Harry Potter Lexicon publication halted (UPDATE #3)
 

Today Judge Robert Patterson ruled in favour of Warner Brothers and J.K. Rowling in their copyright infringement case against RDR Books, who were intending to release a Harry Potter Lexicon written by Steve Vander Ark. He said that the defence;

Thanks to Blog Hogwarts for the tip!

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UPDATE: Warner Bros has sent us the following statement in response to the judge's decision:

J.K. Rowling also released a statement in regards to the ruling:

UPDATE #2: The Guardian has a brief comment from Steve Vander Ark on the outcome of the case;

UPDATE #3: A statement from RDR Books is now online, which reads;

The full transcript from the outcome can be found here; it notes that the publisher has to pay $750 per book that was infringed, bringing the owed figure to a total of $6,750.

Not a big suprise. It couldn't go any other way, really. And no offence to Vander Ark, but I would rather have Jo's compendium of Potter, than any one else's.

That's great! (:

I think this is good news! What is the point of trying to sell the Lexicon, anyway, when it is on the Internet for free? This is nothing but copyright infringement.

good good i'm pleased with that

Amazing news! He never would have won!


Go Jo!!!:woot:

A forgone conclusion ... and a waste of money.

Thats fantastic news it really is. Jo and every other authors work should be protected. i really do hope the Vanderark leaves Jo and her work alone now and dosent appeal the decision.

Clearly it would end this way.

I would rather get it from JK as well I mean no one knows the HP universe like she does and I am sure she could do it better.

That is good news. :)

Yay, go Jo:)

Good thing they stopped it.

Go Jo! Knew this would happen anyway. =D Result!

thats good. its just wasnt right to do.

WHOO! suck on it

..."Halted" is kind of a temporary-sounding word. Does it mean "never ever" in this instance?

oh yes thank goodness !
I would have been utterly horrified if the judge didnt rule for JK/WB, i was also getting worried as i thought it was pretty obvious how it should go. But then again im no judge and have no clue about the work behind it all.

Congratulations Jo! :D

Agreeing with FoxFire, its a scary word ''halted'' it doesnt sound like it is confirmed like a ''never'', i guess its untill the judgement is lifted or something.
Anyone with information as to what it can mean?

I'm so happy for J.K. Rowling, I know she's happy about it, and so am I. It was obvious that she would win

About time this ended, hm? Too bad for the Lexicon, they must be feeling pretty bad right now, but I agree that it was wrong to print Jo's work and claim it your own only for re-organizing it

I agree, this guy was a bit of a nutter. I just cross my fingers that Jo does publish this in the future.

There were a lot of larger copyright issues at work and we'll have to see how things play out. There are already authors out there who won't let people use their work for FF... so while I understand where Rowling is coming from, I'm curious about how other authors might use this standard to limit fair use of their work. Especially in sites like SS.

Ok good...I'd rather have one from JK anyway.

Well Good! The system works...sometimes. :)

I'm glad that the ruling was in favor of JKR.

Its Good To Know we Have the Judicial System On Our Side! I Completely and 100% Agree tot his verdict!

Way to go, Jo! :band:

Kind of sux that the website is down too tho.

There was no other way....

....great news....hahaha sorry that you waste your money!! ;)

That's why you should never mess with Jo's work. She will win seeming it is all hers.

They can appeal the decision.

That should be a non-issue, because it's non-profit. Most good-natured writers realise that.

That's down to the maintainers. The lawsuit didn't involve the website.

:woot: Congrats Jo and WB!! :woot: We knew it would/should go this way anywho!

I'm so grateful with JKR for being one of those authors who is able to be positive towards fanfiction. That she considers it evidence of how much people love her world, and how much her creativity inspires that of others, is just amazing. That's the way it should be, IMO. I know I have nothing but respect for the writers who's creations I fic for.

thats good, because i don't believe that they should have did it in the first place.

Great result for JKR & WB - it's amazing that SVA (despite trying to keep himself at arms length through RDR) thought he could get away with it!

JKR & WB are incredibly tolerant of not for profit FF and other work based or influenced by HP, which is one of the many reasons the HP fandom exists. All we have to do is be considerate and respect JKR's & WB's rights or we could loose a lot of the freedoms we now enjoy.

Finally :D Well there couldn't be other possible outcome
Good for Jo

Well, the ruling was pretty simple. It came down to whether or not the Lexicon was considered fair use, or more specifically, transformative. The judge ruled it was not transformative. Why? It wasn't because he rearranged Jo's work in an A-Z order. That problem was he used direct quotations from the books for his character, spells, and creature descriptions. He stole Jo's "descriptive" and "creative language" for a huge portion of his book. The guide would also hurt the sale of Jo's companion books, because they had nearly been copied "wholesale."

So this ruling does not set any new standards for reference works and companion guides for fiction or non-fiction. As long as an author uses their own words to describe their entries, that it should be transformative.

As for the websites, the lexicon website was never mentioned in the ruling. It had no effect on the decision, so implied license was never part of the judge's decision. This is good news for fansites. However, to be honest, fansites are deriviative works, so technically we could have been shut down years ago. However, WB already went through all of that and realized it was a dangerous route to take PR wise. I think they will pick their battles. As for other authors and copyright holders, they still can shut down sites if they want to. They've always had that right.

Jo did the right thing.


I hope they don't plan on doing any "revised edition" as they are saying, because no Potter fan would want that. I would rather have Jo's Encyclopedia.

Ohhh. Watch them try, too <_< Since this whole thing began, they've copyrighted the text on the Lex, so you can't copy anything. This would be valid for the essays, but everything on the site? Not so much.

^ Or they could produce a revised edition with less paraphrasing of the books.

I think it's a good decision.

it's good everything went smoothly

Thats good! Id prefer one from Jo anyway.