JKR/WB has won the court case against SVA/RDR.
Plaintiffs have shown that the Lexicon copies a sufficient quantity of the Harry Potter series to support finding a substantial similarity between the Lexicon and Rowling’s novels.The Lexicon draws 450 manuscript pages worth of material primarily from the 4,100-page Harry Potter series.
The full text of the decision.
J.K. Rowling Statement
“I took no pleasure at all in bringing legal action and am delighted that this issue has been resolved favourably,” said J.K. Rowling. “I went to court to uphold the right of authors everywhere to protect their own original work. The court has upheld that right.”
“The proposed book took an enormous amount of my work and added virtually no original commentary of its own. Now the court has ordered that it must not be published.”
“Many books have been published which offer original insights into the world of Harry Potter. The Lexicon just is not one of them.”
Warner Bros. Statement
“We are obviously pleased with today’s ruling by Judge Patterson supporting the position that the proposed lexicon book infringes on Ms. Rowling’s rights. As a content company, it is imperative that we work vigorously on all fronts to protect the intellectual property rights of those who create the stories and characters, words, pictures and music that entertain and benefit the worldwide audience.”
RDR Books Statement
“We are encouraged by the fact the Court recognized that as a general matter authors do not have the right to stop the publication of reference guides and companion books about literary works. As for the Lexicon, we are obviously disappointed with the result, and RDR is considering all of its options.”
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Here’s what I said over on HP Progs. Still kind of sums up my feelings.
“We’ll see what repercussions this has in the future. Can only wait & see.
In this case it was pretty clear cut that RDR & SVA were coming dangerously close to plagiarism. So, the verdict is as it should be.
That being said, I don’t think JKR & WB are as pure as the driven snow either. For one, I don’t know how much ‘irreparable’ harm could be done to someone who’s worth hundreds of millions of pounds or to a company with billions of dollars in assets. Certainly theft is wrong in & of itself no matter how much money is involved & that’s the focus that should’ve been taken, not “oh look how much money we millionaires are losing over this.”
And I think Jo took the high road for the most part, focusing on how it was theft of her work. Although her attempt at being Stephanie Meyer was a little annoying. “I’m so upset about this I don’t think I can work on anything ever again.” Other than that one instance I think she took a pretty high road & kept it focused on property rights.
WB, though, is a little more suspect, in my opinion. Again, we’ll have to wait & see what the repercussions are. Give the WB lawyers an inch & they’ll try to take a mile, in my view of how things have worked lately. Not anything against lawyers per se; it’s just their job. But theoretically it’s up to juries & judges & legislators to restrain them.
Hopefully this whole sorry mess will inspire SVA to go out & actually create an original work of art. I think even the Lexicon in print idea would’ve worked out if he had worked harder on adding more critical commentary. It shouldn’t be too hard to do something original. The cast of Mugglenet did it in their book, Melissa Anelli’s done it, John Granger’s done it numerous times, Travis Prinzi’s done it, & even the humble progenitors of HP Progs have done it in their podcasts through their critical analysis of the HP series.
And maybe RDR will have learned to be a bit more cooperative with a company that can sue you from here to eternity.
Of course, this may not be over yet. Any word on whether RDR/SVA will appeal?”
Apparently, from what Greg has found out over at HP Progs, RDR is probably going to appeal the decision.
I am very glad that the right decision was made here. I think it was plagiarism cut and dry. If a student turned in a paper to me like that, I would give them a zero and tell their administrator (which I legally have to do anyway). I always tell them to let me know what it means rather than just quoting something. Mr. VanderArk is much more talented than he made it seem in this book – and he doesn’t like plagiarism of his own work, so I don’t know how he could come at it the way he did.
I think the danger / harm in this book being published wouldn’t come to JKR herself, or not really hurt her monetarily, BUT it would be a huge precedent. Authors have a hard enough time getting something published – if plagiarism like this was upheld by the courts then how could any author protect their works?
Renee,
I agree. That’s why this was the right decision. But then again, who knows what some other judge will think during the appeals process?
We also need to factor in how the nature of publishing has changed. Authors self publish all the time now, freely or asking for payment, over the Internet. Oftentimes they do it with no other protection than Creative Commons License, asking that, while their work may be used freely, they at least be given credit for it. And from what I’ve seen, that sort of system seems to work out fairly well.
We also have to remember, too, that there’s a difference between protection & protectionism. Much of what the music companies & movie companies are doing today in ‘defense’ of copyright smacks more of protectionism rather than protecting legitimate rights. I don’t want to see the book companies go down the same path.
I see at Leaky where RDR has dropped its appeal of the verdict against it & the Lexicon book. Apparently they’re now going to work on making the book compatible with the judge’s decision so that they can publish it that way.
Good for them. I was disappointed, though, in the few comments I saw over at Leaky in response to RDR’s announcement. More “Jo is God & should never be questioned & RDR & SVA are damned to fandom hell for doing so” nonsense. Also, “We’ll never buy a book by SVA no matter what it might be. And we won’t buy any book about the series (except of course for Jo’s favorite Melissa). We only want to hear what Jo says.” Pretty sad.