Interesting dilemma

[thatwasjen]

Author J.K. Rowling is suing the publisher of an encyclopedia based on her blockbuster "Harry Potter" series of children's books. She says she had planned her own reference guide cataloguing the characters and events in the series

Comments

[animadversio]

Rowling originally thought the HPLexicon site was awesome back in the day, going so far as to tell fans to check it out. She knew then that it was making money off her copyright. That fact will come out in court, for sure, as it was being covered by the press when the lawsuit first hit the news.

On a not-too-related note, Rowling has also said that she finds fanfic based on her work to be flattering and even charming in some cases, unlike authors such as G.R.R Martin who threatens to go out of his way to sue the sh*t outta anyone that uses his any of his characters or copyright properties.

I'm not sure that any precedent is going to be set by Rowling's suit, but two things are apparent to me: she has an ambivalent attitude as to how her copyrights are used without her permission, and since she already has more money than God and couldn't possibly be hurt by the publication of this fan-based lexicon, I find her legal complaints to be somewhat hypocritical.

And given that she herself may have unknowingly/unwittingly poached the name "Harry Potter" from a 1986 B-movie, I can only muse that "Irony, thy name is rich..." :-)

And no, I don't pretend that any of the above is objective... I soured on HP right around Book 5, somewhat because of her inability to control her word count diarrhea and the fact that the story just fizzled out for me, but mostly because of her endorsement of fanfic.

The latter, for me, is unforgiveable. ;-)

[thatwasjen]

Yeah, fanfic makes me break out in hives.

(Sanctioned, licensed "derivative works" are different from fanfic. In this case, I guess the HPLexicon folks should have gotten advance permission from her or her lawyer, but -- oops.)

[dawntreader90]

i dislike reading fanfic, even fanfic that has been sanctioned by the author. i will read spin-off tales or backstory type stories written by the original author and that's as far as i go. to me, the original author is the only person who truly know what the character is feeling and thinking, and where they intended for them to go.

anyone else is only speculating. ... usually badly. *grin*

[starcat_jewel]

There's also a gay-lit book for which the back-cover blurb starts, "In 1957, 17-year-old Harry Potter moves to New York City..."

I was browsing thru a bookstore with a gay friend, and he found it and showed it to me. We both nearly died laughing.

[animadversio]

Awesome. ;)