Many interesting links related to all things publishing. First, NEW RULE: Don’t write fiction and call it a memoir. For further explanation as to why this is Bad Idea Jeans, consult James Frey. In the age of the internet, you can’t get away with it.
Second, giving the book away for free for a few days hasn’t hurt sales after the giveaway ended. According to the Publisher’s Weekly top lists this week, Suze Orman’s book Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny is the #2 bestseller in the nonfiction/general category.
And lastly: a lawsuit that may define the limits of what fans can do with a written work under copyright: J.K. Rowling is suing the owner of the Harry Potter Lexicon because he intends to publish his work as a book encyclopedia of the Potter series.
a fan-created collection of essays and encyclopedic material on the Potter universe, including lists of spells and potions found in the books, a catalog of magical creatures and a who’s who in the wizarding world.
Rowling said she was especially irked that the site’s owner and the lexicon’s would-be publisher, RDR Books, continued to insist that her acceptance of free, fan-based Web sites justified the efforts.
“I am deeply troubled by the portrayal of my efforts to protect and preserve the copyrights I have been granted in the Harry Potter books,” she wrote in court papers filed Wednesday in a lawsuit she brought against the small Muskegon, Mich., publisher.
She said she intends to publish her own definitive Harry Potter encyclopedia.
I’m cynical enough to suspect that the last statement may be driving her suit more than the defense of her copyright, since she has often cited the HP Lexicon as a fan site she has enjoyed in the past. Aside from the mention in that AP article, I know I’ve read interviews wherein she’s mentioned it favorably (though of course I’m having trouble finding them now for linkage purposes).
Rowling acknowledges that her suit could change the landscape of how fans interact with authors and with their written work:
“If RDR’s position is accepted, it will undoubtedly have a significant, negative impact on the freedoms enjoyed by genuine fans on the Internet,” she said. “Authors everywhere will be forced to protect their creations much more rigorously, which could mean denying well-meaning fans permission to pursue legitimate creative activities.”
Interesting, her choice to define the Lexicon publication as not a legitimate creative activity, when I can think of several compendiums and encyclopedias that have been published to accompany the study of works under copyright. I do see the grey area in that the Vander Ark’s Lexicon does include material from her books, such as recipes and the like, but I am very curious to see the outcome of this suit. Considering the increasing popularity of fanfic, fan sites, and fan communities that aren’t always in the control of the original distributor of the content being lauded, Rowling’s suit could have far-reaching implications.
It’s unlikely to have any ‘far-reaching’ implications whatsoever with respect to fan matters, since Vander Ark’s book is being published for profit. Most fan efforts are borderline fair use in the US (and are firmly fair use in Commonwealth countries) because they are not for profit and non-commercial.
Although people who despise fan fiction and other fan matters will have a field day claiming that it will, I’m sure.
Rowling has said- often- that if and when she publishes her encyclopedia, it will be for charity. The galling thing about Van Der Ark is he first asked for a job working on JKR’s encyclopedia and was turned down. He also asked if he could write one and was told no. He did it anyway- and he’s using information that others compiled for the site, but they’re not profiting and plans to use a quote from JKR regarding his site to imply that she authorized the encyclopedia. JKR is a supporter of fanfiction- although she’s admitted being scared of some of it- and I don’t think that will change.
Part of the problem is also that Van Der Ark is not publishing many (or any) of the essays available on the site. The vast majority of those essays were written by other fans, none of whom have reported him even asking them if he can republish their essays in his book.
Essentially, he’s publishing the encyclopedia portions of his site, which is a much uglier legal area than publishing critical commentary (such as essays) would be. Publishing it as entirely information collected from her books is bad ju-ju.
Fandom_Wank has collected a lot of information on the subject as part of their wank reporting. It’s an interesting read, though you need to start at the bottom if you want to start in chronological order.
What I wonder about are other such ‘guides’ to tv shows and other series books (Like the Chronicles of Narnia) which have similar books written about them. Why haven’t the same authors/creators balked at these?
