Monday, February 11, 2008
A Tight Grip Can Choke Creativity
New York Times: "On Friday, a lawyer named Anthony Falzone filed his side’s first big brief in the case of Warner Bros. Entertainment and J. K. Rowling v. RDR Books. Mr. Falzone is employed by Stanford Law School, where he heads up the Fair Use Project, which was founded several years ago by Lawrence Lessig, perhaps the law school’s best-known professor. Mr. Falzone and the other lawyers at the Fair Use Project are siding with the defendant, RDR Books, a small book publisher based in Muskegon, Mich. As you can see from the titans who have brought the suit, RDR Books needs all the legal firepower it can muster."
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3 comments:
I whole heartedly agree with the writer of this article. How is publishing the Lexicon (as long as it cites Rowling and the Harry Potter books as a source) any different than writing a paper on the Harry Potter books. Yes, it is being sold, but that shouldn't make a difference. The last line of the article really sums it up. One is allowed to take examples of other peoples work to create new ideas. That is how art works. Rowling just needs to suck it up and be content with her millions of dollars.
The fact is that Rowling is just upset that someone has taken her books and publshing things that reference back to it. Its not like they are taking the characters and not even give credit to the author. Its obvious where these characters come from. They are just explaining and expanding on the world she created. And if we can't even do that then I hate to think what else can not be done.
I understand what the article is claiming. Big Bad JKR is attacking the little man who's just trying to publish something about something he loves. But I feel like this article is fantastically biased. If it wasn't JK. Rowling... if it was some other writer who's original characters and stories were being made into a encyclopedia, then the article wouldn't have been spun like this. It's really an issue of fair use and intellectual property. There are alot of books out there about Harry Potter. There are alot of books out there about why Harry Potter is bad. I do think this suit is going a little too far. Anyone who is going to buy her encyclopedia in the first place is going to buy it no matter what kind of book comes out before then... It's all a little much, but I don't really think it's very good journalism when you won't even let the reader decide for themselves on an issue.
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