45 responses so far ↓

• 1 revgeorge // Apr 15, 2008 at 9:40 am

  Dave wrote, “Obviously, she would not seek a wholesale shutdown of sites like The Hog’s Head.”

  Obviously, she wouldn’t seek that…maybe. But nobody is saying what her lawyers might seek. Or WB or Bloomsbury or Scholastic’s lawyers might seek.

  Jo likes to talk a good game about her being the sole creator of HP & the arbiter of how it is to be understood & used. But she forgets that she gave up some of her rights when she signed contracts with book publishers & movie companies. They can certainly operate independently of her to protect their rights. They’ve already done so in shutting down Mugglenet & Leaky from selling products with those names on them.

  Don’t know where all this is heading, but I foresee a train wreck.

• 2 reyhan // Apr 15, 2008 at 1:42 pm

  Seems prettty simple to me: discuss the books (and movies) all you want, write about the books (and movies) all you want, just don’t make money off of them.

  Which I believe is fair.

• 3 revgeorge // Apr 15, 2008 at 2:04 pm

  Yes, I agree that your explanation, Reyhan, is fair. But what you & I agree is fair may be a lot different than what some lawyers & some judges think is fair. That’s all I’m saying.

• 4 revgeorge // Apr 15, 2008 at 2:05 pm

  And nothing is ever simple once it gets into court.

• 5 reyhan // Apr 15, 2008 at 2:10 pm

  And my explanation is an over-simplification, anyways, because it doesn’t account for the notion of “value added”.

  It should be: discuss the books all you want, just don’t make any money off of them unless you add your own value.

  And that is one of the places it gets fuzzy.

• 6 revgeorge // Apr 15, 2008 at 3:32 pm

  reyhan said, “And that is one of the places it gets fuzzy.”

  I’ll agree with you there. Fuzziness abounds in this case. Although I think that if SVA is basing his whole case on WB used my timeline & Jo gave me an attaboy on her website however many years ago, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

  But the question arises, if he had done essentially what he’s done now, that is, make a print version of the Lexicon, then what if he had added some original content. How much would he need to make it copacetic, one essay, two or three, thirty? Or would Jo still want to stop the publishing just because of the Lexicon material?

  I’ll guess we’ll never know because SVA didn’t add any new content into the work. So, I think there is where his defence is going to fail.

• 7 Dave the Longwinded // Apr 15, 2008 at 4:40 pm

  I think Rowling wants to present the issue as cut-and-dry as Reyhan presents it. She’s praised the Lexicon as a valuable resource for Potter fans (and herself as an author). And I think she would have had this same legal reaction if SVA had made the website a subscription service instead of trying to publish a book.

  I tend to be squeamish when terms like “intellectual property” show up in a discussion anyway — I was a member of the Napster generation!

  Part of the issue is that the Internet is changing the nature of how all this works. Web 2.o has made working on the Net a collaborative enterprize. I wonder if, in the future, someone like SVA can claim that he indirectly helped write some of the story because Rowling admitted she’s used the Lexicon as a reference source when writing the latter books.

• 8 revgeorge // Apr 15, 2008 at 4:52 pm

  I agree, Dave. Although I still have problems with websites being able to make money off of advertising & that somehow doesn’t violate copyright. The Lexicon, Mugglenet, Leaky et al never would’ve got advertising except for the fact their sites were devoted to JKR’s work. How can Emerson Spartz get away with making a 6 figure income from the Mugglenet site & not have WB & Bloomsbury & JKR after his rear end?

  Anyway, I guess that’s neither here nor there. I agree with you that questions of credit become pretty clouded in this new technology age. Now, that’d be a nice lawsuit to see: SVA claims he helped write Harry Potter because he was smart enough to catalogue what JKR said & she wasn’t!

  I still think intellectual property & copyrights are going the way of the dinosaur. We’re just caught in the tension of a new world being governed by the old laws. It’s like the automobile industry starting up & trying to be governed by the laws regulating horses & buggies.

• 9 reyhan // Apr 15, 2008 at 6:33 pm

  Um, revgeorge,

  Intellectual property and copyright laws will evolve to keep up with the new ways of disseminating information. It’s unlikely that we will dispense with them altogether.

