dear JK...

[pyan]

Neither of those work for me either, Teresa - I wonder if someone has cast a Confundus Charm on the case?

The third one doe...but it doesn't sound like the report McMurphy found.

[McMurphy]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

NY judge urges settlement in lawsuit over Harry Potter guide - Yahoo! News

Well, I've got a working link. Is this the right article, McMurphy?

Ugh, no, but it is a good one. I found the one I was looking at in the entertainment section of the yahoo.com news. The article is one of the leading stories.

The interesting thing is that now I don't see it in that section anymore. Conspiracy! *L*

[Teresa Edgerton]

I've been over at Yahoo news typing in every combination I can think of, and there are articles about the case, but none of them with an URL similar to the link you tried to post McMurphy. So, yes, it does seem to have disappeared.

[McMurphy]

It would be interesting to know why they pulled it....an addy that was on their front page a mere twenty minutes prior to my original post.

Maybe it wasn't pulled at all, and the link posting has made this more complicated than need be. The following is what I am trying to post:

Originally Posted by Yahoo News

By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer

Thu Apr 17, 12:45 AM ET



NEW YORK - A three-day trial over an unauthorized Harry Potter encyclopedia ended Wednesday with a flash of anger from J.K. Rowling.

The British author returned to the witness stand and told a judge that if he allows the fan-written lexicon to be published, it will clear the way for countless rip-offs of her books, as well as those by other authors.

"I believe the floodgates will open," Rowling said, her voice rising. "Are we the owners of our own work?"

Rowling was testifying for the second time in the trial, which began Monday at a federal court in Manhattan. A federal judge will decide whether to grant Rowling's request to block publication of "The Harry Potter Lexicon," a guide to the characters, places and spells in her novels. It was written by Steven Vander Ark, a 50-year-old former middle school librarian who compiled the material from a Web site by the same name that he had been operating for years.

RDR Books, the small publisher that persuaded Vander Ark to put the Web site into print, has argued that it is little different than any other novel reference guide and should be allowed to go to press without interference.

On Wednesday, Rowling said she was "vehemently anti-censorship" and generally supportive of the right of other authors to write books about her novels. But she said Vander Ark had "plundered" her prose and merely reprinted it in an A-to-Z format.

U.S. District Judge Robert Patterson Jr. asked Rowling whether she thought anyone would read the lexicon and its list of facts about the wizarding world for "entertainment value."

"Honestly, no," Rowling said. The good parts, she said, have simply been lifted from her own work.
"I think there are funny things in there, and I wrote them," she said.

A decision in the case is not expected soon. It will be weeks before lawyers finish filing legal documents, and possibly longer before a verdict is rendered. Patterson is deciding the case, rather than a jury.

He also heard Wednesday from dueling experts weighing in on the guide's potential worth to obsessive fans and serious academics.

Jeri Johnson, a dean of English at the University of Oxford's Exeter College, praised Rowling's seven novels as a rich topic for academic research and heaped scorn upon Vander Ark for the unscholarly way he tackled the subject.

RDR Books countered with a literature professor from the University of California, Berkeley, who testified that reference guides like Vander Ark's can help readers navigate jargon-packed fantasy novels such as J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings."

Earlier, Vander Ark had described the book as a modest but extensive guide for fans like himself, and not an attempt at serious scholarship. U.S. copyright law allows teachers, academics, journalists and critics to use excerpts of an author's work, but on a limited basis.

The discussion Wednesday seemed to both delight and dismay the judge, who began the day by urging the two sides to settle out of court.

Patterson likened the trial to the story Charles Dickens told in "Bleak House," a novel about the pain caused by endlessly drawn-out lawsuits in the 19th century British judiciary system.

Patterson predicted a similar fate for the Potter case. He said it involved unresolved areas of American law and was almost certain to end in years of appeals.


"I think this case, with imagination, could be settled," Patterson said.

As the day wore on, however, he seemed fascinated by the subject material, interrupting the lawyers at one point to question the experts himself.

In an exchange with Johnson, Patterson said his firsthand experience with the Harry Potter novels was limited: During a visit by his grandchildren, he read them the first half of the first book in the series.

Even in that quick read, he said, he found Rowling's "magical world" hard to follow, filled with strange names and words that would be gibberish in any other context.

"I found it extremely complex," he said, suggesting there is genuine worth in a book like Vander Ark's, even if does nothing more than index the somewhat ridiculous-sounding names of Rowling's characters.

Johnson acknowledged that there might be worth in such a reference guide — if done properly.
She suggested such a resource would be a fine tool to help a serious reader keep track of the hundreds of minor characters who appear in James Joyce's novels.

The lawyers on both sides of the Lexicon case appeared to be resolved to continue the litigation, although they revealed they have settled some sections of the suit that were not central to the copyright infringement claim.

The first two days of the trial featured emotional testimony, first by Rowling, then by Vander Ark, each of whom said the case had caused them great personal distress.

Rowling implores NYC judge to block publication of guide - Yahoo! News

I do think I read it wrong...the opening line threw me off, and I stumbled from that point on. The trial is over, but the legal paper work and the final decision are not, right?

