A Warners Warning to those with Websites

[Nick Mitchell]

No: HPFGUIDX 723

Hi all

>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

Yeah... my site, which once was - Domain now owned by Warner Bros.

So, someone here has found the article on the Register - which I knew
nothing about until a friend of mine saw it and said - hey, isn't that your
site?

An update to the story is this.

Warner Bros has applied for the trademark "Harry Potter".  In doing so, they
are it appears able to seek and recover (read that as destroy) domain names
which infringe their intellectual property rights - ie, which contain the
phrase Harry Potter.

I have been in long legal discussions with David Engle, Warner's Lawyer here
in England regarding this matter... and to cut a long story short, I decided
not to persue it through the courts - thus Warner Bros has the domain
www.harrypotterisawizard.co.uk  (though an interesting note, dispite
transfer paperwork being done back in March - I still have access to the DNS
manager!)

I am not sure what other action Warner are taking against other sites.  I am
aware that David Engle has a Hot List of domains which Warner feel are part
of the Harry Potter Properties (as the rights are known).

Jenna's site - www.harrypotterfans.net is not going to be really very
effected, as the domain name which she registered, is only being used to
pass through visitors - to the site which is hosted by Geocities (and most
if not all visitors know the geocities URL).   However, it is interesting
that Jenna didn't change the site to be under the domain name... maybe
Warner contacted her asking for transfer of domain.

If any lawyer in our mist want's David's email address - please email me off
list.   I'm sure he'll be happy to chat with you regarding what is happening
regarding the Harry Potter Properties.   Don't write to Warner... they
totally ignore mail  (in fact, even WBSTORE.COM are currently ignoring me -
my order 10th Aug, has still not arrived, and I am getting a bit
concerned!).

When I raised this issue with Jo... she was concerned.   She as we know is
not very aware of the internet - at least, not when it comes to domain
registration!  Jo (at least in her last letter to me) said that she would be
concerned if legitimate fan sites were closed, though she did stress that
she is concerned about people making and selling copy-cat merchandise (well
she would be, she gets royalties from the merchandise I expect).

So... that's the latest.

Nick
ex owner of: www.harrypotterisawizard.co.uk
Fragments of old site are at: http://www.dvd-films.freeuk.com/harrypotter/