FF: JKR getting sued...

[heiditandy]

No: HPFGUIDX 53212

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "grover_the_weird" 
<grover_the_weird at y...> wrote:
> You know.  I have read just about every single idea that can 
happened 
> in the 5th book. About 20 fanfics named "Harry Potter And The 
Order 
> of Phoenix"; so I'm wondering when the 5th book comes out in June, 
> somebody's going to say: "hey! that's my idea!"
> 
> let's see, the only way she can avoid this is to add a huge bunch 
of 
> characters and from where I see it, she already has a huge bunch. 
> Now, being the clever lady she is, I doubt she'll do the Lost-
Family-
> Melodrama or the Fall-In-Love stuff lots of fanfic authors tend to 
go 
> for. 
> 
> I really don't think that JKR's fans are going to sue her if she 
does 
> do something similar to their ideas because they simply love her 
too 
> much but still...it's a thought I've been looking at.
> 

IP attorney chiming in here:

In the US and the UK (among many other countries) you cannot sue 
someone because the ideas in their story and the ideas in your story 
are similar. 

You cannot copyright an idea. Period. As the patent office in the UK 
says, copyright "protects the way the idea is expressed in a piece 
of work, but it does not protect the idea itself."

In the US, further, one cannot copyright names, titles, short 
phrases or expressions. As the Library of Congress' copyright 
section says, "even if a name, title, or short phrase is novel or 
distinctive or if it lends itself to a play on words, it cannot be 
protected by copyright."

Accordingly, if someone wanted to successfully sue JKR in US court 
for copyright infringement in a fanfic-related matter, JKR would 
have to have used long phrases or sentences, or more, from said 
fanfic in her novel. Word for word. 

Early last month, we had a thread on this very same issue on the OT 
Chatter list, starting with post http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-
OTChatter/message/13815. You might find those posts interesting, and 
instead of reposting my analysis here, I just suggest you take a 
peek at those posts. 

FYI, I'm going to be part of a team presenting on these issues at 
Nimbus - 2003 (http://www.hp2003.org) and we're launching a FAQ-ish 
website which will cover these issues, later this month, as a prelim 
for some of what we're going to cover at the event.

Heidi, not legally blonde