The Court Case - it breaks my heart

[sistermagpie]

Dumbledad wrote:

> My worry is that whether they settle or not, whether WB & JKR win, or 
> whether RDR & SVA win it is still bad news for fans. Fans will need 
> to be increasingly worried about what we post, and squeaky clean 
> about what we print. We were always concerned about offending WB 
> (when we organised Accio 2005 we made sure that they were happy with 
> what we were doing, and took their wishes into account in our 
> programming) but now I have nightmares about fans requiring our own 
> lawyers. On the other hand authors may think twice about engaging 
> fans in the generous way JKR has. Site of the month is starting to 
> look misguided, etc.

Magpie:
I think the only ruling that would really be trouble for fans is if JKR 
loses *on the grounds* that she "approved" of the book when she 
approved of the Lexicon and said she liked it imo. The other things 
really don't have to do with us. If JKR wins because it's not fair use, 
it doesn't really change much. If RDR wins because it's fair use it 
also doesn't change much. It would only apply to fans who wanted to put 
out an encyclopedia.

However, if JKR lost because she's "approved" of the book by saying she 
liked the website, that imo would be a big problem. Because it would 
send the signal that authors could *accidentally* approve of something 
by being nice about it. That, I think, could make authors more paranoid 
and feel they need to stamp down on more things and that would suck. 
Right now, as I understand it, authors can choose which things they go 
after with their copyright.

-m