  I am so tempted to quote one of the commandments here. The one about stealing. Just because it was formulated some 6,000 years ago doesn’t make it obsolete, does it? Back then it was about cows and chickens. Later on, it was about horses and buggies. And now - it’s about ideas and websites. The underlying principle, I am convinced, remains the same.

• 10 revgeorge // Apr 15, 2008 at 6:49 pm

  reyhan,

  Perhaps I should’ve been more clear. Intellectual property & copyright as we know them _now_ are going the way of the dinosaur. Yes, the laws will evolve to keep up with things. It’s just that the laws will always be a step or two behind what’s going on, which will leave lots of legal gray areas. Plus, the people fighting these battles are always fighting the old ones. Bureaucracies & vested interests always have a hard time keeping up with the new realities of the technology.

  But what’s legal is not necessarily what is moral. So, I’m not saying the 7th Commandment doesn’t apply. It just is that the commandment & the human legal system don’t necessarily match up one to one. It’s legal for sports team owners to get city councils to have taxpayers build them new stadiums. It’s legal for a casino or some other business to get a city council to eminent domain some poor grandmother’s house so they can build a parking lot on it. In fact, it is legal to do a whole bunch of things, but that doesn’t necessarily make any of them moral.

  SVA should’ve gone with his first instict that publishing a print version of the Lexicon was a copyright violation, despite what any company lawyer told him. That being said, I don’t think a victory for JKR & WB will necessarily shed any light on how fan sites in general are treated. In fact, it could open up even more legal cans of worms.

• 11 seajay // Apr 15, 2008 at 9:39 pm

  I really hope that this case will help to clarify where it would make sense to draw the line between discussing or referring to a work and simply ‘copying’ the same work.

  There are 40 or more HP related books out there that WB are happy with; so I do not think that WB are intent on preventing people from making money in relation to HP. Where is the line?

• 12 korg20000bc // Apr 16, 2008 at 1:20 am

  Good point, reyhan.

  Grand Theft Bovine and Grand Theft Poultry = Grand Theft Potter.

  I suppose that the issue is- is it possible to OWN ideas. And I suppose the answer is- if the law of the land says it is.

• 13 Scott // Apr 16, 2008 at 4:31 am

  I would have to say that while JKR does have the right to her IP, it is foolish of her to let it get this far. It reminds me of Apple suing a bunch of tiny websites that were devoted to Apple products and happened to publish advance knowledge of upcoming products. Yes, Apple had the right to protect their sales, but they hurt themselves in the long run because they left a very sour taste with a lot of diehard fans.
  I think JKR is hurting herself in the long run by going all the way to court. A lot of diehard fans lose a little bit of their fondness for her and start to see her as just another CEO trying to stick it to the little guy.
  Again, I think she has the right to do this, but in my humble opinion she should have worked things out with Steve before it went this far.

• 14 SeaJay // Apr 16, 2008 at 5:36 am

  (note to Travis: I am not taking sides here however if you deem this entry too contentious please remove it with my apologies)

  Scott wrote: “….Again, I think she has the right to do this, but in my humble opinion she should have worked things out with Steve before it went this far.”

  I do not think that JKR was given that option.

  For a start the action is against RDR not SVA and I suspect that RDR are very keen that this matter goes to Court.

  I can only put this forward as speculation, but I understand that Roger Rapoport, the editor of RDR and the biographer of Michael Moore, is a political activist; see the list of books he has co-authored.

  http://www.rdrbooks.com/about.html (scroll down to Roger’s bio)

  I think that there is reason to suppose that RR’s motives here are ‘political’ and I think this idea is reinforced by the fact that RDR specifically indemnified SVA against any court action, which apparently is an unusual thing to do.

  RDR also forced WB’s hand by doing all it could to prevent WB having sight of a copy of the HPL book (see the court transcript on LeakyNews.com)

  Some may see RR as a mischief maker and others as doing us all a big favour. I am not too bothered either way; the point is simply that JKR may not have had a choice in the matter.

• 15 revgeorge // Apr 16, 2008 at 3:51 pm

  Seajay,

  I was thinking along the same lines, that the real villain in this case, if anyone can be said to be a villain, is RDR. They apparently did go out of their way to make it impossible for WB & JKR to have any oversight over what was going on. Of course, if SVA had just added in critical & original elements of his own, then this wouldn’t be a problem.