I think Ms. Rowling is being oddly grabby-grabby. She has made BUCKETS of money off of her series. Why would she care if some small publisher somewhere writes a lexicon for fans of her books? Why is that such a big deal? Even if she is planning on writing her own similar type book…would it really impact her sales at all? I seriously doubt it.
This reminds me of her odd comments not too long ago about Dumbledore being gay. Why did she have to say that? I *never* suspected that while reading and didn’t really care about sexual orientations in a children’s book. But Ms. Rowling proved that she likes to be in the spotlight and continue to draw attention to her books….when she really doesn’t need to.
Those books will sell well for a good long time.
I just find it sad and odd, really.
The issue is more about the fact that, when the Lexicon was being given away for free on the internet, she could let it pass, but when he was trying to make money from her copyrighted material without adding anything to it (something like 2040 entries out of about 2600, something like that, are copied verbatim from her books.)
I’m a long-time member of fandom, and I love fandom and want to see it recognised as a legitimate transformative community – but even I say that this is plagiarism and commercialism on the part of RDR and Steve Van Der Ark. JKR has every right to protect her material.
Ah, I was not aware of the details. Thanks.
Personally, I think JKR has every right to sue. She’s always supported the fans, and HP Lexicon. But this seems like people are trying to take advantage of her. I’m not saying that either side has behaved perfectly, but the sheer amount of entitlement from the HP Lexicon people pisses me off.
I have nothing against fans showing their support through fanfic/art/whatever. (Especially fanfic. :p Sorry authors.) But that’s because most of the time, the fans are doing it because they love their book/tv show/movie, and not to turn a profit. IMO, Van Der Ark, jumped a line here.
And as to Dumbledore: I think JKR was asked about his background during a Q&A session and why he didn’t have a love interest in the books, and JKR answered that in her mind he was gay. I don’t really see a problem with that. It’s her world, so she obviously she creates the canon.
BTW, I’m actually not that big of a fan of the HP series. I’m probably like the only person left who still hasn’t read the last book yet. *runs and hides in shame* But this kerfuffle caught my attention when I saw it on fandom_wank.
I’m a long-time member of fandom, and I love fandom and want to see it recognised as a legitimate transformative community – but even I say that this is plagiarism and commercialism on the part of RDR and Steve Van Der Ark. JKR has every right to protect her material.
Hear hear!
No one loves (good) HP fanfic more than I do, but there’s a line, and this crosses it.
In response to Charlene’s comment, my understanding is that most fanworks, including fanfiction and vids are, in fact, copyright infringement. There’s no provision in US or Canadian copyright law that I’m aware of that permits use of copyrighted materials in not-for-profit settings. The NFP tag is one of the ways that fanfic and other fanworks skirt the bounds of legality mostly by saying to copyright holders “look, we aren’t making money so there’s no point in suing us” – but that hasn’t stopped copyright holders from issuing C&D letters and making other legal threats against fansites in the past, nor will it in the future.
That is why I believe Ms. Rowling is correct that if RDR does win this case, the end result will be far more rigorous enforcement of copyright on fan activities, particularly online as the basis of RDR’s claim seems to be that no one objected to the existence of the website, so they have a right to publish a book version.
“She has made BUCKETS of money off of her series. Why would she care if some small publisher somewhere writes a lexicon for fans of her books?”
How much money she’s made is irrelevant. Who determines the line between “Hasn’t made enough money, therefore has moral right to care” and “Has more money than God. Should quit complaining and go buy a small country”?
I have seen a lot of emoting about this case but a lot of seems to be based on a certain amount of obfuscation of the issues. The fact that a lot of people whose opinions I respect are lining up behind RDR books makes this a case I will be following with great interest.
I have never read any of the Harry Potter books and I have never visited the web site and I have never seen a Harry Potter movie or an interview with Rowling so I have no dog in this hunt.
