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EmmaRiddle · 09-08-2008, 05:52 PM

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;

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"had failed to establish an affirmative defense of fair use" and publication of "The Harry Potter Lexicon" should be halted."

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:

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We are obviously pleased with today’s ruling by Judge Patterson supporting the position that the proposed lexicon book infringes on Ms. Rowling’s rights. As a content company, it is imperative that we work vigorously on all fronts to protect the intellectual property rights of those who create the stories and characters, words, pictures and music that entertain and benefit the worldwide audience.

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

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“I took no pleasure at all in bringing legal action and am delighted that this issue has been resolved favourably,” said J.K. Rowling. “I went to court to uphold the right of authors everywhere to protect their own original work. The court has upheld that right.

The proposed book took an enormous amount of my work and added virtually no original commentary of its own. Now the court has ordered that it must not be published.

Many books have been published which offer original insights into the world of Harry Potter. The Lexicon just is not one of them.”

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

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Of the Harry Potter Lexicon, Vander Ark said that although yesterday's judgment appeared to leave "a lot of leeway" for a revised edition, there were no immediate plans to produce one.

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

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"We are encouraged by the fact the Court recognized that as a general matter authors do not have the right to stop the publication of reference guides and companion books about literary works. As for the Lexicon, we are obviously disappointed with the result, and RDR is considering all of its options."

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.

Hermionespell · 09-08-2008, 09:32 PM

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

Ms_Nessa24 · 09-08-2008, 11:32 PM

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

French_December · 09-09-2008, 12:10 AM

Way to go, Jo!

ladycplum · 09-09-2008, 12:23 AM

Kind of sux that the website is down too tho.

Lily Evans · 09-09-2008, 01:15 AM

There was no other way....

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

Zoe · 09-09-2008, 01:41 AM

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

EmmaRiddle · 09-09-2008, 02:03 AM

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Originally Posted by FoxFire

WHOO! ~~suck on it~~

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

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Anyone with information as to what it can mean?

They can appeal the decision.

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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.

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

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Kind of sux that the website is down too tho.

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

RedheadQueen · 09-09-2008, 02:41 AM

Congrats Jo and WB!!

We knew it would/should go this way anywho!

inthelatemaydecember · 09-09-2008, 04:52 AM

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Originally Posted by EmmaRiddle

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

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.

half_blood_prince · 09-09-2008, 05:30 AM

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

expectopatronum 99 · 09-09-2008, 08:50 AM

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.

Serena · 09-09-2008, 11:59 AM

Finally

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

WobblingMolly · 09-09-2008, 01:14 PM

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Originally Posted by Cassirin

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.

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.

Ginevra_P · 09-09-2008, 02:13 PM

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.

FoxFire · 09-09-2008, 02:44 PM

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Originally Posted by EmmaRiddle

They can appeal the decision.

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.