• 16 reyhan // Apr 16, 2008 at 4:35 pm

  I’ve been reading the articles about the court proceedings. Sounds like Vander Ark worships JKR and the books, and is devastated at what’s going on. Sounds like he let his initial scruples be overborne by RDR and now he’s in a situation where he’s at odds with his idol. Here are some excerpts from the Chicago Sun-Times article:

  ‘‘‘It’s been … it’s been,’’ he stammered, choking on his words. ‘‘It’s been difficult because there has been a lot of criticism, obviously, and that was never the intention. … This has been an important part of my life for the last nine years or so.’’

  He said his only goal had been to celebrate Rowling, who he called a ‘‘genius.’’’

  and:

  ‘Vander Ark said the Web site was no money maker — taking in less than $7,000 in advertising revenue over its lifetime — and he intended it to be a hobby until he was approached last summer by RDR Books Publisher Roger Rapoport about putting out a printed version.

  Vander Ark said he initially was against the idea, partly because he believed it would violate copyright law. Even after Rapoport assured him they could publish legally, he remained unsure and insisted on a contract clause in which RDR agreed to take on costs caused by any copyright lawsuit.’

  and:

  ‘As for Vander Ark, his distress hasn’t made him less prolific.

  Recently, he moved to London, where he is working on two more books about the Harry Potter universe. He had also planned to work as a guide for a travel company giving Harry Potter-themed tours in Europe until the lawsuit caused him to back out.

  Vander Ark also seems to have lost none of his passion.

  His face lit up when an attorney for RDR books informed him that Rowling had complained that the Lexicon had given the wrong etymology for the door-opening charm ‘‘Alohomora.’’

  Vander Ark had speculated that the word was a combination of the Hawaiian word ‘‘aloha’’ and the Latin word ‘‘mora.’’ Rowling explained that the word actually came from a West African dialect.

  ‘‘Really!’’ Vander Ark said, his eyes alight. ‘‘Sorry. That’s very exciting stuff for someone like me.’’’

  I don’t know how to interpret all this. If he is such a fan, then surely he should have backed off once he realized his idol did not approve. Will he be happy if he wins in court (as improbable as that seems to me)? Does he imagine that he can go back to being the worshipful acolyte?

  I’m confused.

• 17 Scott // Apr 16, 2008 at 7:10 pm

  Ah, there’s the question Reyhan. Given some of what SVA said there, I might speculate that he would have dropped the whole thing given his druthers. It almost sounds like he is also being forced into this lawsuit, perhaps because his contract with the publisher allows them to make such a decision? He may be faced with a decision to participate in this lawsuit or get sued himself by RDR for breach of contract. Given that RDR is bound by the contract to pay for this lawsuit, SVA doesn’t have much choice.
  The bottom line is this. It’s all a big mess. I think at the end of the day everyone will have lost, except the leeching lawyers (apologies to any lawyers here).

• 18 Ginevra // Apr 17, 2008 at 11:46 am

  “I suppose that the issue is- is it possible to OWN ideas. And I suppose the answer is- if the law of the land says it is.”

  Well, you cannot copyright an idea (http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ31.html). You could possibly patent some ideas, though, but not all ideas are patentable.

  Here is a fair use video I thought was interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo.

  I am loving the comments on here, by the way. I agree with you all so much more than those on TLC. I too see RDR as the only villain.

  Steve surely gave away his publishing rights when he signed a contract with RDR, so I am almost positive he has no power to call off the publishing of the book and settle the case. I have noticed Steve’s underlying frustration with RDR for a long time. One of the articles on the case cited an email RDR sent to Steve saying that he would be liable for anything he said. I interpreted the letter as RDR trying to keep Steve quiet about how he felt. The fact that Steve confessed during the trial to believing a book version of his site violated copyright speaks volumes and volumes about how Steve feels. Also, the email from Steve that caused Melissa of TLC to recuse herself from reporting expressed his immense frustration with RDR and how they were handling this situation.

