Tim Wu in an article for The New Yorker looks at the events leading up to the trial, speaks to Steve Vander Ark, and compares J.K. Rowling to the mythical Athena:
“Once upon a time, a talented weaver named Arachne declared herself superior in skill to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, who also invented weaving. Whether Arachne was actually better we’ll never know, for Athena, in a jealous rage, destroyed her rival’s tapestry and turned her into a spider. Last summer, at a “Harry Potter” convention in Toronto, a fan named Steve Vander Ark made a similar mistake when he dared to compare himself to Joanne (J. K.) Rowling.”
Wu describes what led Vander Ark to create the Lexicon website, and notes that Vander Ark has suffered “cruel fates” as a result of the lawsuit:
“In the late nineties, while working as a children’s librarian in Byron Center, Michigan (pop. 3,777), he discovered the “Potter” series. He began to take notes and, by his own estimate, has read each of the books forty or fifty times. “Something about these detailed imaginative worlds just captivated me,” he said during a court recess.
In 2000, Vander Ark, who considers himself a Ravenclaw, turned his obsessive notes into a Web site, The Harry Potter Lexicon. Soon, he was a celebrity in the “Potter” community. But when he decided to turn his Web site into a book Rowling sued his publisher, effectively exiling him from the wizard community.”
Wu also notes Leaky webmistress Melissa Anelli’s presence in the court room:
Anelli is writing her own “Potter” book, with Rowling’s blessing, and during a break in the trial Rowling sought her out and gave her a warm embrace, a moment that might have been as difficult for Vander Ark as any part of the legal proceedings.
“Melissa has done more to hurt me than Rowling,” Vander Ark said during a recess. “I can’t blame her for liking her status.” After all, he said, Rowling “is God and Melissa is her prophet.” He went on, “I am an outcast now. But I still consider myself a ‘Harry Potter’ fan.”
*
Editor’s Note: In the above-mentioned article, Mr. Wu attributed several statements made during a recent PotterCast (number 148) to Melissa Anelli (“He is vilified now”, “He has ruined his good standing.”). These remarks were instead made by Leaky Editor Sue Upton, who was commenting on the impact the decision to publish the book has made upon Vander Ark’s reputation.
Oh please. We are not all with you Melissa. I personally find you an insufferable kiss-up who’s always flaunting her advantages, and your commentary annoying. And, as for Sue Upton making the aforementioned comments, she still did so with Melissa’s blessing, so give us all a break here kids. Furthermore, anyone who says that Melissa “worked” on her book and SVA did not is simply a moron. You’re all playing a cliquish playground game and you should be ashamed.
OMG – turn off the computer at 9:00 pm last night and look at the activity, unbelievable. David English made a reference at the LL forum that SVA has been considered to be the “Elvis” of fandom. It’s unfortunate that this has been thrown away by his not making the Lexicon book his own creation, making underhanded agreements with publishers almost immediately after the release of DH, smugly standing back portraying the injured party whilst throwing out insults and innuendo during interviews. I think he has damaged his reputation beyond repair.
If it is true that someone is casted by WB to play Young Lucius Malfoy in the same scene as Slughorn and Tom Riddle jr, than WB (and maybe JK Rowling) should start reading the “sloppy” Lexibook even without Copyrigth , in stead of suing it, so they could prevent making such terrible mistakes!
1. “JKR is a god and Melissa is her prophet.” One of the reasons I like JKR is because she really doesn’t want her fame and strives to show that she is just a normal person like the rest of us (albeit with jaw-dropping writing talent). One of the reasons I like the PC trio is because they are just average-joe fans, just like me. If JKR EVER started acting like a God, or the PC trio (Melissa) EVER started acting like prophets, I would be gone. I just don’t see the analogy from my personal experience. I like it when JKR talks to the PC trio because it almost feels like she is talking to me (with the PC trio being so representative of average fans).
