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Image details: J.K. Rowling Testifies On Harry Potter Lexicon Battle served by picapp.com
The judge in the Harry Potter lexicon trial has urged both parties to settle out of court, because there are many areas that this trial has brought up that would take YEARS to settle (and that would also be a huge money drain). I’m really hoping for a peaceable solution to this – what do you think they should do?
From what I understand, Steven Vander Ark has done several Potter books without Rowling objecting. Apparently in this instance Rowling is objecting to the book being too much “her” work and not enough “his” verbiage. But isn’t that what a lexicon is? A dictionary chronicling her works in an easy-to-consult format? If Rowling didn’t object to Vander Arc’s other projects, why this one? And so what if she wants to do a Lexicon of her own – she can and people will be lining up to buy it. But my suggestion is, why doesn’t she go in with Vander Arc, but her personal touches on the Lexicon, reap the benefits while he does all the work? If she didn’t want people writing books on her work, she should have put a stop to that a long time ago. Now, it seems sort of after-the-facty.
well I support her, all the way because this guy seems to have nothing better to do but copy her work and he shouldnt be able to make a profit off of that. She said its not about her money and we know she has let other little books in but they from what I have seen almost have nothing to do with the initial storyline. This guy is taking all the characters and spells and creatures etc. and putting them in his own book after Jo expressed an interest in doing so for chariety. I support her all the way.
There are tons of people who write books based on other people’s works. The Whedonverse has a ton of books written by others about the Buffy and Angel characters as well as the Whedonverse in general. Star Trek has a truck load of other authors writing on that universe, and these two examples as hardly unique. As someone who likes but isn’t enamoured of the Potter world, I was just pointing out that Vander Ark has apparently done several other Potter-inspired works without Rowling objecting. So why object to this one? That’s all.
And no offense meant by using the word “enamoured.” While I’m not in love with the Potter world – though I like it very much – I am enamoured of the Buffy/Angel world! Plus I have two friends who are self-proclaimed Potter fanatics, and they enjoy books written about the Potter world by other authors just as I enjoy books about Whedon’s world by other authors than just the Man himself. And I know Rowling and Potter started off in a complete literary world whereas Whedon was on the small screen. But the movies moved her beyond the literary to the cinematic venue, thus more writers – with her approval, as all other projects have had – are going to expound on her work. Something as big as the Potter phenomenon is going to have books written about it other than those of penned by Rowling herself. That’s just commerce and the way of the world.
Let’s not forget that this kind of practice (making factbook/encyclopedia/guide for love and slim profits) is also widespread in the rest of the world, particularly in Japan. The Japanese authors, for instance, usually lets fancomics/doujinshi and even fan-made artbooks to be sold rather freely, even if they make slim profit (if ever, since many fan-made things there rarely make profit at all) from it.
I find this lawsuit a tad curious, especially since this whole ordeal coincides oh-so-conveniently with the impending release of the widely-touted Official Potterpedia. Could it be that JKR trying to crank sales up before it release? Not that those efforts are necessary, since Harry Potter fans are rabid buyers of everything ‘Potter’ anyway.
My personal stance in this matter is with Steven, although with many ‘buts’. JKR should have just buy off Steven’s toil quietly, instead of churning dust with this whole matter. She had admitted that she wasn’t that good at remembering details of the series (CMIIW), then why should she refrain from enlisting the services of people better at the job, like Steven? Jelaousy?