  I love both sides, and I wish they would settle, but it looks like that will not happen. I understand Jo’s frustration, but I felt extremely sorry for Steve while reading her entire testimony. He must have been (or will be) devastated by those comments.

• 19 reyhan // Apr 17, 2008 at 12:54 pm

  And this is the latest, from Bloomberg. com:

  ‘Twice yesterday, U.S. District Judge Robert Patterson urged both sides to settle the case, invoking Charles Dickens’ “Bleak House” as a cautionary tale of long disputes. In the midst of Rowling’s testimony, he reminded the parties that the law is “murky,” and he noted they risked years of appeals.

  “As long as I’ve been on this court, the longer I’m reminded of `Bleak House,”’ which centered on litigation that consumed all the assets in dispute, he said. “Litigation isn’t always the best way to solve things.”

  Patterson gave the lawyers three weeks to submit final briefs. He didn’t say when he would rule, though he quipped that he may need a research guide to help him recall the facts if the case drags for too long.

  Lawyers for both sides pressed ahead with the trial after Patterson’s remarks. ‘

  This is what the experts for each side said:

  ‘Before Rowling returned to the stand, the trial assumed the air of an academic debate, as each side summoned a literature professor to say if Vander Ark’s book was useful and original.

  Rowling’s witness, Jeri Johnson, the senior tutor, or academic dean, at Oxford College in England, said the text of 2,034 of the 2,437 entries in the “Lexicon” were “lifted” whole or in part from Rowling’s books. Others were “nonsense” or “muddled,” she said.

  Janet Sorenson, an English professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the “Lexicon” helped readers recall the many characters, spells and objects in the thousands of pages of the Potter books.’

  As much as I appreciate the literary reference, and deplore the way things drag on interminably in the court system, on this one I am completely with the author, who said:

  “I’m here because I passionately believe this case is about an author’s right to protect their creation,” Rowling told a federal judge in New York hearing her infringement suit. “I see this as an incredibly important case. Are we or are we not the owners of our work?”

• 20 Rebekah // Apr 17, 2008 at 5:46 pm

  “And my explanation is an over-simplification, anyways, because it doesn’t account for the notion of “value added”.

  This is exactly it. It is a battle of ownership rights/artists rights to their work. As an active and working artist I’m completely on Rowlings side with this. According to copyright laws concerning 2 and 3 demensional artwork, the artist who created the work holds the right and can legally bring anyone to court who does not seek permission beforehand from the said artist to copy the art for profits sake. Most times artists are flattered and don’t seek legal action when someone reproduces their work. The artist is entitled to 1. Have a say over the material and 2. Get a percentage of the profit or waiver the percent.

  I don’t see too many issues of this changing in the writing world…Rowlings series is *her* artwork. In her eyes the work is not completed until she creates what she has hinted on for the last few years now verbally in interviews as well as in canon itself with Hermione’s incessant telling of reading “Hogwarts; A History”….this shouldn’t come as a shock to *anyone* that Rowling has wanted to do this, esp. Steve since he’s been so actively in the “know” on these articles.

  What bothers me more than anything, and perhaps this is why Rowling is so fueled by it all, is that she’s said countless times she wanted to create an encyclopedia at the end and the money raised would go to the ‘Comic Relief’ charity. She said this publically over a year ago and has hinted for years about this. Why….why is this battle being fought? She wants to do the encyclopedia of *her* characters and *her* creation….for charity, why is she having to fight to be able to do this? It’s like someone racing her to finish the seventh book first. It’s ridiculous.

  It feels like a tug of war between Rowling and the “Fandom”. Does anyone else feel this? Perhaps I have this in my brain after seeing SVA presentations last summer in Toronto and watching his demeanor while listening to his slightly over-the-top presentation that pretty much said “Too bad Rowling, it’s our world now”. After leaving that particular talk, I turned to my sister and said: “If Rowling was here right now, I bet she’d have a thing or two to say to him about *his* world.” I felt his approach this summer was disrespectful to the artist to be honest and I felt like he was fueled with a love for all the wrong things.

  Yes, the RDR are accountable, but you know what…they’re just another drop in the bucket publishing company seeing something that could bring them a large chunk sum of profit…they could care less about the relationship of Steve to the HP fandom world or with the author herself. He’s being used as a pawn….but the worst part is…he knowingly stepped right into the game. It’s stupid.

