J.K. Rowling Wins Copyright Claim

NEW YORK — A judge ruled Monday in favor of "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling in her copyright infringement lawsuit against a fan and Web site operator who was set to publish a Potter encyclopedia.

U.S. District Judge Robert P. Patterson said Rowling had proven that Steven Vander Ark's "Harry Potter Lexicon" would cause her irreparable harm as a writer. He permanently blocked publication of the reference guide and awarded Rowling and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. $6,750 in statutory damages.

"I took no pleasure at all in bringing legal action and am delighted that this issue has been resolved favorably," Rowling said Monday in a statement. "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. ... Many books have been published which offer original insights into the world of Harry Potter. The Lexicon just is not one of them."

Rowling and Warner Bros., maker of the Harry Potter films and owner of intellectual property rights to the Potter books and movies, sued Michigan-based RDR Books last year to stop publication of material from the Harry Potter Lexicon Web site. Vander Ark, a former school librarian, runs the site, which is a guide to the seven Potter books and includes detailed descriptions of characters, creatures, spells and potions.

The small publisher agreed that nearly everything in the lexicon came from Rowling but argued that it was a fair use allowable by law for reference books. In his ruling, Patterson noted that reference materials are generally useful to the public but that in this case, Vander Ark went too far.

"While the lexicon, in its current state, is not a fair use of the Harry Potter works, reference works that share the lexicon's purpose of aiding readers of literature generally should be encouraged rather than stifled," he said.

He added that he ruled in Rowling's favor because the "Lexicon appropriates too much of Rowling's creative work for its purposes as a reference guide."

Anthony Falzone, who argued the case for RDR Books, said he had not yet seen the ruling and could not immediately comment. RDR publisher Roger Rapoport did not immediately return a telephone message for comment.

Though Rowling had once praised the Web site, she testified earlier this year that the lexicon was nothing more than a rearrangement of her material.

She said she was so distressed at the prospect that it would be published that she had stopped work on a new novel. "It's really decimated my creative work over the last month," she said during the trial in April.

If the lexicon is published, she went on, "I firmly believe that carte blanche will be given to anyone who wants to make a quick bit of money, to divert some Harry Potter profits into their own pockets."

Vander Ark, a devoted fan of Rowling, began work on his Web site in 1999 and launched it in 2000.

The seven Potter books, which ended last year with the final book in the series "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," have been published in 64 languages, sold more than 400 million copies and produced a film franchise that has pulled in $4.5 billion at the worldwide box office.

Comments

[NYCPub]

05:21 PM on 09/10/2008

Does anyone have a link to the actual court decision?
Thanks

[HappyRabbit]

08:44 PM on 09/09/2008

Rowling's suite will come to be recognized as the spiteful and vindictive act it is. The lexicon would have been useful to students of the Harry Potter legacy and Hogwarts universe. To expect that Rowing ever will or even could create such an intellectu­ally elegant volume is doubtful.T­he profit she has come to expect for her efforts is just not possible in a reference work with relatively limited appeal.

[ObamaEdwards]

07:51 PM on 09/09/2008

"I don’t care about making sure that everyone who gets a copy of my books pays me for them — what I care about is ensuring that the everyone who would pay me decent money for a book has the opportunit­y to do so. I don’t want to hold 13-year-ol­ds by the ankles and shake them until their allowance falls out of their pockets, but I do want to be sure that when their parents are thinking about a gift for them, the first thing that springs to mind is my latest $20-$25 hardcover.­"--Cory Doctorow
http://www­.locusmag.­com/Featur­es/2008/09­/cory-doct­orow-macro­payments.h­tml

The only thing Rowling protected with her lawsuit and public histrionic­s is her billion dollar money bag.

[kathy001]

11:18 AM on 09/09/2008

This is good news, not just for Harry Potter fans, but for all writers. The issue of copyright is being blatantly ignored by so many on the Internet and it could quickly become a major issue in print. I hope the publishers of this Lexicon spent a bundle on the thing before it was quashed. Publishers should know better than to attempt something like this.

[rockyersocksoff]

10:25 AM on 09/09/2008

JK is a WILF.

[kmac23va]

08:50 AM on 09/09/2008

You know who used to use the Lexicon to help in their writing? JK Rowling. She's admitted she used the Lexicon as a fact-check when she didn't want to review her notes.

You know who else used the Lexicon? Warner Brothers. On a couple of DVDs they have a timeline of the year, which came from Steven Van der Ark. I'm sure he was paid for it, but they wouldn't have had that if he hadn't taken his own time to compile the mess of Rowling's work, considerin­g how many plot holes and deus ex machina devices she came up with, not to mention data she revealed in interviews (Hermione Jane in interviews prior to Deathly Hallows, Hermione Jean in DH after she realized she used Jane for Umbridge's middle name).

I understand she has to protect her copyright, but I hope she doesn't get to use anything from the Lexicon when she writes her own encycloped­ia and makes coin off it.

[pakaal]

03:28 PM on 09/09/2008

So she and Warner Brothers used a site that someone had put up of HER creative output. Whose creative output was it? HERS. Van der Ark would have NOTHING if she hadn't written the books. She can use anything she wants from the lexicon, it's taken directly from her books. Thankfully she won't be robbed of her hard work!

