I’m still flabbergasted as to what in the world the fandom’s views on SVA have to do with copyright at all. I think America’s new mentality of “give the losing team trophies to save their self-esteem” has bled into the general public attitude. We could burn Steve in effigy or build a monument in his honor (not that we would do either, just saying) and it would STILL have absolutely no bearing on copyright law, which is supposedly what that conference is about.
@ newbie
No one is asking the media to be sympathetic or supportive of JKR. I think most would just like the media to get their facts correct, which most have not and not show a bias in the other direction for RDR and SVA, which some have.
Didn’t Judge Patterson make comments to the effect that he would be judging this case on its own, and not taking into account what might happen, legally, in the future as a result? (I sincerely hope I’m not remembering this wrong.) I think that’s a very wise decision.
In these comments we’ve had sides argue that restrictive changes could be imposed if WB wins, or if RDR wins. In truth, we don’t know what will happen in either event. It could very well be that other authors and fandoms have had their courses changed already because this lawsuit even exists at all. Of course people will be worried about what-happens-if, but it’s far too speculative to allow it to influence the decision on this case.
On another note, I think many people are being tripped up by the conflation of the legal issues of this case with opinions about the personalities involved. You may think that Steve Vander Ark is a opportunistic jerk, but that’s beside the point if he’s within his legal rights to publish his book. You may think JK Rowling is a greedy bitch, but that doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not she’s rightly defending her legal property.
I’m not saying that the fans shouldn’t have opinions about the people. They will anyway, because it’s a major component of what’s going on here. The court case aside, this is a personal and emotional issue for lots of us. We just need to be clear on which issue (legal or emotional) we’re discussing.
“The lexicons are not for adding something creative, they are for factually correct notations and informations. They must be “taking too much and adding too little” – it’s their nature.” Posted by fatfriar on May 09, 2008 @ 12:36 PM
Ms. Cendali addressed this point in her closing remarks:
“Now, one of the issues you may have to address, your Honor, is what we argue is a circular argument, which is that if they can argue that their purpose was to take everything, does that justify their ability to take everything. I don’t think, your Honor, that there’s justification under the law for such an argument. Moreover, the issue of the Harry Potter companion guides, as evidenced by the testimony of Mr. Vander Ark and of the documents dealing with the Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch make very clear that those words, including the EA cards, were taken virtually completely.”
Dictionary.com identifies a circular argument as “any discussion in which one argues the conclusion as a premise; a discussion that makes a conclusion based on material that has already been assumed in the argument.”
Fallacyfiles.org identifies a circular argument as synonymous with “begging the question,” which it defines as follows: The phrase “begging the question”, or “petitio principii” in Latin, refers to the “question” in a formal debate—that is, the issue being debated. In such a debate, one side may ask the other side to concede certain points in order to speed up the proceedings. To “beg” the question is to ask that the very point at issue be conceded, which is of course illegitimate.”
So I see where you are coming from and the judge may very well decide for RDR, but the argument you are using was addressed in court and argued to contain a logical fallacy.
I’m not really in the mood for commenting this. I want news from trial! or about HBP!
@Tyler
the issue of the nature of bibliography (what fatfriar) is talking about is not quite the same thing as the circular argument issue you are talking about. Yes, to claim that someone has a right to do something because they intend to do it is a circular argument (in a way. not quite, but close enough). However, the issue that the cataloging of information is a long-standing, estabilished scholarly endevour. It is an intellectual excercise that is, itself, protected by the same laws that protect JK Rowling. Whether you agree that this should be protected is alltogether other issue. The question in this case is (no, strike that. it SHOULD be) whether SVA’s work properly meets the standards for a bibliographic archive. In subject matter, I believe it does (but some may disagree on the amount of direct citation in the encyclopedia). In documentation, it does not (see page 5 of comments). It’s a grey issue. Not clearly black and white either way.
Hello! i posted about what i thought of this artcal earlier! But i just wanted to say i was one of the 25 blue peter competition winners last july to meet j.k.rowling and she is SOOOOO lovely! just like you always dream; really warm and smiley! x
This is how I see the circular argument of “we meant to take that much, so we should be able to.”
Hypothetical:
“Professor, I meant to use that much verbatim and paraphrasing from that one source and meant to not cite it well. I should get an A because I organized the information so well (except for my poor citing and occassional factual errors).”
To the honor board you go!
okay SVA did this to himself becauseof the greed, as for being naieve about the world of publishing, if i remeber correctly what i have read about this case, SVA wrote lexicons on star trek and at least one other subject so he is hardly a new comer he knew what he was getting in to. as for settling, i think if they were going to settle it would have been done by now, all that was settle were a few minor sidebar issuses related to this case
As more and more people use the internet for research, communication, and publishing the issues of intellectual property, fair use, and open access (not an issue here) will necessarily need to be far better defined. That is (imho) why Stanford was so interested in this case to begin with. This is an opportunity to set precedent. I have no doubt that they are more than prepared to see this issue through to the end. The smaller issues were settled quite quickly and without fanfare.
I tried very hard to remain objective, but in the end I found I agree with Mollywobbles. Had the Lexibook been better written, included more commentary, fewer mistakes and proper attribution I would not thought twice about its publication. I probably still wouldn’t have purchased it, knowing as I did that JKR planned on writing the Scottish book (she’s been saying as much for years).
In reading the many exhibits and filings, I found it disturbing that SVA referred to JKR as ‘Rowling.’ I could not decide why that bothered me. Was it because I found it disrespectful? Or maybe it spoke of a familiarity I didn’t seem to feel he was entitled? A personal issue I’m still working out.
mollywobbles23….addendum: Mr/Ms [insert name here] No student nor other persons are given permission to take any works, paragraphs or other quotations without citing the author and or reference used. Therefore, in keeping with the bylaws of this University and in accordance with copyright law, this Board Of Honour finds you guilty of Plaigerism. In accordance with said regulations and bylaws of this Board Of Honour and this University, you are hereby expelled.
