[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Where's the Grey? (was: That case and that book)

[Lee Kaiwen]

[After 45 minutes of poking around Amazon.com and composing my reply, my 
computer blue-screened and I lost everything. Why oh *why* was I working 
in Windows? Serves me right, I guess. So here below is the condensed 
version of my reply.]

First, Carol, I note your correction to my misspelling of Justia. 
However, I'd also like to claim First Post on the mention of the site in 
this discussion, which I mentioned before the weekend in another post of 
mine.

Carol:

 > I would think that the fan guides and encyclopedias would be most
 > relevant, particularly those that are unauthorized. The question is,
 > how much copyrighted material do they contain ...

Yes, I agree it would be interesting to do an entry-by-entry comparison 
of Steve's work with several of those I mentioned, in particular the 
unauthorized HP guides. Unfortunately, the bookstore is some 500 km from 
my house and I'm not likely to return anytime soon. And I didn't see the 
Justia document until after I returned, so I can only compare it to my 
memory of the books I looked at.

However, Amazon.com has a wonderful "look inside this book" feature that 
includes pages from several HP guides, including The Complete Idiot's 
Guide to Harry Potter, and a couple of works that bill themselves 
explicitly as unauthorized by JK/WB. A few entries are available that 
can be compared to the Justia document, and they appear to contain 
neither more nor less explicitly copyrighted material than Steve's (in 
that Steve's seems to contain very little at all, at least in the way of 
direct quotations). The formats, however, e.g., of The Complete Idiot's 
Guide, seem pretty similar to Steve's.

There were a couple of specifically interesting examples at Amazon.com; 
however, I have to trot off to work now and don't have time to look them 
up again. Anyone interested can just search on Potter guide or similar 
words.

Duriez' explicitly-titled "Unauthorized Guide" is available from the 
Amazon UK site, but you can't look inside it.

If I have time after work, I'll go look through Amazon.com again. There 
were certainly several books there that had formats very similar to 
Steve's -- i.e., an alphabetical list of entries, with factual 
descriptions but only the occasional direct quotation.

--CJ