JKR Wins at Life, Yet Again

[parsimonia]

HAHAHAHA.

I'm sorry, but this has to be the most WTF-iest piece of news I've heard in a while. That just pretty much reaffirms my dislike for the guy. (In the past I would have said you had to admire him for creating and maintaining the Lexicon, but after Prophecy, any respect I may previously have had for him pretty much went out the window, for

Comments

[yenesi]

TEAM JKR! YES!

but after Prophecy, any respect I may previously have had for him pretty much went out the window

LAWZ. A lot of people have said that- er, none that I know of course... I'll sHUT UO.

Hey look at me, serial commenter for today.

[yenesi]

*shut up. I can spell and type. I swear.

[parsimonia]

lol. I am really surprised at the amount of JKR-hate going around recently. I've barely being paying attention to the HP fandom, but even I've noticed it. DD was gay and didn't spell it out for us in the books! JKR wants to write an encyclopedia and give the money to charity! Ooh, so evil!

[yenesi]

I think with the whole DD gay thing, it's 50/50. Right now people are saying that since it's not written and it's canon, that ANYTHING can be canon if it's just implied. It really has opened the floodgates for a lot of theories/speculations that have never been written.

BUT yes! She's sooooooooo evil! OU! Bad JKR! Giving to charity and telling it how it is. If I were her, I would have done the same thing, SUE THE FUCKER (and tell it how it is as well). I have no beef with him, but the anti-SVA sentiment is strong with a lot of people who went to Prophecy. IDK why though (and I'm not asking why either, lol).

[treewishes]

I dunno. Regardless of where the money goes (charity or someone's pocket), and regardless of your opinion of either party, I think the legal facts are pretty clear. Someone added value to some information -- whether by gathering up facts and organizing them, or analyzing them, or just making them pretty -- and wants to publish it. That value added is worth something to someone, and therefore money will likely exchange hands.

Not that I think the facts will weigh in on this decision, mind.

I also personally think that the sales of one will have absolutely no impact on the sales of the other -- there's really enough here to go around. I know I would buy both.

Dang, and I thought I didn't have an opinion....

[parsimonia]

I do think that to some extent there is value in gathering up the facts and reorganizing them, but because so much of it is just taking stuff from the books and putting it on the website/in this potential book (especially in the case of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages, the profits of which also go to charity), I would say that the added value is somewhat negligible, but that definitely is just my opinion.

While the sales may not be affected, the bottom line is that SVA would be profiting off a book the content of which is mostly not his. If it were a book with just content that is original, and not things just lifted from the books, that would be different.

Idunno. Copyright makes my brain hurt.

[treewishes]

It's a real question. I think those who organize feel they add a lot of value. I think there are a lot of ways that they could have organized the Lexicon, and actually some of the things they've done are quite innovative, in terms of how they used search and tagging.

In some ways, this is library science, no? The old business model was librarians were paid to organize things on a local level; but an organization system, on the other hand, was free. Dewey (as far as I know) didn't make a dime off of the Dewey Decimal System.

And then the web comes along, and the patent office rears its ugly head, and all of a sudden, people can patent and profit off of organization schemes. How the Lexicon fits in all of this, I also dunno.

[parsimonia]

I think those who organize feel they add a lot of value.

That's true. And the Lexicon certainly has arguably been a valuable service to people online. However, if the proposed book is literally just a print version of the website...it kind of loses a lot of its value, since you can't search and link the same way you can on the site. So maybe the question is whether or not he was planning on re-organizing it in a way that was fitted to a printed book, but if that Leaky article is to believed, RDR books basically said "go print the website, jerks".

I've seen it suggested here and there that what Vander Ark should have done was approach JKR with the idea of helping her with her encyclopedia. That might have been interesting.

Dewey (as far as I know) didn't make a dime off of the Dewey Decimal System.

Huh. Never thought about that before. It's interesting...it's kind of like early open-source software, isn't it? I suppose a modern example would be the wiki format?

[hedwig_snowy]

How would this ruling effect the profits of Mugglenet's book on their theories for book 7? What about all the other books out there that looked at the series? And, dare I say it, made a profit. What about the fanfic and fan art sites that sell ads and make money that way? What is to prevent WB from sending out fun little letters to everyone that makes a dime off having the words "Harry Potter" in something they sell? I was just going to go into business making Hufflepuff condoms dammit!!! (Made in Canada!) LOL

[parsimonia]

While the Mugglenet book may be of dubious quality, I'm sure, I think it borders far more on opinion/theories. As for all the other sites, fanfic, fanart, news, etc. that make money (beyond off-setting the costs of hosting the sites)...I have no idea. That's part of why this is so interesting. As far as that issue is concerned, I'm not sure I really have a stance or opinion yet. I generally don't like it when the Big Company goes after the Little Fan Website, because it's often a case of pure greed. But then again, perhaps some fansites aren't so Little anymore. Maybe this case will end up getting rid of legal grey area and figuring out what line it's not okay to cross. Whether or not that will be a good thing, or if it will open a big can of worms that makes things bad for everybody, I don't know. But it is interesting.

I think it's silly for him to publish the Lexicon, and that has nothing to do with whether or not I like him personally - which somehow seems to be an issue in the arguement for some reason (not just here but

[hedwig_snowy]

No Wonder Woman!!?!?!??! Grrr! :) *Although, that is like so 1973 dude! ;)

Yes, I know that it doesn't matter whether you like Steve or not in which way you have decided this. That was my point. You pointed out a personal dislike in your original post. Just that I have seen that elsewhere where people are forming their opinion of the case on whether or not they 'like' one claimant more than the other. Who knows, maybe that's how American justice is being decided these days...it's wacky down here....

As for it going to charity, I would like to think that has a lot more to do with JKR (can afford to be charitable eh? :)) than the WB nitwitians.... :)

[author_by_night]

*Sighs, feeling like Dumbledore watching the wizarding world torn apart by Voldemort*""

That's a bit of a melodramatic comparison, to say the very least.

In all honesty, I do think that in some cases copyright "protection" goes too far these days, and WB is the kind of company that would copyright the letter "e" if they could. But I really have to side with them and JKR on this one.

Well said.