A Warners Warning to those with Websites

[heidi tandy]

No: HPFGUIDX 699

Warner threatens Harry Potter fan sites
By Graham Lea
Posted: 09/02/2000 at 12:22 GMT 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/9146.html


Warner Brothers is setting the attack dogs on Harry Potter fan Web 
sites. The media giant which has film rights to two Harry Potter 
books, is demanding that Web sites such as harrypotterisawizard.co.uk 
transfer their names to the company. More than 50 Web sites are 
devoted to JK Rowling and her blockbusting Harry Potter books for 
children. But there is little if any evidence of any attempts by the 
site operators to deceive or pass themselves off as the official 
Harry Potter experience, merchandising and all. 
Bloomsbury, Rowling's publisher, confirmed that Warner has 
merchandising rights to the Harry Potter books. This isn't the first 
company which has attempted to round up fan site URLs; other examples 
include Paramount, with Star Trek, the BBC, with Teletubbies, and 
Porsche, with -- er -- Porsche. 
By stomping on the Harry Potter fan sites, Warner may succeed in 
stopping unofficial merchandise sales. The company has the money and 
the firepower to beat the Harry Potter fan sites into submission. 
However, it appears unlikely that Warner can insist on domain name 
transfer, although it could prevail in court if it has the requisite 
intellectual property rights. But, as with the character Jeeves, the 
only protection is for illustrations, since there can be no valid 
copyright in the name of a character. So far Warner has done nothing 
about a Harry Potter Web site other than to direct those who hit 
harrypotter.net to its own consumer Web site. 
Since the purpose of fan sites is promotion, it seems particularly 
silly of Warner to decide against harnessing the enthusiasm, and to 
act in this way. Some Harry Potter fans accuse Warner of trying to 
limit the dissemination of adverse reviews of films, and they see 
putting clamps on Web sites as one way the film company is trying to 
do this. 
They hope that Jo Rowling, who has been informed about developments 
but has not yet reacted, will intervene and sponsor an official site. 
But she may have had to sign away all rights to a website and be 
unable to act. Film contracts are renowned to be some of the thickest 
in the lawyering business. London-based Bloomsbury told the The 
Register that it will re-launch its Web site and include more about 
Harry Potter later this year. Warner had not returned our call at 
press time