[PS: Thanks for all your effort in finding the right link, Teresa!]

[Hilarious Joke]

Yeah, there is usually in civil cases a bit of time between the end of the trial and the final judgment.

[Teresa Edgerton]

You're welcome. It was an interesting search, because each article had something slightly different to say.

It's not clear to me whether the trial is over, but one of the articles I glanced at said that Rowling would testify again; I'm just not sure when that one was written.

[Urlik]

considering the number of preceeding books, films and TV shows, containing many of the themes behind HP, that Warner hastily bought the rights to after they got the HP franchise, I'm sorry, but I hope she loses this case.
she either blatantly or subconsciously borrowed from a lot of sources that she has never really acknowledged and she isn't hurting for cash (she could easily donate a hefty sum to charity without noticing the loss, so holding the encyclopedia's profits over the judges head could be seen as a play for sympathy, by the cynically minded )

[Teresa Edgerton]

I am absolutely behind her in principle, and the fact that she is richer than many small countries really has nothing to do with defending her rights.

And I have to say, if she did win this one, it could benefit many authors who don't have such deep pockets. Not that I think that she cares about benefits to other authors. That doesn't seem to be her style. But I don't think she will win.

However, when it comes to this part of what you said, Urlik:

she either blatantly or subconsciously borrowed from a lot of sources that she has never really acknowledged

I can't help but think of this:

But her lawyers call the lexicon a “rip-off” that lifts 2,034 of its 2,437 entries straight from her work. “These things have no existence except in my words, so he has taken my creation,” she said.

Because I, too, find her writing very derivative, and I don't know if I believe that there 2,034 original ideas in her books.

I do think that she believes it, though.

[j. d. worthington]

The point, for me, has little or nothing to do with JKR (about whom I care but little, to be honest), but with setting precedent for a point in law; a precedent that, if it goes in favor of a lexicon which does (if the way things are represented here are accurate) basically quote enormous sections of text rather than keeping such quotations to a minimum and relying on original writing (even if it is academic interpretation of a pre-existing text), can have tremendous negative impact on writers everywhere. "Fair use" is a sensible point, when used judiciously. But something like this takes it into an area where a writer -- any writer -- may have their work quoted to a long-unheard-of extent without recourse, as long as such is given just enough icing to justify it as a secondary, interpretive academic volume. And the potential effect of that on writers poses a situation that, as readers, has dire consequences for us all....

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think this judge (as other judges, in similar cases, before him) has made it abundantly clear that he doesn't want to set a precedent, if he can possibly avoid it.

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

I think this judge (as other judges, in similar cases, before him) has made it abundantly clear that he doesn't want to set a precedent, if he can possibly avoid it.

I'd agree with that... but these things have a tendency to happen with a case like this and, want it or not, he may find himself in the position of doing precisely that....

[Urlik]

I can't see the problem with an unofficial encyclopedia
if fans would buy that, they will happily buy an official encyclopedia from the author, even if they already own the unofficial version.

unless JKR has shown manuscripts of her unfinished encyclopedia to someone, how could the unofficial encyclopedia contain that many entries verbatim?
.......unless those passages are quotes from the HP series, in which case, the official encyclopedia won't contain much that is new to HP fans

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Urlik

.......unless those passages are quotes from the HP series, in which case, the official encyclopedia won't contain much that is new to HP fans

From what I'm seeing in the stories on this, that's precisely what it is -- large sections of published works being quoted, but without it being identified as a quotation -- not even being in quotation marks, indented to set it off from main text, nada. Hence, basically reprinting large sections of a writer's work without either paying a fee or even acknowledgment....

[Teresa Edgerton]

But, to be fair, the stories only print what Rowling and her lawyers are saying. We haven't heard the other side -- and we may not until the judge makes his ruling.

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

But, to be fair, the stories only print what Rowling and her lawyers are saying. We haven't heard the other side -- and we may not until the judge makes his ruling.

True, but I'd be willing to wager that, in this case, it's likely to be the reality. It is certainly the sort of thing most such fan-based guides do, as the fan wh originates them is so enamored of the writer's work that they end up quoting them in extenso rather than restating things using their own "filter", as it were. And they never quite realize how that can become plagiarism, especially when such a guide is going to be published. As for publishing such a thing... as I've said before, if you have the writer's permission, that's one thing; but if you're doing this because you so vastly admire a writer, then it seems more than a little contradictory to proceed with such when said writer has asked (or demanded) that you cease and desist.

Also, from my understanding, a fair amount of this (if not the whole) was on the 'net, so it might be helpful if anyone here who has read it there, and knew whether or not such was the case, could put in a word or two on it. As for why this wasn't broached when the thing was online... Frankly, I think it should have been, if she's going to carp about it, as either way it amounts to such plagiarism; but there is this idea that it being in electronic form isn't quite the same, that "all information wants to be free" (which is a very dangerous and foolish thing for a writer to think if they wish to be paid for their work), and that seems to have played into this mess as well....