[HPforGrownups] Potions, the Book, and a New/Old Perspective

[Marion Ros]

No: HPFGUIDX 165329

Steve:
>>>Some say that Harry is cheating in Potions by using the
annotated HBP book. The implication is that he is 
cheating because he is taking credit for work that isn't
his.

But isn't that exactly what all the students are doing?
Aren't they all working from Snape's instructions written
on the board, or following a formula and procedure 
written in their own textbooks? How is what Harry doing
any different than what all the students are doing, other
that he is simply taking his formula and instructions
from a different source.<<<


Marion
Okay. Let's say that I want to write a book. 
I've never shown any literary promise before, and my essays suck, but I want to do so anyway and I go to whatever town it happens to be where JKR happens to reside in and I shop around for a blank notebook to write my non-existing novel in.
I can't find a notebook quite to my liking and decide to go to a coffeeshop. Lo and behold, what do I find on the ground, slipped between my chair and the wall? A notebook! Well, it's been scribbled full already and it has 'property of JKR, DH manuscript' on it, but hey, finders keepers, losers weepers.
So I take the manuscript home, I find that the scribbling inside is a rather complete story about this Harry Potter kid in a wizarding school (hey, I've heard about this Harry Potter phenomena, but I've never read a single book) So I type it out, and publish it on the web as my own original work. I don't even put in a disclaimer that the characters are the intellectual property of JKR. 
Hey, my notebook, my story, my characters.

I can tell you already that if I claim, on the internet or in any other kind of writing, that these characters are my intellectual property, I would be sued unto an inch of my life.

You can just imagine the scene in the courtroom, can't you? 

Lawyer: So you wrote this all yourself, did you? It's not in your own handwriting.
Me: No, I adopt a different handwriting when I'm in a creative mood.
Lawyer (with predatory glint in his eye): It says on the cover 'manuscript by JKR' though.
Me (looking like deer in headlights): Uhhh, yes, that's my nickname! 

Hah! Cashing in on other people's work is a pipe-dream, especially with a *rich* creative mind as JKR. Her lawyers would chew you up and spit you out.

There is such a thing as intellectual property, as plagiarism, as taking other people's work *without their consent* and claiming it as your own.

But what about fanfiction? Don't thousands upon thousands of fans write stories about Harry and Hogwarts? What's the difference? We all quote the books on this list, aren't we stealing copyright, committing plagiarism?
No. We don't claim the characters or the stories as our own creation. We don't copy pieces and lines from canon and say to eachother, "look how brilliant *I* am for writing this clever line" when it's in fact JKR's line. This would not only be illegal, it would also rather pathetic.

JKR wrote the stories, she published them (she got filthy rich by selling them!) and we are allowed to read them, to argue and bicker about them, we may even fantasize about them and write our own stories using her characters, as long as we acknowleged her intellectual possession of them in a disclaimer.
Snape made highly intelligent and original improvements on potions and created new spells. If he, as a teacher, taught these improvements to his students then his students (if they were clever enough) benefited from this. But that still doesn't mean his students are allowed to claim that *they* invented these improved potions.

To use your latest 'grandmother's cake recipe' allagory, if your home-economics class issued a competition in which the one who invented the most tasty new kind of cake, and you did not just take your own grandmother's recipe, but the recipe you found lying around at your elderly neighbours' house when you went there for a polite cup of coffee (the recipe does not belong to you, but you sneaked it into your pocket) and you claimed to your home-economics teacher that you slaved and slaved at your stove at home, trying out new ingredients (also claiming to be such a instinctive and intuitive cook that you constantly potter around in the kitchen improving on recipes whilst in truth you wouldn't be found dead with an apron on let alone that you were willing to *cook*!) 
If you did all this, if you sneaked away a recipe from somebody else without their permission, if you used it in a competition and claimed it as your own creative invention, and if this won you a prize, a prize that other, more creative cooks ought to have won, then you are a thief, a liar and a cheat.
If your neighbour went to the police, the police would probably laugh at her. There is no law against stealing recipes from the bookshelves of old ladies, after all. But this would hardly be the point. You'd still be a thief. 
If you used that recipe, claiming it was your own invention, in a contest, you are a liar and a cheat.

Lastly, I used to dabble in fanart. I've shown some of my work during conventions in Blackpool and there were several pieces on fanwebsites. It's easy to right-click-and-save a picture on internet. If somebody had 'hijacked' my art and put in on their own website, claiming they made the art themselves, if they then also entered *my art* in a fan-contest, without my knowledge and my consent, claiming again to have made the art themselves, they would be a liar, a cheat and a thief.

It's as simple as that.

Marion (who will padlock her portfolio if she ever visited a HP convention, shocked as she is at the apparent ease some people seem to forget the notion 'creative and intellectial ownership')

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