This topic makes me want to rant, but instead I’ll just offer links to a couple of discussions of the other side of the argument:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/business/09nocera.html
http://www.slate.com/id/2181776
Several faculty from Stanford’s Fair Use Project have agreed to represent the defense:
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/anthony-falzone
My {sarcasm alert} favorite {/sarcasm alert} Rowling lawsuit was the one she filed against an Indian festival for their decision to build a life-sized model of Hogwarts: http://www.sajaforum.org/2007/10/religion-jk-row.html
Ah, good times.
Also, here’s a link to the brief filed on behalf of RDR as well as Rowling’s:
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/5679
Read all of the legal fillings, handily available at Justia, first.
http://news.justia.com/cases/featured/new-york/nysdce/1:2007cv09667/315790/
While we’re at it NYTimes have got it wrong:
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2008/02/09/nyt-fouls-up-fair-use/
Actually, the implications will be farther reaching in the unlikely event RDR win. I don’t know any intellectual property holder would wouldn’t move to preempt fan activity (much of which falls into the infringing category, but it largely ignored by most authors out of good will alone) in order to protect their copyrights. I think people forget that this case is about RDR’s willingness to flout copyright law while making a quick dollar after someone else (JKR) has done all the heavy lifting, and not JKR’s purported greed.
Commercialism is just one aspect that the court will look at in determining whether it is “fair use.” In fact, the courts have said in the past that to rule out everything that has a commercial aspect as “fair use” would defang the provision.
I understand that there are fears that a ruling in favor of RDR would tighten the restrictions that authors put on the use of their work on the internet, but I think that a favorable ruling for RDR is a win for fan fiction writers.
Also, there is no law that definitely says fan fiction is violative of the copyright infringement. Every case that discusses fair use starts off with the policy that each fair use case must be decided on the facts unique to that case because each case requires a weighing of balance.
Courts are largely in favor (depending on the jurisdiction) of furthering educational examination of work and the more scholarly a work is, the more likely it is fair use. Although that is, again, just one factor in weighing fair use.
The deal with the book form of the Lexicon is that it’s being published without any critical content. Simply listing and describing things, often by quoting or paraphrasing JKR’s words (which everyone here will remember from the Cassie Edwards scandal is still plagiarism), is not creative or critical.
The book version of Lexicon offers no citations for the HP books, as far as I recall. This week’s filings by WB et al. also indicated that on the rare occasion that Vander Ark offered some sort of outside information, those sources (like etymology dictionaries) weren’t cited either, and frequently his analysis was just plain wrong.
I have Paul Ford’s Companion to Narnia somewhere around here. It’s a wonderful work of analysis – also arranged in an encyclopedia format, but offering so much more. Ford delves into etymology and mythology and theology and a whole lot of other -ologies in analyzing the books, bringing a considerable amount of scholarship to the table. (His entry on Aslan, for example, is not a summary of the series, as Vander Ark’s entry on Harry Potter summarizes the series.) That’s what makes a work transformative rather than derivative. The Lexicon collates and alphabetizes. Alphabetizing, as this week’s filings stated, is not transformative.
Did SVA work hard on the Lexicon? Sure, I suppose, though I would note that it’s been stated that 40% of the material on the website, which would include a good bit in the book version, was collected/written by people other than SVA. But his working hard on it, or even doing something that’s good for the fans, doesn’t give him the right to publish it when the copyright holder tells him no. If you read some of his online statements that have been presented as evidence, he knew that all along.
And if you read the rest of his emails and online/convention statements, you get a picture of a guy who, as my grandma would say, got too big for his britches.
Meanwhile, RDR Books has acted in extraordinarily bad faith through all this process. A lot of this could have been avoided if they’d just cooperated early on instead of sticking their fingers in their ears.
If you haven’t read the filings, I suggest you do so if you have the time. They can be found here.
Drat, messed up my HTML tags. Sorry.
Let’s see if I can end the italics. 🙂
Thanks, lilywhite. That’ll teach me to use HTML while ranting. 😉
Dana,
I’m probably like the only person left who still hasn’t read the last book yet.
