So what are people's takes on Rowling suing the creator of the Harry Potter Lexicon for wanting to create a book based on his website?

[link] for those who might not be familiar.

I'm coming down with Rowling on this. She may admire the website, but a website is a different beast than creating and selling a book based on her work.

I really think she's in the wrong, actually. This guy made 6K in 7 years with his website (which she has previously admired, and which was used to check accuracy for the films) and when he wants to put the website info into a book she sues him? First, she's insane if she thinks there's a fan alive who will buy his book and not buy hers. Secondly, he's basically compiling information (hers and other sources) which to me, seems like he's writing a reference book about her books. I've seen similar things for Tolkien and other stuff.

Reference works are fair use of the material, much the same as the various guides to Middle Earth are. I don't think she has a leg to stand on.

Or what Maysa said.

I think SVA is a fuckcake, and I hope he and RDR get smited.

Or what Maysa said.

Heh. I tend to get riled up about this issue - but he could be fuckcake (I don't know anything about him beyond what I read in the paper).

I think he's a fuckcake, and right on this issue. Unfortunately not mutually exclusive. Rowling winning on this will be a further narrowing of fair use - not good in my opinion. [on edit cutting out the rest because I think the post is clearer without]

I don't think it's so much about the money as about who controls what's published with her words. I didn't see anywhere that he got permission.

Short version (moral, not legal argument): the purpose of copyright is not to give a writer absolute control over work. It is to provide the incentive to ensure creative work will be done. A derivative work of this type does not take incentive away to produce original work - at least not significantly. If Rowling had known in advance that someone could publish a lexicon like this it is really unlikely that would have prevented her from writing the series. Further it is generally unlikely the ability to do this would prevent people in general from doing creative work.

To the extent creative people are granted rights past the point needed to compensate them for their work the work of future creative people is being restricted.

Another strike against excessive copyright. Information, unlike other human creations, can be consumed without being diminished. The number of other people who read Ursula LeGuin does not affect my ability to read the dispossessed. Again, a reason why copyright should restrict use only to the point where that use is likely to cost the author money; use beyond that point should be considered fair use. Even that restriction should last a fairly limited time.

I find it hard to cheer for SVA/RDR in part because they've operated in bad faith from the very beginning. Jackass is too kind a term for either of them.

Also because one of their arguments is that JKR waived the right to prevent the publication of the Lexicon by approving of the website. If they win on that argument, they've likely doomed a lot of other online fan activity, because copyright holders will shut sites down rather than be held to have waived any right to limit derivative uses later. (They do not however have a strong case there, but the fact that they made the argument at all shows how little they value other fans' interests in the matter.)

IANAIPL, but there's no independent analysis in the Lexicon, and most of it is apparently poorly-rephrased restatements lifted right from the original novels. It's not plagiarism, but I think it would be a stretch to call it transformative, unless transformation means "alphabetizing". I'll be interested to see what the court decides.

Short version (moral, not legal argument): the purpose of copyright is not to give a writer absolute control over work. It is to provide the incentive to ensure creative work will be done.

Not really sure if or how much this relates, but JKR did say on the stand that the success of the Lexicon would diminish her incentive to finish her own proposed Harry Potter Encyclopedia. So that may act as a refutation of the position that JKR's copyright argument doesn't apply (in the moral sense).

I'm not familiar with the full extent of copyright law, but it seems from where I sit that the copyright should also give JKR a certain amount of say as to what ancillary materials relating to her work are created, by whom and how well. The Tolkien Estate is reputedly very hardcore about people publishing Hobbit/LOtR materials without approval by them, and I seem to recall that the bulk of Tolkienana not written by The Professor Hisself was/is written by Christopher Tolkien, thus approved by the Tolkien Estate.