NOT a commentary or review. It’s ridiculous how they are making Jo seem like a fool and a gold digger to the public.
Some of the people who are in support of RDR need to please stop whipping out the “you all agree with Jo because you think she’s God” argument. Yeah, some of the people siding with Jo are only doing so because they “worship” her, I won’t disagree with that. But from what I’ve been reading in the comments, a majority of Jo supporters have plenty of valid points to back up their support, just as the other side does as well.
Besides, saying that you hope RDR wins just to stick it to all the Jo worshipers out there? Great way to fight fire with fire. Instead of using that as an excuse to send a little shout-out to RDR/SVA, post valid reasons for your support like many of the other people here are doing.
Anyway, regardless of what side you agree with, Card’s article is incredibly bitter and totally devoid of any class. His childish insults are compeltely uncalled for, and he should be ashamed. Also, there was absolutely no need for him to throw in the bit about homosexuality at the end of the article. The “Dumbledore is gay” controversy (which in my opinion should have never been a controversy in the first place) has been done with for what, half a year now? Get over it, Mr. Card, it’s been beaten to death and doesn’t relate to this court case at all. And using gay characters for the sake of saying that you use them does nothing to cover up your homophobia, anyway. Also, you call Jo a hypocrite, but I find it incredibly hypocritical that you post a mean-spirited article on a famous figure and then keep a filter on all of your comments. Nice.
And Ken Jennings? Yes, everyone has a right to express their opinion, and granted Jennings’s post is more professional than Card, but where does he fit into this at all? At least Card has some kind of connection to Harry Potter through the Great Snape Debate commentary. Please, Mr. Jennings, your fifteen minutes of fame was over a long time ago. Place your hands above your head and step away from the limelight.
His statement that he hasn’t read the book version of the lexicon explains it all—yet another random and misinformed person who feels the need to throw out jabs about overzealous fans and Jo crying on the stand. Yes, we should all be cheering on RDR because the Jeopardy guy saw some comments posted here on Leaky by obsessive fans and read those silly mainstream articles that focused on Jo crying. SIGH. Why does it feel like all these blog opinions are totally missing the point of the case? It has nothing to do with what you think of Jo or Steve as people, how big a fan you are, who cried on the stand, or whatever other stupid little detail the mainstream media can pull out of it.
Don’t worry about it people. Just more jealous authors who don’t understand Jo or her fandom, or have any idea just how amazingly supportive Jo has been towards the fandom and fanworks in the past. One book takes too much for monetary gain, and suddenly she is painted as an evil witch for trying to stop it.
I’d like to see what Anne Rice thinks of Orson Scott Card’s idea that anyone is free to write about your work. Ms. Rice is vehemently against fanfiction, and she’s far from the only author that has completely (and successfully) disallowed fanfiction. Mr. Card is, forgive me, an idiot.
You have completely missed the point of this case. Vander Ark’s book is neither a commentary nor a review, but quoting paragraphs and sentences from the books and not labeling them as JK Rowling’s words, and instead as his own brainchild. Your article reeked of ignorance- and perhaps, jealousy of her success- as you quoted her so called “cinderella story” with mockery. Shame on you! Everything in your article- from your mentions of Dumbledore’s homosexuality, Rowling’s wealth, etc.- was poorly thought out and, in my opinion, plain stupid.
‘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.’
The above quote proves my point. The Lexicon encyclopedia DOES NOT cite Jo, and it DOES NOT review or comment on Harry Potter. It has no personal “flavor” to it- when Jo writes her own encyclopedia, it will include new “tibits” of information about the characters, of which we have never read before.
In short, I find you to be an idiot. As you yourself said, a pretentious, puffed up jerk.
^ thats what I wrote to Card. His article was ridiculous- although, I admit, the last sentence of my post was immature, but as ‘i can has sanity?’ said perfectly, every blog and article written seems to be missing the point of this case, and instead manage to make a mockery of Jo.
Sorry, comments are closed for this article.
Leaky Poll
Moving the HBP film to July 2009 is:
- Completely unforgivable75 (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%)
Sorry, guys. Fandom is probably going to hate me for this, but I think this guy has a point. Steve is not going to steal any money from Jo or her charity – what sort of fan dedicated enough to buy a fan-made Harry Potter encyclopedia isn’t going to buy Jo’s version, which will go into much more detail and have hundreds of extra facts?
Steve is just trying to help the fandom… sorry, but I think all the abuse he’s getting is totally unwarranted.
M’kay. Feel free to bash me now. =P