JKR vs. RDR: decision's in: Rowling wins

[dianeduane]

Finally…

After four months of deliberating, Judge Robert Patterson has ruled that the H.P. Lexicon infringes J.K. Rowling’s copyright in the Harry Potter series.

The decision proper is here (.PDF file).

Briefly: yay.

 

 

Tags: J.+K., JK, J.K., Rowling, RDR, Books, Judge, Robert+Patterson, Harry+Potter, Lexicon

Comments

[westmoon.livejournal.com]

\o/

[vg-ford.livejournal.com]

Definitely yay.

[tualha.livejournal.com]

Seems odd that they sued over the book but not the website. Wouldn't it be equally infringing?

[heliona.livejournal.com]

I think the idea was that the website wasn't earning a profit, whereas the book would be.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

If the website wasn't earning a profit, they were doing it wrong.

[vg-ford.livejournal.com]

AFAIK, the website is free, and can be used by anyone. The problem was that they were going to put it in book form and sell it. That's where the true infringement comes in - they were going to profit from her world and her work.

[tualha.livejournal.com]

So if I post the entire text of a copyrighted book on the web, but don't make any money from it, that's legal? No. It's not legal. It's copyright infringement.

I can see how Rowling & Co. might get annoyed enough to sue over a for-profit book when they weren't annoyed enough over a free website, but it seems to me it's infringement either way. Not that I'm a lawyer...

[uozaki.livejournal.com]

Except they'd be doing it wrong if they WERE earning a profit - I thought that was half the point of this ruling?

[heliona.livejournal.com]

I think it made some, but the main idea was just to be a place on the internet where there was a resource full of HP information. I think there may have been a donation system to keep the site running. Whereas the encyclopaedia was out to make a profit, first and foremost.

[peterchayward.livejournal.com]

The law isn't supposed to care. Copyright infringement is meant to be separate from profits made.

[heliona.livejournal.com]

The law doesn't care, but JK Rowling did, and since she's the one who brought the lawsuit in the first place, it matters.

This BBC article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7605142.stm) explains it pretty well (and is shorter than the legal paper!).

[barberio.livejournal.com]

Print Books, when on the scale of Harry Potter publicity and consumer demand, still make a much higher order of money more than websites do.

It does look like the minimum damages were awarded for the cases of infringement. It's still not a small figure, but it's indicative that this was a relative 'Warning off' ruling to lay out the boundaries of fair use, and an erasure of any profit that may have been made on the abuse.

[dameruth.livejournal.com]

As others've said, the website was free, which is one difference . . . and I understand the "Lexicon" consisted mostly of direct quotes from the books, whereas the website had more in the way of original fan-generated material (reviews, essays, etc.).

[tualha.livejournal.com]

Ah, well, if the website didn't have such extensive quoting from the books, that would explain it.

Off topic

[naraht.livejournal.com]

Icon love!

[danceswithlife]

Icon love of the cat and the full moon. May I steal? and if so, who should I credit?

[vg-ford.livejournal.com]

Sure!

Credit goes to vblackangelv

[dameruth.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, coming from a family of semi-pro creative types, I'm very happy to see an artist's rights supported . . . but as an enthusisastic fanfic author, I hope this won't open things up to harder prosecution of some of the "gray areas" of fandom (like, of course, fanfic).

[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

I was rather concerned about the decision, but on reading it am a bit less so. In a nutshell, the finding appears to be that it would have qualified as fair use, except that it quoted far too much of Rowling's original text verbatim (and sometimes forgot to cite or quotate the bits it used).

Comes down to the amateur/fannish nature of the original project, I suppose. If they'd been more careful about how much they quoted, they would have been able to squeak by.

[dameruth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, now that I've read more, the decision seems really fair. I liked how the judge was clear about it being *this specific instance* that was a problem, not legit works of literary discussion and such.

[peterchayward.livejournal.com]

Fanfic isn't a grey area, it's most definitely copyright infringement. The reason it still exists is that nobody except Anne Rice really cares about it.

[dameruth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, point taken, I didn't phrase it all that well -- the "grey area" isn't so much whether fanfic infringes copyright, but rather whether or not creators see fanfic as something that must/should be prosecuted.

One worry I was hearing around is that the more legal challenges there are like this one, the more original authors who might otherwise be willing to "live and let live" on the whole fanfic issue could feel forced into seeking out and prosecuting derivative works, fan websites, etc. to firm up their claims of legal ownership.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Briefly: yay.
Quite. The lobby that believed that Ms Rowling was out-of-line for defending her copyright really do not get it.

[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

Well, if you read the decision, you will note that the court specifically said Rowling didn't have the right to prevent publications of Harry Potter lexicons in general. The main reason they found for her in this specific case were that this lexicon quoted and paraphrased far too much (sometimes without quotation marks or citations).

A lexicon that avoids those pitfalls will be perfectly legal.

I've written a summary of the matter (http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/09/08/harry-potter-lexicon/) for an e-book blog where I write, going into more detail.

[giza.livejournal.com]

Thanks for clarifying that.

My first thought when I read the initial post (and news coverage) was, "What? What do you mean they can't write about Harry Potter!"

But quoting text without paraphrasing or attributions? That's just dumb. I learned not to do that in high school. :-P

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Presumabl, then, RDR could just bung in some essays, critiques, other original work to change the overall 'balance'? Improve the original:Rowling ratio?

If they did change the book, are they still bound by the court injunction?

[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

I'm not a lawyer so I wouldn't know, but I expect they could try. Worst that could happen is they end up right back in court again where they could try to defend themselves by saying it's a substantially different work now.

[khym-chanur.livejournal.com]

If he removed all the direct quotes of the two non-novel HP books JKR wrote (Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) then the judge might have found in favor of him rather than JKR. But (so I'm told) that would make SVA's book-form lexicon much smaller.

[stokerbramwell.livejournal.com]

I was glad to hear the news too. Victory!

Off-topic

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Diane, did you see Lois McMaster Bujold commenting on Heinlein's fanmail form letter? :-)

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=164952151&blogID=431546219

(deleted and reposted as a response to the post, not someone else's comment)