Not the only one, I haven’t read Deathly Hallows either, and had to be dragged into reading books 1-6 pretty much flailing. 😉
I’ve been following the Lexicon case very closely from the beginning, and I am firmly on JKR’s side, in large part b/c Vanderark & Co. have refused to be cooperative, and have never made a single statement that is consistent with what they’ve claimed in other places. I second the recommendation of the individual who mentioned Fandom Wank. They’ve done excellent work there collecting the various voices on the subject, and it is JKR’s right, and no one else’s, to publish a definitive encylcopedia of her world. The Lexicon is literally NOTHING but a collection of facts—many of them inaccurate and incomplete—about the HP books. Now, personally, if I were JKR, I might’ve let it slide. But Vanderark is a big enough “name” in fandom, and the Lexicon important enough, that this kind of publication could open the gates to other for-profit fan works, and that strikes me as extremely problematic.
I’m not a lawyer, obviously, so I have no idea about the legal intricacies of the whole deal, but my fannish heart prays that RDR books loses, and loses big. Fan culture as it exists now may depend on that.
Ahhh you have discovered the law suit rocking my fandom at last. I’ve been a member of the Potter fandom for about three years. I worked at the Leaky Cauldron, the biggest news site and a site that is connected to the Lex through a group called the Floo network which combines a Quotes site, The Lexicon and the famous Leaky Cauldron news site, forum, galleries, podcast, interviews etc.
The fallout from this suit has already been massive. It’s driven the community in half. Those supporting Jo who I will admit is viewed as somewhat of a God in the community and those supporting Steve. Steve has been a very active and well known member of the community. He featured heavily on PotterCast, has presented panels at different conventions and also appeared on the Special Features disk of the Order of the Phoenix DVD on the movie. Our fandom has a fairly amicable relationship with Warner Bros. and Rowling herself. I think as far as WB is concerned it’s stemmed because they realized they could use the sites, and they have.
Steve’s book is, in some ways, undoubtedly plagiarism. However to understand the problem, you need to know a little more about how many freaking mediums the fandom has. There is fanfic, fanvids, fanart, forum discussions, chat, role play, podcasts, and one form gaining popularity rapidly is Wizard Rock with bands like Harry and the Potter’s and The Remus Lupins. Yup, it’s a crazy world. There has also been a rapid rise in popularity in fan written books. Mugglenet.com’s What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7? Guide was incredibly popular before the release of Deathly Hallows, Melissa Anelli, webmistress of the Leaky Cauldron is releasing her guide to the fandom later this year and Steve Vaander-Ark, known affectionately (once upon a time) in our fandom as Lexicon Steve was jumping on the band wagon.
The difference is that with Steve it’s an encyclopedia. Mugglenet was scheduled to release an encyclopedia too. Both Steve and the Mugglenerds were issued with Cease and Desist letters from Rowling. One stopped the other didn’t. Rowling has said for years and reaffirmed after DH that she would, at some point, be releasing her own encyclopedia for the books, that’s worth noting. Also worth noting, is Vaander-Ark’s behavior after DH was released at the fan convention Prophecy.
‘It’s over. She’s not the boss anymore’ or something like that was what Vaander-Ark cried to the fans. He had been unhappy with the last book. But undermining her copyright? I don’t think that was what he meant.
Rowling has been very tolerant with the use of her work on the internet, when your fan base is so huge what real choice do you have? However, since DH she has been becoming more controlling. Did we want her to control every single damn loose thread? She’s killing the character and the story by doing so. It’s not related to the case but she should bloody well let it be and let it stand on its own feet!
She’s deluding herself if she thinks Steve is the first or last to use her books for financial gain. The Potter craze has been a total cash hole for many in the fandom. Not Steve Vaander-Ark. This librarian is utterly ruined. There have been horrible things said about it and I think it’s likely that he’s going to be driven to bankruptcy by the fallout of this case.
Sigh. I haven’t done this very well. It’s only a tiny part of the case. It’s just been a pile of shit for everyone involved and for the community as a whole. Total division and loads of fights have ensued. The Leaky Lounge has a thread of people talking about it non stop and with more detail than I am able- so check that out here if you’re interested- http://www.leakylounge.com/Discussion-WB-JKR-vs-RD-t59932.html#entry1551571
It’s just a sad situation for everyone. And it’s going to get even worse before it’s sorted.
