that lawsuit / concordances / copyright

[sistermagpie]

 Magpie wrote in
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/35980>:
> << Getting more dramatic:
> <http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/arts/entertainment-harrypotter-
lawsuit.html?ex=1208836800&en=7d1d6a3225ecff1c&ei=5070&emc=eta1>
> >>
> 
> The NY Times article is where <<She has called Vander Ark's book
> "sloppy, lazy" work >> and << "The lexicon is filled with errors." 
>> 
> 
> That *really* irritated me when I heard it on the news. 
> 
> The Lexicon is very accurate, and she has publicly stated so 
herself:
> as the CNN article mentioned: << Rowling mentioned his Web site on 
her
> own, writing, "This is such a great site that I have been known to
> sneak into an Internet cafe while out writing and check a fact 
rather
> than go into a bookshop and buy a copy of Harry Potter (which is
> embarrassing). A Web site for the dangerously obsessive; my natural
> home." >> 
> 
> So now she is contradicting herself.

Magpie:
Meh. I can't get worked up about that. My very few experiences with 
the Lexicon didn't leave me feeling it was all that accurate, but 
perhaps I just ran into entries where Steve's own authorial voice was 
too strident. I assume there's plenty of accurate information in it, 
but it was never a place I relied on.

But as to this contradiction, I think she was probably making an 
effort to be nice in the first quote so may have exaggerated to begin 
with. It's the "web site for the dangerously obsessive" that she's 
calling her natural home, I think, not claiming that she spends hours 
poring over the Lexicon. Steve's certainly done a lot of his own 
contradicting of himself, like sending e-mails saying that one of his 
goals for the Lexicon is that nobody ever think of publishing an 
encyclopedia because that's Jo's job and then doing it himself.

Not that I think he has to arrange his own life around what she wants 
if he's not actually infringing on the copyright, of course. But by 
the same token I see no reason why JKR should be hiring him to be her 
assistant on her own encyclopedia or not. But that's me--as I said, 
some of the Lexicon's pov reflected fan-wars to me and besides, I 
tend to think it's best to give fanboys/girls who desperately want to 
be personally associated with the author as little encouragement as 
possible. If he wants to write his own encyclopedia and finds a 
publisher and it's perfectly legal he should go right ahead and do it 
without JKR's displeasure stopping him, by he hasn't earned himself a 
place in her book.

 
Catlady:
> People write guidebooks to minerals, sometimes to minerals found in
> the wild in a region, with photographs of the rocks in their natural
> state and after having been cut and polished, as well as information
> on the chemistry, geology, and human use of these minerals. People
> write identification guides to the trees or plants or birds or 
animals
> of a region, with photographs or drawings as well as verbal
> descriptions. Are these writers 'stealing of' Nature 'and making 
money
> out of it'?
> I don't know if anyone has written a guidebook to the characters in
> the Iliad, but if someone did, were they stealing from Homer to make
> money?

Magpie:
Whatever one thinks about Steve's books, that's irrelevent. Fiction 
doesn't work like nature. The issue here is the artificial concept of 
copyright. Homer doesn't own the copyright to his works, nor does 
anyone own the copyright of the Bible. It's only fairly recently that 
what we call fanfic shouldn't be perfectly legal, but it's not now, 
as you say. Some authors and others consider even free fanfic to be 
immoral and "stealing." I don't agree. I don't consider it stealing--
but I know if it were published for money it would violate copyright 
laws. The encyclopedia doesn't feel to me like a violation of what I 
understand copyright to be, but I'm not sure whether that means that 
it isn't.

-m