[JustifiablyParanoid]

07:34 PM on 09/09/2008

You hope she doesn't GET to use any of HER own material..­.? The website was NEVER in question. The headline for this post is misleading­, the site hasn't been shut down. The website isn't for profit, so therefore it's safe -- and Rowling has actually been one of the most generous creative artists where her work is concerned -- allowing all kinds of fan fiction and fansites to crop up and play in the vast world she has created.

So please, get over yourself and get your facts straight before you utter such nonsense.

[cinemaven]

06:56 AM on 09/10/2008

The website is shut down... has been since this happened.

Rowling's material was never categorize­d by her.. that was something Vander Ark and the other devotees of the book did. As Kmac stated, Rowling has commented several times that she used the site for reference so obviously the way every aspect of her books were dissected and categorize­d was as valuable to the author as it was to fans.

There was no question that she enjoyed and supported the site for the 8 years Vander Ark was compiling the informatio­n and arranging it and PAYING for the bandwidth to do so but the minute he decided to take all of that hard work (his hard work) and put it into a book that could have made a profit, suddenly it's all lawyers and suits. My respect for Rowling has diminished greatly and I've heard the same from a number of fans.

As to her generosity for letting fansites crop up, that's not so much generosity as it is smart marketing. Fansites drive fads and it's fans who put out all of the money she's enjoyed. The books were written by Rowling but the Lexicon was NOT and I hope Vander Ark sues the panties off her if she borrows from any of his hard work.

[cinemaven]

07:08 AM on 09/09/2008

This seems a bit like "biting the hand that feeds you" to me. The fan site run by Vander Ark was a labor of love and admiration for the book for 8 years and it likely drove marketing for the book since most communitie­s do help people retain interest. The site was praised by the author before the suit which means it was large enough to have caught her attention.

This happens so often to fan sites. Someone will spend far too much time and energy paying homage to a favorite show/fad/e­vent and for years, that site does nothing but benefit the thing they're paying homage to but if after all of that work (and expense to host the site) the creator places an ad up or the site seems to make money, the lawyers appear.

There have been numerous cases where going after fan sites have caused an end to a fad... a good example is Beanie Babies. The lawyers went after the large fan sites and their sales dropped to almost nothing because it turned out that the people who were most loyal to the fad were even more loyal to the communitie­s that sprung up around it.

[JustifiablyParanoid]

07:37 PM on 09/09/2008

Again...pl­ease get your facts straight -- this includes the person that wrote the headline for this post -- the website is NOT under question here. The creator of the site wrote a book named after his site, and this book basically took, verbatim, Rowling's own words, added nothing new or transforma­tive, and attempted to make a profit off of Rowling's creation.

The website is and always has been a FREE enterprise to be enjoyed by Potter fans everywhere­.

[smilodon1]

09:34 PM on 09/08/2008

This is sad. Bad news for HP fans. It was no money out of her pocket but, I'm sure, lawyers made a mint from it.

[alguien]

12:23 AM on 09/09/2008

on the other hand, the precedent had to be establishe­d somewhere.

[JuniorIsaac]

12:24 AM on 09/09/2008

How is this sad for Harry Potter fans? Do you have any idea how much she lets readers get away with? You should really read the whole case before you make such a comment. She is the only person that I feel deserves all has earned and tons more. But in this case all she asked was for a few things to be changed in the book that RDR was publishing but they kept staling. At one point RDR asked for more time because there was a death in the family. She agreed only to find out that RDR was trying to sell the publishing rights to other companies while they were supposedly in mourning. And your right, it wasnt money out of her pocket. It was out of the pockets the various charities she usually donates to.

[cinemaven]

07:18 AM on 09/09/2008

Isaac, if you go to the cached site (since sadly, it's now offline) you can see that it is organized in a way the author hasn't even attempted. Yes, it's her books but she didn't categorize the beasts or timelines or every place mentioned in the books.

There was so much work put into the site and the catagoriza­tion of informatio­n in the books and that work was done by someone other than Rowling. Compiling informatio­n as a readers companion is not a new idea. I've read numerous books on the works of Shakespear­e or The Lord of the Rings....

[Deni]

08:54 PM on 09/08/2008

Good for her! It's her intellectu­al property and for some guy to make money on her copyrighte­d creation is wrong. Good for the judge; he got it right.

[piotr]

06:40 PM on 09/08/2008

she's like Metallica used to be

[marshalljc]

06:20 PM on 09/08/2008

"I firmly believe that carte blanche will be given to anyone who wants to make a quick bit of money, to divert some Harry Potter profits into their own pockets."

Quick bit of money...ri­ght. He's been at this for 9 years. Everyone who wanted an organized disseminat­ion of Harry Potter informatio­n turned to his website first. I'm left wondering why she doesn't seek an injunction to shut it down as well. He could be profiting from the advertisin­g. What's the difference­?

"...to divert some Harry Potter profits into their own pockets."

Divert the profits from what, exactly? I don't see any other Harry Potter encycloped­ias on the market by Rowling or anyone else.

As a Potter fan, I can only hope this means she intends to publish one herself in the near future (and that it won't pale in comparison to the Lexicon).

"...anyone . . . their..."

She's obviously not an English major.

[FreelanceWriter]

08:56 AM on 09/09/2008

That actually was one of her other complaints -- that IF this book was published it would ultimately undercut and undermine any "official" encycloped­ia that she would want to put together herself (or oversee).