@ bubd, who said: hm, any of our friends with legal background see any grounds for a successful appeal?

I don’t see grounds for appeal, no, though it is perfectly within the Defendants legal rights to do so.

An appeal is simply a judicial review, it is not another trial, not at all.

Did the judge err in his interpretation and application of trial law? Was the judicial ruling ‘overbroad’ or ‘under-applied’? Did he misstep in courtroom procedures? The plaintiffs received ‘statutory damages’ but those damages are capped and must be awarded per the statutory code; this award was not a punitive damage award, but one that is required by law.

RDR Books cannot introduce the timeline issue at appeal, it was not part of the original case, nor can they say “But judge, we’ve rewritten it now, so the past ruling is now unjust.” It’s not another bite at the apple.

@ Debbie, Whether or not Jo Rowling wants the book is irrelevent, whether readers will want it – well, the market will decide that. These are complicated issues for law to decide, and an appeal is part of the legal process, whether or not fans like it.

@Amy Darlene – agreed!

@ CM McDonald, I would have more sympathy for this view if Jo had taken a stance and tackled fanfiction, which, to me, is the TRUE infringement. Talk about taking characters and writing new plot for them!

@ all posters, For the sake of Dumbledore, and all in his army, let us not set about creating divisions in the fandom (again!). As a wonderful wizard once said, “The world isn’t divided into good people and death-eaters”...

This seems…rather pointless. Patterson’s decision even said “hey if you just revise it you can publish it” So just revise it! Save yourself another $6000 and legal fees.

This is just pathetic. Vander Ark should just revise his lexicon to include more of his own thoughts. How can he think that repackaging Jo’s work was going to give him the right to profit from it? Wake up and smell the coffee. Add more original interpretation and let this go. Why would anyone buy that now anyway? He has ruined his credibility.

No. No no no no.

Okay, it’s clear that these publisher are hell bound to get this “book” out there. Have they changed anything in the book? No. Do they have the right to re-publish a book just by rearrenging it? No. Why can’t they get it into their thick heads? This makes me so incredibly angry.. I can’t even speak my opinions properly…

Actually… you know what? This opens the way for the rest of us! You know what I’m gonna do? I wanna be a writer so I’m gonna copy and paste an ebook of Harry Potter, but put the chapters into my book last-one-first, first-one-last, and publish it under my name! Hey, everybody! That means I’m gonna be an author!

Btw, sorry for the bad English. I’m too upset to spell (that’s my bad excuse anyway).

@ Debbie – The only thing this thing proves is that he isn’t allowed to publish the book. It doesn’t prove that fans don’t want the book, it doesn’t prove that the judge doesn’t want the book, and it also doesn’t prove that JK wants the book, the last of which doesn’t really matter if the book is published.

Plus I’d rather get a well done book from another writer now or close to now than have to wait 5 years or more for JK’s book. Has she even announced how far she is along with the book or if she has even started it? I’m assuming it’s going to be extremely detailed and therefore will be much longer than any HP book out right now.

Agreed, Cara, I’m not seeing anything in the decision that would offer serious grounds for a successful appeal…sure the right to appeal as a formality is there, but there’s a time when you cut your losses…

hence my musing about motive….Why would RDR continue the process (unless strictly for formality’s sake?) unless it hoped to gain something down the road? based on my second-hand legal education (long stories), I’ll go with the adherence to formal process thought since there doesn’t appear to be any other logical reason.

of course, a revised manuscript would be a totally different situation but would not void the decision. yet oddly there has been no hint or rumor of any effort to extensively rework the materials. very strange….given the time its taken for the first stage of the legal process to work its way through the court, a revised manuscript could have been prepared and ready to go….so, all I can say is “very strange”, and celebrate the fact that the decision does not appear to set serious precident for future intellectual property/copyright cases

The time to have rewritten the book would have been during the pre-trial run-up, not after the case made its way before the bench. Once having entered the courtroom, then that was the time for the two sides to attempt to reach some manner of amicable accord/settlement.

Now that the ruling has been handed down, though, a full re-write in Vander Ark’s own words and with all manner of appropriate citations, plus a renaming of the work {essentially an entirely new book, the back log of actual work entailed is staggering} is what is now necessary in order to get this book to pass copyright infringement and not be in flagrant violation of the current ruling.

@ gottaloveluna: How is fanfic MORE of an infringement, when it’s not for profit and involves some actual creativity, than a for-profit companion guide that merely alphabetizes and quotes wholesale and without citations JKR’s actual words? Besides, WB did try to crack down on fanfic when they first bought the film rights—this ended with them looking like cruel monsters picking on every 13-year-old with a FF.net account.

Given the nature of the HP LEXICON, which touts its completeness as one of its selling virtues, it’d be very, very difficult, if not impossible, to rewrite EVERY entry so that most of the writing is Steve’s, as opposed to misappropriating Jo’s works.

It’s in RDR Books’ best interests to appeal, win or lose, for one reason: the publicity value. This lawsuit has gotten worldwide attention, and RDR Books is getting tons of free publicity at Jo’s expense. (Her legal fees will be in the tens of thousands of dollars, with more to come.)

Let’s leave this to the courts to decide; it’s now a legal matter, and it’s best left at that.

To all those who say that SVA should just revise it, add more to it, add his own thoughts, etc, there’s one thing I think you’re missing: that would require actual work and creativity on the “authors” part. and I think that is the one thing that Mr. VA is trying to avoid. Why should he put any effort into his own creativity when he (and RDR books) think they can bully the courts into letting him copy and sell someone elses for their own gains?

And to the person who brought up fanfiction, I think the line that was crossed was that SVA is trying to PROFIT off of Jo’s work. He was fine himself while his Lexicon was online and free to the user community. Same as fanfic. Jo probably knows that these things are a wonderful way to keep the fan community interested and involved. but… if someone tried to package and sell a fanfic, you bet your buttercups that she’d put a stop to it (and rightly so!).

to Justin: what makes you think the SVA book is well done? I’ve seen it online (it was part of all the trial stuff). It’s terrible! It is just an alphabetized listing. Thats it! no insight on anything, no theories (debunked or not), no essays, nothing. blah! I’ll wait for the authors work, thank you.

The Leixcon does not need to be in book format to be more useful. In fact, publishing something which is already available to the public for free online is ridiculously unwise anyway.

But to appeal this case when Jo has already won with the support of millions of fans is blindingly stupid.

Just a comment on fan fiction…remember folks, no damages are done unless the person tries to profit from what they write.

Personally, I’m sad to see the on-line lexicon gone…I thought what Vander Ark did as a fan on the website was admirable and really well done…it’s just a shame that he decided to try to put it in print and claim it as his own (without doing additional work) with full knowledge that it was against JKR’s wishes. It’s sad to see such a dedicated fan turn on JKR that way.

Raven: The online Lexicon isn’t gone, there are just a few hiccups transferring the name to a new server. It is currently accessible via http://www.hplex.info/

Cara and budb, perhaps it’s actually cheaper for RDR to appeal than it would be to rewrite the book? I can’t remember, but hadn’t the book already been typeset prior to the case?

Can someone remind me the differences between criminal appeals vs. civil appeals? I know in a criminal appeal you can only examine whether or not the court proceedings were fair. For example, a certain piece of evidence was allowed, and it never should have been. Do civil appeals work the same way, or would the appeal examine the actual ruling and the judge’s interpretation of the law?