@ JohnV After the fan support is gone, who will buy it.?
Do you imagine for a second that the world of Potter fans starts and finishes with those who scribble their obsessions here? Grow up, for heavens’ sake. The world exists beyond your own “little” country even if you don’t know its whereabouts
I was hoping that perhaps someone who knows about the intellectual property ramifications could answer a question. I am a Potter-fan who has been watching this case with interest. Frankly, I have always felt that there was some sort of sub-text to this case that was motivating JKR and WB that I wasn’t quite sure I understood. Somehow, it has always felt like there was something more at stake for them than simply a little book published by a little publisher. I’ve been well aware of SVA for many years and always thought of the HPL as an asset to the fan community and I don’t have a reason to doubt that those at WB and associate organizations used the lexicon for research just the way fans did.
I found the comment from Rushkoff that this represented a “symbolic shift” interesting. I’ve also been interested in some of JKR’s comments from the trial. Her comment (and I’m paraphrasing) that she had always been open with the internet but was afraid that now she would be thought an idiot for letting it go too far; her concern about a “slippery slope”; and finally the focus on SVA personal feelings about the epilogue. It all makes me wonder if there is a fear that the standards and mores of the internet HP world could begin to invade the free-market HP world. I guess what I’m asking is: is the real core of the problem not what SVA has created but the fact that he has taken something from the internet and published it. If he had kept the lexicon all along in his own little private notebook and then published it in exactly the same way would we be having this big deal?
If this is obvious to everyone but me, my apologies, but I needed that clarified.
(Continuing the hypothetical with Confederate Lady):
“But…but…but…ah crap.” Stomps out of conference room, gets in car, peels off campus, holds press conference and calls the students biased and lemmings.”
o_O
Anyway, even though I have five cases of Weasley fireworks riding on a verdict coming out on May 27th, I really hope it comes sooner than that. *twitches
to Chasmosaur. It is great when someone puts so much thoughts into their posts, and even better and shines upon them when they will be honest that they dont know all the details. I commend you on your approch and your directness and honestly.
As such, I thought I would help give you a little more understanding on the issues with the HPL.
As many have pointed out, Jo is not against companion books, but she is against plagerisem and profitering. She wants to promote the rights of legitamate companion book writers. the HPL dosent fall into the catagory of legitamate, and before people explain that im biased as a fan, let me explain where the HPL fails.
Steve Vander Ark was a librarian until he got fired from his job for going against school policy for faculty actions. we dont need to get into them in a attempt to villinize him, but it explains why he keeps saying he is in desperate financial straights. he got fired for misconduct, tried to get a job with jo, saying he wants to help her write her encylopedia and was moving to london so he can work with her. jo’s people declined, and a few weeks later, book seven was released, and a few weeks later, after years of pointing out it would be illegal to publish the lexicon, he takes the first offer to publish he gets.
now, on the matter of the lexicon, It can not be considered a legitamate book for many reasons. Firstly, fair use requires the majority of a book to be original work by the author, or authors, and that original work has to add new insights into the text. Fair use allows authors to use a small ammount of copyrighted material to jumpstart and/or support their commentary or critiq. the general rule of thumb is if you take more the 10%-15%, you have a moral and legal obligation to seek permission from the copyright holder. more often then not, and jo has done this with authors in the past, they will give you permission to use more because they see it will be put to good use and be of value with new insights. the harry potter lexicon takes 91% of its texts according to court documents directly from the harry potter books. on top of that, there are more percents of its text taken from other copyrighted and uncited sources word for word.
so instead of taking 10% of the text being copyrighted to jk rowling and have 90% his own work like fair use docterine basically requires, he takes 90+% of his text directly word for word or near word for word from the harry potter book, then the rest is a mixture of other copyrighted material and then a few measely percent can not be attributed to other copyrighted works.
as a librarian, you would expect that steve would understand how to properly cited copyrighed works like the law, and moral writing requires.
he dosent put quotes around the text copied from jo’s copyrighted and trademarked works. as was pointed out in trial, if steve vander ark put quotes to denote he didnt write it, most all of the book would be in quotes. but the problem is, he is claiming that its all his work, and anyone who has the harry potter books on hand can see he just copied pasted quotes and called them entries.
in the trial, RDR was unable to point to a single entry in the book that they could claim was accurate commentary. the few points that WB and JKR found that could be considered commentary were pointed out, and shown to be glaring falsehoods. so little of the book itself is commentary that if you remove everything that isent, you would literally only have 2-3 pages of text.
RDR kept saying it was commentary, and it was transformative, but saying it and proving it are completely different, and they never did.
one of the reasons judge patterson wanted a settlement was because he knew that if they dont settle, and RDR agrees either to not publish the book, or edit the book to ensure that the book is legal, which RDR never proved it was, then it would be less costly and less time consuming. RDR books spent the entire time from the moment they got cease and desist letters to the moment they went on trial claiming they didnt have to edit the book, and it was well known jk rowling gave them the option of giving them a copy of the manuscript to check that it dosent infringe her work. in the past, she has helped writers ensure their companion books are legal, and many have been published and unchallanged by jo because those writers did it the legal route and sought to work with the copyright holders to let them know what they were doing, and to make sure that the book was legal.
RDR the moment they took the stands acted like they pleaded and begged to work with jo, which court documents show they didnt, and were actively trying to cut the copyright holders out of the process.