Another Summary of Fair Use

[sistermagpie]

Carol:
> But as a courtesy to JKR, and to keep her from appealing the case 
and
> causing who knows what harm to the fair use doctrine and the rights 
of
> fans and scholars alike based on an original work, I think Steve V.
> ought to make certain changes (updating the entries, altering the
> Sorting Hat entry so that it consists of more commentary and summary
> and less quoted material, correcting any errors that JKR considers 
to
> be particularly egregious--admittedly, the few errors she cites, 
such
> as the hypothetical etymology of Alohomora, are minor and could not
> have been corrected, JKR to the contrary, by a Google search).

Magpie:
Maybe this is nitpicky, but just had to say that JKR can't do harm to 
the fair use doctrine or rights of fans since she's not in charge of 
the law. The judge is the one who would be ruling on whether this 
book was okay or not based on what Fair Use already says--at least 
that's how I understand it works. Her challenging of this book is 
just a challenge. I doubt it's the first or only one her lawyers have 
been involved in, even if it's the most publicized. I don't think a 
judge would have any interest in making a ruling that made it illegal 
to write reviews or scholarly work or criticism--lots of all three 
have already been done for HP without any challenge. And the judge 
isn't going to interpret the law/situation in a way he doesn't really 
agree to just because it's JKR.

I'm also not even so sure that any case like this is able to have 
such far reaching effects because I think they're all very 
individual. If she wins because the thing is ultimately considered to 
add nothing than that's not changing the Fair Use Doctrine--and I 
don't think it would automatically call into question any reference 
book based on something fictional even if it had far more analysis in 
it. I believe of the two sides it's the Stanford Group that's more 
openly eager to reform the cpoyright law. I don't know whether the 
arguments on JKR's side (leaving aside irrelevent stuff like whether 
her own encyclopedia would sell fewer copies or whether she's got 
writer's block or loves her books like children or whether the book's 
sloppy or not) are attacking the law itself or just trying to show 
that the Lexicon fits the law already. If she won it seems like that 
would just put the next person in the same position as Steve was in 
when he started writing.

A book that more aggressively challenged her own views of characters 
with essays etc. wouldn't be able to be challenged this way. (I 
assume the Lexicon actually tries to make its own biases close to the 
author's so she wouldn't have much trouble with at least that kind of 
interpretive spin.)

I'm just saying that if JKR's team is trying to claim that the 
Lexicon is simply entertainment like the Seinfeld book that's not 
attacking much of the Fair Use doctrine. The grey area is more about 
what this book is, it seems to me, rather than whether Fair Use 
should be stretched to cover criticism or scholarly works.

-m