The Trial -- My Prediction: JKR wins/loses

[Carol]

Lee:
> I could easily be wrong on this, but I believe the point of
contention is that the songs were quoted in their entirety; if he had
quoted only a portion, he would have been OK. I also vaguely recall
that songs and poetry, even when appearing inside another work, are
treated separately for copyright purposes. Thus the lexicon has in
effect, in the case of the Sorting Hat song, copied a protected work
in its entirety, a big copyright boo-boo. <snip>

Carol responds:
You're correct, which is why the online for the Sorting Hat entry was
problematic and needed to be revised (a problem only partially
resolved in the revised version). The songs require permission, unlike
most of the quoted material in the books. (Some publishers charge a
fee for quoting song lyrics and poems. Whether a song that is part of
a larger work falls into that category, I don't know.) In any case,
the online Sorting Hat entry is by no means typical of the Lexicon
entries, either the printed or the online version. The printed version
has been revised, incorporating the Sorting Hat's OoP song into the
text of the entry. Use of a whole song, or most of a song, still
requires permission, but the entry no longer relies on the songs
themselves as the primary content for the Lexicon entry.

Lee:
> First, if the judge specifically rules the lexicon infringing
*because* it copies excessively, and a rewrite corrects that problem,
it would take away the heart of JKR/WB's case, severaly lessening
their chances of winning a second go-round. <snip>

Carol responds:
As I've endeavored to show with numerous examples, the Lexicon does
*not* copy extensively. The paraphrases (with a few exceptions like
the "spiders flee" paraphrase in the Basilisk entry, which does come
to close to the original wording) are for the most part far enough
from the original wording, while still retaining the original meaning,
to be perfectly legitimate, and in most cases (with exceptions that
can *eaeily* be caught and queried by a competent copyeditor), the
sources are cited.

I do suggest an occasional lead-in along the lines of, "According to
Fantastic Beasts" and a switch to page numbers rather than chapter
numbers (preferably for both sets of HP books since Bloomsbury page
numbers won't be helpful to American readers and vice versa). But
these problems are easily remedied, and the few instances of genuine
copyright infringement do not warrant treating the whole book as
"copied and pasted" from JKR's works.

I realize that it's difficult to follow the links and keep several
windows open at once, but it can be done, and once you find the
relevant pages in the Justia website, you can bookmark them for easy
reference. As for me, I've compared the original to the printed
version and both to JKR's works (obviously not for every entry but
enough to assure myself that the copyright infringement is not
extensive and the 91 percent, copy-and-paste claim is bolderdash).
I've looked at fair use and copyright law and cited them here. I've
examined the chart of comparison between FB, QTTA, and "the infringing
work," noting that the quotations from the printed Lexicon fail to
include his citations. And it looks to me as if JKR has some
reasonable objections that should be acted on, but, by and large, she
doesn't have a case.

>From a purely emotional standpoint, which I realize has no bearing on
the case itself, I hope that the once-penniless JKR, who should
remember what it was like to be a single mother living on welfare, can
find it in her heart to forgive and pity the unemployed librarian who
has given so much time to her works. Uninformed and confused and
mistaken he may be, but his career prospects and his future as a
writer have been blighted by this affair, while she stands to make yet
more money (and no one is going to buy Steve's book, especially in its
current format, as a substitute for the "Scottish Book" or for FB or
QTTA. (Steve V. even recommended buying those books for further
information in the online version of the Lexicon but has eliminated
that recommendation from the printed version, presumably because
there's no link.) Roger Rapaport of RDR, or whoever talked Steve into
signing that contract, might benefit from a year of standing in
unemployment lines, or, at least, I feel that he deserves it. I only
hope that *reputable* writers and publishers won't suffer as a
consequence of a decision that favors JKR. (I am stating *feelings,*
not informed opinions, in this paragraph, and I'm quite aware that
other people feel differently. It has no bearing on what I think the
judge should do, which is based on my examination of the evidence. But
I'm certain that, like any good editor or English teacher, he knows
the difference between paraphrase and incorporated quotations on the
one hand and copy-and-paste plagiarism on the other.) 

Carol, glad that Steve V. has updated the print version to include
material from DH but wishing he'd left the original format alone