That case and that book

[Carol]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "nrenka" <nrenka at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67@> wrote:
> 
> > Carol, hoping that Nora can identify the specific document in which
> > the entries are compared as I've already spent more time than I should
> > have comparing the Lexicon with FB
> 
> Well, I linked you to the actual text of the Lexicon as is under
> dispute--which Alla had linked to at the beginning of this thread,
> shockingly enough, so the complaint that it wasn't available
was...hasty.
> 
> Here's another comparison chart:
> 
>
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2007cv09667/315790/36/13.html
>

Carol responds:

As far as I can see, the paraphrases are perfectly legitimate, not
coming close enough to JKR's original wording to constitute plagiarism
or copyright infringement. The comparison chart omits one important
detail, that Steve has cited FB or QTTA as his source. Note, also, the
small number of entries in Exhibit M, by no means 91 percent of the
book, which relate only to those two books and to a sport or creatures
invented by JKR. It should be self-evident that Steve can use no
sources other than these two books or the HP series for these entries,
and analysis of creatures that don't appear in the HP books themselves
is a bit much to expect.

For crying out loud, JKR! Have you never heard of the term
"paraphrase"? Just ask him to indicate that these creatures, for
example, the Fwooper, are your inventions and are mentioned only in FB
(which he does cite as his source!). That should solve the problem
nicely, without all the ughliness of a lawsuit. He's not infringing on
copyright; he's merely taking for granted that his readers know that
JKR invented these imaginary creatures. And surely no page number is
needed to locate an FB entry of "Fwooper" or "Jarvey." FB is itself an
alphabetically arranged reference book.

And the "Knee-Reversing Hex" entry, for example, *beautifully*
combines quotation (with quotation marks) and paraphrase from QTTA,
with the source and chapter number cited. Since QTTA does not have
separate American and British editions, it might be advisable to
change the citation format to page numbers instead of chapter numbers,
but there's no copyright infringement that I can see.

Carol, who thinks that if this little comparative chart, which
dishonestly leaves out the cited sources, is the evidence intended to
show that the Lexicon entries are copied and pasted from JKR's books,
their case doesn't have a leg to stand on