Several 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).
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.
As i have it drummed into me every day at uni “you MUST CITE your source properly! If this is NOT done it is plagiarism! If this is not done your work will not be counted and you maybe removed from the university altogether.” (various lecturers). Surely this applys here too? A question, for i have missed the answer else where, why if it is all on the web avalible to anyone and everyone, does SVA want to make a hard copy of it to sell? or am i missing what the content of the book is?
“Nothing prevents her from doing exactly that – annotating and explaining her own novels”
The problem is, Mr. Card, is that the HP Lexicon is NOT Harry Potter Annotated, Analyzed, or anything of that variation. Its Harry Potter Rearranged. Why don’t people check the facts before speaking out against Jo? How many of these ani-Jo crusaders have actually seen the Lexicon site???
Rock Golf—Cliff notes (as well as Spark Notes) have a little section after each summary called “Commentary”. That is the little crucial thing lacking in Steve’s book that makes it illegal..
I have not read ALL the comments. I don’t think it’s really necessary. Yes, I’m sure that there are “fine points” for ether side…HOWEVER: than you, first of all, to Kristin, for setting the record straight, right off. And for shauna for reiterating the fact that #1, first and formost…there WERE “little or no citations” in SVA’s work…and THAT’S the crux of JKR/WB’s case. Also, I aplaud davidenglish, for pointing out facts concerning other works. I also followed Star Trek…if anyone cares to notice, the Start Trek Concordance was publish BY BiJo Trimble and Coprighted to Paramount. Unlike SVA, they went about it the RIGHT way. No, Nunki. You don’t want to “go to Mr Card’s Blog” and “leave him a nasty comment so I can get banned”. I, myself, would find it a waste of time, energy and effort. Yes. it would be a “high honour to be banned from such a website.” It’s not worth it to give creedance to his saddly uninformed opinions. JMHO, guys. [and girls] nothing more…
“God should be thanking Jo himself for putting these perfect books on the earth for we low, unworthy people to read.”
“Low and unworthy” that sums you up perfectly my friend. What’s the point of spilling your vitriol all over a Harry Potter site? Are you hoping that we will suddenly turn against her because of your venomous attack on her? Most of us are not the gullible idiots you take us for. Every one has the right to guard their property, whether it is their house, car or intellect. I happen to think that making money off someone’s hard work is morally wrong. A lot of other posters here also seem to agree – it doesn’t make us Jo’s minions.
I am willing to let the courts decide the legalities of the case. The judge may decide to rule in favour of RDR books but he cannot make people actually buy the book. I, for one, will not be buying it – so, even if they win the case, they have lost it in my case, because I’m not going to be giving them any of my money. I’m sure millions more will be doing the same.
As for this Card fellow, I really don’t know what he thought he would achieve by this personal attack on Ms Rowling. If this isn’t a case of ill-disguised jealousy, I don’t know what it can be. Does it sound like anything else? No, it doesn’t. Jo’s philanthropic works guard her from the ‘greedy witch’ label he tried to vilify her with.
I will wait patiently until the ‘Scottish Book’ is published. In the meantime, there are thousands of good books to read out there, although from now on a certain author (or two) will not be getting any of my money.
I am not being wise after the event but I said all along that Jo would suffer because of this very ill advised attempt to restrain the publication of tis book. It was using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and she should have been better advised.
Editor’s note: Someone asked why we included Mr. Card’s comments in our trial coverage. In the past, he has expressed himself to be an enthusiastic fan of the series, and has written about Harry Potter in his blog on multiple occasions (Google for past Leaky posts). He is an influential, successful writer – his Ender’s Game series won both Hugo and Nebula awards, and are highly regarded by a many readers and critics.
Guys, Mr. Card is completely braindead about literature if he thinks he created the hero’s quest, fantasy, and the idea of a orphan with a destiny. these themes predate his career as a writer, and his very existance. so pigheaded of him to claim owernship of genre conventions. honestly, the authruian retellings by T.H. White… woah… card should sue his corpse for having a orphaned boy if i remeber correctly who is abused and misused have a destiny to rise up above his upbringing and become someone important. how dare other writers premeptively useing the same genre conventions Mr. card eventually used in his books…. HOW DARE THEY!!!
its easy to make people like they look the fool, they do all the hard work when they go out and attack people by claiming that they are the god of literature and anyone who dose anything similer, even though hundreds of writers that predate them have used similer conventions and themes, is in the wrong.
I guess I just really am being silly, but does anyone else remember from English and Journalism classes a couple little things called quotation marks? Isn’t “citing your source” what this whole thing is really about—and the fact that the SVA book doesn’t do that properly? And how many times has Jo said that if they would rework that aspect of the publication she would give it her blessing? And I’m getting very, very tired of people standing on their soapboxes screaming about how evil Jo is because she happens to be successful and wealthy. Besides defending her own hard work and that of other authors, she’s defending the charity for whom she intends to send the proceeds from her “Scottish Book.” The charitable aspect of her goals seems to have been lost here. I guess that’s what happens when you spout off without doing your research.
Oh yeah, I know someone brought this up before, but another thing that is very obnoxious of him is his, “evil witch,” comments, because not only are they the stuff of five year olds, but they are very, very, sexist. He wouldn’t have called Jo an evil witch if she was a guy, and he probably wouldn’t have made a stink about the case at all. The way he puts it, the moment a female author tries to stand up for herself and her work, she’s a nasty evil person. If, hypothetically, a well known guy author did the same thing, he would be protecting his rights. But lets say tomarrow, Mr. Card, that someone takes your Ender books, rearragges some names, publishes it as an encyclopedia, and makes money off of your work, then we will see who’s talking.
Orson Scott Card is a bitter bitter man. It’s pretty sad but you can see right through his comments and tell he’s extremely jealous of the money Jo’s made. I read Ender’s game and while the story had substance his writing style was so damn dry! When someone copies 91% of your book WORD FOR WORD and publishes it then come talk to us!
I appreciate that Leaky posted this story as part of their comprehensive coverage of the trial, but why did the editors of the Rhino Times (reallly???) feel Mr Card was a good person to write his article? His opinion doesn’t matter. Let’s hear from the lawyers, judges, etc.
And it is all very well for Mr Card and Mr Gaiman to say “tribute books exist; deal with it”, but as we know the argument here is that Mr Vander Ark DID NOT cite his sources or add new material. This makes me wonder: How would Mr Card and Mr Gaiman react to someone saying: “We are re-printing all of your books under another title, and oh, we’re giving all the money to someone else.”
I just hate how all of these people don’t know what they’re talking about, at all.