• 21 revgeorge // Apr 17, 2008 at 6:39 pm

  Rebekah,

  While I certainly agree with most of what you say, I disagree on two parts. One, Rowling is not necessarily in competition with SVA’s guidebook, because her work would be fundamentally different & would contain information he does not have access to, namely how she went about the process of writing the books & how she envisioned certain plots & characters developing. I don’t think people are going to say, well, I have SVA’s encyclopedia, why do I need Rowling’s?

  Two, however over the top SVA may have been in his comments, to an extent he’s correct, Rowling, by publishing the books & allowing the movies, allowed us into the world of Harry Potter, & so now the fandom’s perceptions & ideas help shape that world to a certain extent. It doesn’t totally belong to the fandom, of course, but neither does it totally belong to Rowling anymore. If she’d wanted complete control over her world, then she should’ve never put it up for publication & she should’ve never allowed movies to be made of it. She gave up some control when she did all those things.

  I know we’ve gone over these arguments before, but I really do think there is a tension between author & the work & the readers going on here, & I think it’s a good thing. The problem is in drawing too sharp of a dichotomy between the two positions. No, the HP world is not totally the fandom’s now, but neither is it totally Rowling’s anymore.

• 22 reyhan // Apr 17, 2008 at 6:54 pm

  revgeorge,

  None of us has complete control over our world. What we have can be easily usurped by another person, stolen, and re-sold as their own. This is why we have laws, and a judiciary to interpret them and a police force to enforce them.

  I have heard this argument many times, that ideas somehow become common property through the act of being shared. I do not agree with it. Just because we think about an artist’s work, discuss it, conjecture about it, doesn’t make it ours. I know you (and others as well) disagree.

  But as you have pointed out, laws made for tangible goods are difficult to translate into intangible goods. It will take our society a while to figure out where the boundaries lie. That doesn’t mean that stealing someone’s idea is any more acceptable than stealing their livestock.

  As for Mr. Vander Ark, Rebekah’s comments begin to give me an inkling about where he might be coming from. The sense of “it’s ours now” which she believed she heard expressed sounds a lot like the attitude of a gleeful child saying “finders keepers, losers weepers”. I don’t think the information age and intellectual property rights enter into it, actually. I think it’s a simple case of ignoring that commandment we were discussing earlier.

• 23 Scott // Apr 17, 2008 at 7:02 pm

  revgeorge wrote: “I don’t think people are going to say, well, I have SVA’s encyclopedia, why do I need Rowling’s?”

  Ha. Especially given certain people’s penchant for buying multiple copies of the exact same books just because they are a different printing or have a different cover (*cough*cough*). Or spending a LOT of money to buy the British version from Amazon just to see how they changed the American version. Hehe.
  I also have a bad addiction to buying every different LOTR version I can find (~15-20 different sets and counting).

  So given that, you’re right. Most people that are going to buy the Lexicon are also going to by JKR’s encyclopedia and will buy any other minor variation on that theme that anyone cares to publish in the next 20 years.

• 24 revgeorge // Apr 17, 2008 at 7:24 pm

  reyhan,

  I wasn’t talking about the taking of people’s ideas for profit. Stealing is still stealing. Jo, as I’ve said numerous times before, has every right to protect her legal property, whatever the law may end up saying that is. I just think she has a disturbing tendency to tell the reader how the work should be read & understood rather than letting the reader read & through reading & adding critical commentary help enlarge the world & bring deeper meaning to it. It almost seems as if she wants the conversation to only go one way, from her to the reader. Or at least that seems to be the way she’s been moving lately.

  So, I’m talking about two entirely different things here.

• 25 reyhan // Apr 17, 2008 at 11:13 pm

  revgeorge,

  I’m glad you pointed out we are talking about two different things here: the author’s right to her intellectual property vs her right to exegesis. I think we’re agreed on the former. The latter doesn’t really enter into the dicussion about Vander Ark, I think, since he doesn’t seem interested in any kind of interpretation, just wholesale hijacking.

  Scott, I have manfully resisted buying a $65. signed copy of DH (gold embossed cover). But it is a struggle every time I see it. I have to remind myself it’s the words that matter, not the packaging.

