CMU School of Drama


Monday, September 08, 2008

Judge halts unofficial Harry Potter lexicon

: "A U.S. judge on Monday halted publication of an unofficial encyclopedic companion to the popular Harry Potter book series in a copyright case author J.K. Rowling argued would threaten other authors."

5 comments:

Laura Oliver said...

The one good thing is that this wasn't a multi million dollar settlement. JK Rowling disappoints me because she can't just sit back and enjoy the fact that millions of people love her series and accept that its almost over. She is lucky she did not pass into relative obscurity and is making a fool of herself. She is suing because she is looking for more attention and money, and I am sure she'll come out with her own Harry Potter dictionary soon.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes copyright seems ridiculous... In this case I think I have to side with JK Rowling because someone else is making profit off of her intellectual property without permission. Sure, it's a fan and I'm sure she's flattered in some way that someone would devote that kind of time to something she has created though still at the end of the day it's her property and her permission was not granted. I'm glad this wasn't a huge settlement because really I think that goes to show that she wasn't in it for the money. Overall, from what I've seen over the years, JK Rowling has been rightfully protective of her work and very careful about how her creations are being depicted and circulated.

Anonymous said...

I honestly don't understand why J.K. Rowling is so angry about all of this. Unless her publisher is getting angry she really shouldn't get mad. It's not like this small company releasing this book is going to make millions of dollars like she did. She should accept the fact that Harry Potter is a huge commercial success and that obviously other people are going to write and talk about it.

Anonymous said...

This is getting kinda crazy. I can see not putting the Harry Potter name on the books and making sure to differentiate that Rowling did not write the companions. What it's turning into is a major monopoly, sure it may be on an intellectual work, but there is still a market.

Anonymous said...

I agree with nioami entirely. It's nice that it wasn't about the money and that it was just about the use of her intellectual property. I know that if i was an artist and someone was looking to make a buck off my work, they better well make sure that there is something in it for me as the originator. Sure they did their homework and created the lexicon but that doesn't give anyone the excuse not to ask permission of the originator who might be extremely interested in what is about to published about the project.