2. It’s amazing, but if SVA had never opened his mouth since this lawsuit started, he would be fine. Think about it, all of his problems have come because of his public statements since the lawsuit was filed. If I could go back in time to the start of this, I would beg him to please not say A WORD except for his testimony in court. If he had done this, he would still be in the Floo Network and we would all be totally convinced that he was suckered by RDR. Oh well, it’s too late now. Just take this as an example people, when you get in a tight spot and you think you can say something clever to make it better, just say nothing. At least, that’s what I’ve learned from watching SVA.
Melissa and others are making far more money than Steve ever will from HP fandom. The Lexicon took a tremendous amount of work and I think in its web form is far more interesting to read than Melissa’s book will be.
If what Steve has been doing for the last several years is so terrible than why did TLC ever associate with him? People seem to be saying that selling The Lexicon in book form somehow pushed it beyond the boundaries of fair use which doesn’t make sense at all from a legal perspective considering the four statutory factors.
I hate how TLC has lead a movement to vilify Steve and make him an outcast dragging his personal life and other irrelevant things into reporting. It is interesting that this reporter recognized and reported on the conflict in the fandom.
noway, if you listened to PC you would know that Sue has been very torn about this case, because she considered Steve a mentor and close friend. Her comments were in no way negative towards Steve. She simply stated that Steve is now vilified by the fandom, which is true: there is animosity towards Steve, that is obvious. Kristin, who wrote the post, not Melissa, wanted it to be clear that Melissa did not say those words. Wu simply didn’t recognize whose voice belonged to whom.
Melissa, I still think you’re an amazing person! It was a very low thing for Steve to attack you like that! I’m really rather speechless at the moment—it’s all so frustrating! I took a journalism class last year and am going to be on my school newspaper next year and I will make sure I check all of my facts unlike the reporters writing on this case.
It was inevitable that someone somewhere would latch on to the opportunity to tear down Jo. No-one can be that talented and successful (and, let’s face it, rich) without having potshots taken at them. Newspapers have to sell copies, and I expect that this David vs. Goliath story is irresistible to many in the media. Of course Vander Ark is going to see and present himself as the victim, but if anyone’s victimized him, it’s RDR books. Unfortunately, it look as if no-one is going to come out of this debacle unscathed.
The two stories just are not parrallel at all. Sounds like this Tim Wu has missed the whole point of this law suit.
Is SVA really surprised at being an outcast? If he really is an HP fan, he should understand why people feel the way they do about him and his attempts to profit from his plagiarism. Even if his book is published, are many people going to buy it?
Who is making the most money is completely irrelevant. The Lexicon website has been interesting, informative and a fun site to cruise through and was offered up by a hobbyist that was the “super fan”, He did it for the love of the project and offered it for free for other fans. Steve knows that he can produce any number of works that would be given the kiss of approval by JKR/WB and other fans and we would have rushed to buy it. But unfortunately that is not what has been presented for publication and the author of the works is challenging the matter in the courts – her absolute right to defend her creation. Also unfortunate is the constant supply of untruths, half truths and complete fiction being provided by the media – I don’t believe any one of them have gotten it right yet. They just continue to fuel the David & Goliath theme to have readers react to their nonsense so that they can write subsequent articles about the “crazy Harry Potter fans”.
If one thing good has come out of all this mess it is that many of you have learned that you cannot trust what you read in the press as the absolute fact. You need to research things for yourself. My husband was in television for almost 20 years and still works on the fringes of the media. He is appalled by the lack of fact checking that goes on today. It use to be you had to have two sources before you could even run a story, not so today. It has really become pathetic. So if we all get nothing else out of this situation, I hope we have learned that everything you read is not true, no matter where you are reading it.