• 26 revgeorge // Apr 18, 2008 at 10:33 am

  reyhan wrote, “The latter doesn’t really enter into the dicussion about Vander Ark, I think, since he doesn’t seem interested in any kind of interpretation, just wholesale hijacking.”

  You’re right, Reyhan, that this isn’t about SVA’s right to do interpretation or exegesis. Because, despite what RDR’s lawyers say, he seems to have done more compiling & filing than actual critical commentary on what he’s compiled.

  Most people, including JKR & WB, admit that the Lexicon is an excellent piece of work, meticulous in detail. But it’s also not very original. All it needed was some critical analysis & what not to make it a perfectly valid work on its own.

  Which is what’s so sad & frustrating about this case, because if there was anybody who had the knowledge & the ability to make it into a truly critical encyclopedia & commentary on the HP series, it was SVA.

• 27 reyhan // Apr 18, 2008 at 11:00 am

  Not so sure about that, revgeorge. Everyone has their strengths and passion, and SVA’s seems to be an encyclopeadic knowledge of all the details on the HP series. I don’t think he’s shown any signs of wanting to do analytical or critical commentary. He’s the kind of person who would get an O on his OWLS in History of Magic and a T in Transfiguration.

• 28 revgeorge // Apr 18, 2008 at 9:04 pm

  Okay, I’ll buy that. Perhaps he then needed a collaborator to help him with the critical analysis stuff. Of course, we here at The Hogshead could’ve done that for him.

• 29 reyhan // Apr 18, 2008 at 9:51 pm

  Yeah, we could have offerred him diametrically opposing - but equally well-reasoned - takes on everything. Because that’s what turns us on. Well, me, at any rate.

  Him not so much, I gather.

  And I don’t think he would have shown much integrity if he had let RDR tart up his encyclopaedia with something which is so alien to him.

• 30 Scott // Apr 19, 2008 at 12:35 am

  Revgeorge said: “Most people, including JKR & WB, admit that the Lexicon is an excellent piece of work, meticulous in detail. But it’s also not very original. All it needed was some critical analysis & what not to make it a perfectly valid work on its own.”

  But isn’t a “lexicon” by definition just a compilation and organization of previously laid out information? I would never expect something called a lexicon to be anything other than that. I certainly would not expect or want critiques of the original work. I think the problem is that SVA did it and not JKR. Perhaps SVA should have approached Rowling in the beginning and done some sort of collaboration on a master Lexicon.

• 31 revgeorge // Apr 19, 2008 at 7:39 am

  Scott,

  Maybe he did. I’m not sure.

  Anyway, a Lexicon can have some critical commentary, just not elaborate essays or things like that. It could include etymologies of words & names. It could trace the literary aspects & history of the current work. It could do all sorts of things. Which I think is what RDR is trying to argue somewhat. But it’s still a kind of fine line issue.

• 32 reyhan // Apr 19, 2008 at 9:44 am

  revgeorge,

  Now that would have been cool: for SVA - or anyone - to take on the task of describing the etymologies of the names and words JKR uses (patronus, crucio, Dumbledore, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Snape, Voldemort, Marvolo, Amytus, Azkaban, Gryffindor, etc, etc) and especially the neologisms (Dementors, pensieve, muggles, apparating).

  It would also be fascinating to read about the history - cultural and literary - of the places and things and plot lines: the English boarding school, with its tradition of houses and prefects and points, elves, goblins, giants and dragons, King’s Cross, platform 9 3/4, Little Whinging, stories set in boarding schools, children’s fantasy adventure books, the sacrifice/death/resurrection theme in myth and religion.

  The number of ways HP intersects with history, culture, literature, etymology, myth and religion is countless. There is so much there for people to research and write about.

• 33 revgeorge // Apr 19, 2008 at 9:58 am

  reyhan,

  There is so much there to write about. I’m not even sure Rowling would be able to cover them all in her Scottish book. Which leaves lots of room for us & for authors to work with.

  The thing to remember is that we’ve not even gone a complete year yet since the last book, DH, has been out. The analysis of Rowling’s HP work & its impact upon the literary tradition have yet to really begin. There’s so much yet to do & examine.

