dear JK...

[Hilarious Joke]

The restrictions on plagiarism in Australia are really strict - as shown by universities (expulsion from the course and it goes on one's transcript). Why doesn't this encyclopedia infringe copyright? Is it something to do with the exception for scholarly purposes? But surely it should always be referenced appropriately?

[Teresa Edgerton]

We won't know if it does or doesn't infringe copyright (from a legal standpoint that is) until the judge makes his ruling, HJ.

As I said when we first started discussing this case, I've never understood why some of these unauthorized guides and encyclopedias get away with as much as they do, but they do get away with it, presumably by sheltering under some general fair-use umbrella along with more scholarly and critical works. And whether the particular work in question has stepped so far over the line that it's lost its place under that umbrella, we have only the word of Rowling and her lawyers -- who seem to be as interested in trying the case in the court of public opinion as they are in a court of law. The actual outcome of the case will give us a better idea of the real facts of the matter. (Which may be exactly as she says.)

But JD, you do make a good point about the online version. Why didn't Rowling protest before? Did it only become a problem when she began to contemplate her own encyclopedia to the world of Harry Potter -- or did she not even know that it was there?

[pyan]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

Why didn't Rowling protest before? Did it only become a problem when she began to contemplate her own encyclopedia to the world of Harry Potter -- or did she not even know that it was there?

Would it be cynical to suggest that whereas it was free online, the idea of someone selling copies of an actual book using her characters was the trigger?

[Teresa Edgerton]

I don't think it would cynical. Most authors, I think, who had let something slide as long as it was just a fan thing would sit up and take notice if someone started making money off of it.

It just sounds cynical because she's so rich. Still, she has the same right to feel protective of her work that the rest of us do.

[Hilarious Joke]

Imagine though the massive quantity of fan-made sites that would copy large segments of her book though. It would be a costly process to sue them all for copyright. It's funny though how many things that are wrong in real life are okay on the internet.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'd have to disagree with that. Just because people get away with more on the internet doesn't make some of those things "okay."

But when there are so many fan sites for one author, I think your point about it being too costly to sue all of them for copyright is a good one. It would also be difficult to police the whole internet.

If I want to see what people are doing with my work and my name, I only have to sift through a few hundred pages on Google or some other search engine before I entirely run out of references to me and it's all about other Teresas or Edgertons or books with similar titles to mine. J. K. Rowling would undoubtedly have to look through hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pages.

[Hilarious Joke]

You're right of course, I guess I meant 'okay' in the sense that if you don't get caught and if it's widely acknowledged as one of the facts of the net, it's 'okay'. But I agree with you, that doesn't make it fair or 'okay' by moral standards.

[Iqeret]

If I remember correctly, it was stated at the beginning of this mess that JKR was aware and fully supportive of the online HPlexicon, which is a pretty good-sized mass of collated information. It was only when things were going into print that she started having fits, which makes me wonder how different the print version is from what's available online. I can understand being protective of your literary 'children'-I get that way myself-but what triggered the change in attitude?

[Hilarious Joke]

Perhaps that she was planning to release the print version of the encyclopedia, and was beaten to the punch, so to speak?

[Urlik]

I still can't see the problem
if a fan would buy an unofficial lexicon, surely they would also buy the official one at twice the price, even if they already had the unofficial version, just to complete the set.

[Shamu]

I think a lot of people get side-tracked by the fact that she's made millions out of the books. To generalise most horribly, the nay-sayers seem to feel that because she's made her money out of the books, she's not allowed to have a say about her books and her property. Damn right, she's allowed to given it's her original work(be it your cup of tea, or otherwise) on a genre that's never been exclusively anyone's. That is the salient point in all of this.

I'm generally venting right now rather than pinpointing anyone's views on here, specifically.

I think it's a shame that it had to be sorted out like this given how she's been an admirer of the the FREE site and all. But making money out of another person's intellectual property, without original writing or critique (which is what the problem was) doesn't deserve to be on the winning side. I think that would be the horrible precedent.

Oh I got sidetracked. As for the Original Post, I really wanted to read her book of alternative fairy tales as well!

[Urlik]

Originally Posted by Shamu

she's not allowed to have a say about her books and her property. Damn right, she's allowed to given it's her original work(be it your cup of tea, or otherwise) on a genre that's never been exclusively anyone's. That is the salient point in all of this.

very true.

have a read of this and follow a few links there for some interesting facts and thoughts on how the ideas for Harry Potter " magically popped into JKR's head"

[Teresa Edgerton]

That article is pretty incoherent, and I don't know how much of it is just rampant speculation. I'm guessing that most of it is.

However, it's very easy to trace some of the influences in the Harry Potter books -- or at least to come up with some amazing coincidences -- and the fact that Rowling doesn't even want to think about where she might have consciously or unconsciously picked up some of her ideas strikes me as very strange.

[Urlik]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

That article is pretty incoherent, and I don't know how much of it is just rampant speculation. I'm guessing that most of it is.

However, it's very easy to trace some of the influences in the Harry Potter books -- or at least to come up with some amazing coincidences -- and the fact that Rowling doesn't even want to think about where she might have consciously or unconsciously picked up some of her ideas strikes me as very strange.

it isn't well written, but certain facts can be found there.

the similarities with The Worst Witch are pretty damning and can be verified elsewhere.

Many people have noticed similarities between Timothy Hunter — a bespectacled English teenager with family troubles who has a magical owl as a pet — and the later and more famous Harry Potter.

Harry Potter was a dark haired, ordinary boy that discovered magic and battled a troll.
sound familiar? that is a description of the 1986 film Troll

[Teresa Edgerton]

But a lot of those similarities are just clichéd thinking about magic, witches, school children etc. And as far as all of those elements they are putting up for comparison are concerned, you could find those in combination in dozens of children's books. It only looks like she is directly copying someone when you put her books up side by side with one other author.