Not that anyone is probably reading a comment this far down in the pages, but I want to say that I think I’m finally tipped against Steve Vander Ark. I still think, on a matter of legal precedence and from what I know of the legalities of the case (and as a literary scholar myself), that he should win the case. Even if the case is on the borderline, wins for the author in these types of cases can be an open door to extending authorial control beyond its already over-inflated status. I say that because the concept of authorial rights is a relatively new phenomenon, one that I am not for personally. There are issues when you allow for stuff like this, but they are less than those that would come from a complete loss of the field of bibliography (which is, in part, the scholarly art of cataloging and recompiling works for review). That is the issue here, and the reason why I think that Steve Vander Ark’s publisher should win this case.
THAT BEING SAID, I think that just because Steve has the legal right to publish this book doesn’t mean he should have gone against Rowling’s wishes. His sense of entitlement to the work he has done to catalog and compile the mass of information on his site is understandable. His work is impressive and was very time-consuming, no matter whether or not you want to admit that it was. However, his entitlement to respect from fandom and from Jo is deplorable. His expressed feelings toward Melissa are completely out of line, and reflect a grossly off-center view of the situation. Steve is not the poor mistreated outcast he makes himself out to be. I will give him the benefit of the doubt on going ahead with the book after the first signs of discontent (he did have legal rights to publish the thing, after all), but after it became clear that WB was willing to sue on Rowling’s behalf, he should have backed down and found a way to go ahead with something that Rowling would have approved. Her approval of Melissa’s book demonstrates that she was certainly willing to work out a compromise with Steve Vander Ark if he had simply tried to work one out. Steve and his publishers clearly mistreated the situation and stubbornly pressed on to publish the book as is, rather than incorporate more clear-cut scholarship (that is essays, as opposed to cataloging, which is scholarship but not as clearly so) or otherwise attempt to make the book closer to what Jo might have approved.
There are places where I think Jo, her publishers, and Warner have stepped over the line in pressing their “legal rights” to “their” work. It has happened in the past, and I’ve stated my opinions on the subject when they’ve come up, but on this issue, I think that a compromise could have been reached, and that the fault for this case being where it is lies clearly on the shoulders of Steve Vander Ark.
I must admit that although Wu is obviously wrong as regards various details of the case, the overall message of the article does appeal to me. The attitude of the Leaky Staff has always seemed to me to be rather slavish towards JKR. There never has been any fair criticism neither of her nor of her work, although both her conduct in the case as well as the last three novels in the series are not as praiseworthy as it may appear from what we hear in Pottercast. Plus, I do get the feeling that “hardcore” fans of Leaky are siding with JKR so univocally under the PC-trio’s direct influence. Of course, I can see nothing wrong in presenting one’s opinions in one’s own podcast and I do appreciate the work that has been put into making the coverage of the trial as objective as it could be under the difficult circumstances, but nevertheless, being not such a headstrong HP/JKR-fan, I do feel a terrible bias and I’m afraid it is true that Leaky/Leaky’s fans are dead-set against all attempts of criticising the Goddess Rowling whatever she writes or does. You have the right to take such a stand, of course, but I’m glad that one can still hear the other side’s story…
One of his former cohorts, Melissa Anelli, sat at the back of the courtroom for much of the testimony. A twenty-eight-year-old Gryffindor from Brooklyn, she is the Webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron, a leading “Potter” Web site. Although she and Vander Ark had collaborated on podcasts (she’d referred to him as a “guru”) and had even linked their Web sites together in the “Floo network,” she was not at the trial to cheer him on but, as she said, “to support Jo.” “It’s her world,” Annelli said. “She lets us play….”
“Now go buy a Leaky Mug, & kneel before me, you lemmings!”
Oh please. We are not all with you Melissa. I personally find you an insufferable kiss-up who’s always flaunting her advantages, and your commentary annoying. And, as for Sue Upton making the aforementioned comments, she still did so with Melissa’s blessing, so give us all a break here kids. Furthermore, anyone who says that Melissa “worked” on her book and SVA did not is simply a moron. You’re all playing a cliquish playground game and you should be ashamed.