  I think most of us here are in basic agreement that with so much to work with, SVA could have gone much further & deeper than he did with his first attempt at entering the HP publishing world. I guess he’s working on other books; we’ll see what they bring to the table.

• 34 reyhan // Apr 19, 2008 at 4:45 pm

  revgeorge,

  My point is that SVA is very good at organizing the courses and the china and the silverware, writing out the menu and matching the wines with the courses, but he doesn’t actually have anything to bring to the table.

  Nothing wrong with that; good butlers are hard to find. But they can’t do the work of the cook. Nor should they try to pass the cook’s work off as their own.

  To really stretch an analogy.

• 35 revgeorge // Apr 19, 2008 at 4:56 pm

  No, strangely enough, I agree with you, Reyhan. That is, he should have been able to go the extra step to make the work a critical work but he wasn’t able to or didn’t, because as you assess he’s much better at organizing & categorizing. Neither of which is very exciting or original.

  But I will be interested to see what else he is working on & how it turns out. Maybe we’re selling him short. We won’t know unless & until he comes out with another work.

• 36 reyhan // Apr 19, 2008 at 5:15 pm

  The funny thing is, there are probably a lot of HP fans out there who would be more interested in a lexicon than an analytical work in which the author does do his own critical analysis and perhaps even synthesis. It’s not quite the same as the mentality that leads to the marketing - and consumption - of lunchboxes and backpacks based on popular movies. It’s more a hunger for more of the same, for any thing that can recreate the original experience.

  This is potentially bad news for people like Travis, who do their own thinking but expect the reader to put out a certain amount of effort, but good news for people who try to ride on the author’s coat tails to make a quick buck.

  I think that what’s confusing the picture here is that SVA appears to have the true fan’s appreciation for the author. And a true fanatic’s knowledge of the HP world. Unfortunately he’s also gotten the idea that he can make money out of his hobby.

• 37 revgeorge // Apr 19, 2008 at 5:37 pm

  “Unfortunately he’s also gotten the idea that he can make money out of his hobby.”

  Not that I agree with him, but it’s understandable he might think that. Emerson Spartz admits to making a six figure sum off of Mugglenet, at least at one point in the site’s history. I don’t think I’ve ever heard figures for Leaky, but they must be making something off advertising & I’d assume it’d be more than SVA’s $6,000 or so. Everybody else is writing books about HP.

  So, it’s reasonable to expect that he would think, why shouldn’t I do it, too? The main problem is, pretty much everyone else is making original works, whereas his is substantially closer to plagiarism than it is to originality.

  How this suit turns out will certainly be interesting. The judge has already said there’s a lot of right & a lot of wrong on both sides, & he’s urged them to come to a settlement, which they’ve failed to do so far.

• 38 Scott // Apr 19, 2008 at 6:56 pm

  I wonder how much influence SVA has with his publisher at this point. It seems to my non-lawyer brain that it would be fairly easy to agree on a settlement that includes royalties. Say the publisher was going to sell the book for $20. Bump the price up to $25 and give the extra to JKR. The fans will not even blink at paying a little more for that book, and JKR gets her due. You could even include a disclaimer up front in the book that this is all based on her most wondrous books (sucking up always helps). Generally speaking, owners of intellectual property don’t mind you making money off their work if they also get a cut and if they get proper credit.
  Of course, if RDR books just wants a long fight in court, there’s nothing you can do.

• 39 revgeorge // Apr 19, 2008 at 10:51 pm

  Another interesting story about the lawsuit from Yahoo.

  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080420/ap_on_en_ot/harry_potter_lawsuit

  Apparently, WB & JKR aren’t disputing the fact that SVA can do a lexicon; they’re disputing whether or not he took too much material which went beyond fair use.

  Also, the fair use rule isn’t cut & dried in its application. One lawyer, not on this trial, said it’s the most unevenly applied part of copyright law.

  Of course, none of this gets SVA off the hook completely. Just because the law is murky doesn’t mean morality is murky. Jo’s immediate thought was that it was plagiarism. SVA himself first thought it was going too far. That might tend to indicate that it was really plagiarism & steps should have been taken before publishing to rectify those concerns.

  Anyway, the yahoo story is interesting. Have at it.

• 40 reyhan // Apr 19, 2008 at 11:24 pm

  Well, I did. And cam upon the following section:

  ‘He ( RDR Books Publisher Roger Rapoport ) also questioned whether there was a danger in granting artists too much control over books about them. Should an author, he asked, be able to kill any unauthorized biography, simply because they don’t like it?

  “We would have to get approval before we could write or publish on people’s work. They would control critical commentary on their work, at any time, whether it is our kind of book or an Associated Press article,” Rapoport said. “It would create total chaos in the area of critical commentary. Frankly, I don’t think that would be good for anyone, even the authors themselves.”

  I hadn’t realized that SVA/RDR were interested in either a biography or critical commentary.

  The argument is so dishonest it makes my blood boil.

• 41 revgeorge // Apr 20, 2008 at 12:09 am

  Yeah, the more I hear about RDR, the less I like them. Maybe SVA was in on that, too, but from all I’ve heard, it’s as if RDR has been pushing this whole thing, trying to get a ruling that would basically nullify any copyright protections for authors & artists. After all, didn’t RDR repeatedly refuse to let WB & Jo look over the printed lexicon before they actually tried to publish it? If they’d been more reasonable, RDR that is, things may never have had to go this far.

• 42 Rebekah // Apr 23, 2008 at 4:02 pm

  “I think that what’s confusing the picture here is that SVA appears to have the true fan’s appreciation for the author. And a true fanatic’s knowledge of the HP world. Unfortunately he’s also gotten the idea that he can make money out of his hobby.”

  And to take that one step further, not only gotten the idea that he can make money from his hobby, but *deserves* to make money from it.. Everyone wants to receive their 15min of fame from the coat tails of JKR. That’s what is a thorn in my side at this point. His complete lack of respect for the author and her choice. I heard rumors back at Prophecy that he wanted to do this and she had spoken (not directly to him but roundabout way i believe) about not wishing for him to make a book..so we all knew this was building up…..now I may have a very bias and heavy handed critique of his character based off of seeing his talks at Prophecy last summer, but…I’m sorry I think they’re valid to how this led up to what we have now. I just don’t understand how someone can ask you not to do something that you admire enough to dedicate your life to, move away from your children to go do tours about the books and not have the want or desire to respect Jo’s wishes? It doesn’t add up. Part of it is a slimey publishing company wanting publicity (no matter how they get it), but like I said before….Steve had a choice and he gave the go ahead to do this.

  I believe Travis was doing a presentation during SVA’s “It’s our world now” speech, but I may just check my recordings I purchased to see if I can post anything. It….it just speaks volumes to me. I wasn’t shocked to see the court hearings after watching how SVA was treating the whole fandom vs. critical love of the books and author take on things. There’s a balance and it’s been crossed by him. You’ve got those in love with the books and those in love of the fandom and fame. I don’t mean to come off rude if I am. I’m just not shocked after watching SVAs “fruits of the spirit” so to say during Prophecy weekend. Total shock to be honest….even down to the slytherin robes he adorned

• 43 Scott // May 2, 2008 at 6:31 pm

  “Nothing wrong with that; good butlers are hard to find. But they can’t do the work of the cook. Nor should they try to pass the cook’s work off as their own.”
  LOL. Reyhan, I loved that analogy.

• 44 Scott // May 2, 2008 at 6:38 pm

  Interesting article:
  http://www.linearpublishing.com/RhinoStory.html
  Written by Orson Scott Card, one of the big names in science fiction. He certainly doesn’t think much of JKR at this point. I do think it’s a little ironic that she is complaining about someone “stealing” her work, when it turns out her ideas aren’t really that original either.
  There is nothing new under the sun. I have read a lot of books that seemed strangely familiar until I read some earlier book that had the same story line or ideas. Tons of people steal ideas from Tolkien, or Heinlein, or Herbert. In a lot of ways it’s difficult not to. As Card say, though, it’s not difficult to just say where you got the idea. In SVA’s case, he has never tried to hide where he got his material.
  Anyway, just thought it was an interesting article on the issue.

• 45 Scott // May 3, 2008 at 9:28 pm

  Sorry. Posted this before I saw the discussion on another thread.

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