Sorry for being so boring!
M
It’s a pretty simple thing really—you can’t make money off someone else’s world. The world belongs to Rowling, and she’s said before she’ll probably publish an encyclopedia. As much as I love and have used the Lexicon, she’s right on this one. It’s almost like trying to publish fan-fiction. In very bad taste.
I can think of several compendiums and encyclopedias that have been published to accompany the study of works under copyright.
The difference being those books were either:
a) written with the permission of the copyright holder,
b) written on books already in the public domain, or
c) included enough original research and scholarship that they were transformative, and thus their references to the original work were allowed under fair use.
Mr. Van der Ark’s proposed Lexicon is none of these things. He intends to use Ms. Rowling’s exact or barely-altered words and make a profit at it.
If he has worked hard to assemble the Lexicon, so what? I don’t think bank robbers who work hard to tunnel into the vault deserve to keep the money.
If Ms. Rowling is rich, so what? Those are her creations. The fact that she’s not a ferret researcher doesn’t mean she deserves to have her words stolen.
Did we want her to control every single damn loose thread?
You mean like Anne Rice currently does? Ms. Rowling allows fanfiction, fanart etc. to exist even though they’re illegal. She’s pretty damned lenient about this—and you’re complaining?
She’s killing the character and the story by doing so.
No. She’s letting it live.
If Mr. Van der Ark wins, ALL fandoms die, because ALL writers will have to forbid fandom activities that violates their copyright (such as fanfiction and fanart) or they will lose all control of their copyright.
I’ll be interested to see what happens with this. I really hope we authors won’t have to go to such an extent as to deny fan fic.
I don’t really see how providing information when asked by a fan (such as with Dumbledore’s love life) is being controlling. A lot of fans want to know every exact detail that happened with the characters while others don’t. Trying to indulge the fans that do isn’t being controlling.
I think it’s an awful mistake to try to publish an encyclopedia (especially if it’s inaccurate and incomplete) instead of solid fan essays. Thank god for principles like copyright law, because the personalities in this situation are so big and dramatic that they make it really hard to focus on the practical bottom lines of what’s going on.
I’m curious. What’s the difference between Cassie Edwards writing about ferrets and fan fiction published for profit?
I have read tons of these, Witch World encyclopedias and Darkover lexicons and Klingon dictionaries. They are not bestsellers by any means.
The ideas for these things came out of the same place as Critiques and Reviews that were once more frequently published so there is precedence for them.
These are for the most part fan based books and sure, I have no problem with Rowling’s suit. I think that if he does use transcribed text from the books without proper attribution then he is screwed.
But I also do not think she should get to shut him down because she is thinking of doing one herself.
I have heard of even television Episode Guides being done without permission (I believe Farscape had one for a while.) and that is when the author had best not have directly used any of the source material or pictures.
I actually don’t write for the Harry Potter fandom. So it wouldn’t affect me if the judge were to completely lose his mind and JKR were to lose the suit. . .
. . . but I do write fanfiction and RP characters from other Warner Brothers movies, and Warner Brothers is involved in the suit too. So I can fully anticipate the minute they lose the suit, they’re going to call out the lawyers in force to protect the rest of their intellectual property, and I and my favorite sites are going to be slapped with a C&D.
I won’t be especially happy with RDR books or Steve Vander Ark if that happens.
Does everyone think that fan communities can continue to write fan fiction, etc. because the authors and publishers let you out of the goodness of their hearts? I get the sense that they’ve led fans to believe that.
I’m curious. What’s the difference between Cassie Edwards writing about ferrets and fan fiction published for profit?
Besides the fact that fan fiction, by its very nature, has overt attribution, there’s this: http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/92-1292.ZS.html
Ultimately, the proposed lexicon encyclopedia is probably a derivative work. Being sold for profit cuts against any fair use argument.
Assuming the lexicon wins, you’ll probably see authors, publishing houses, studios, etc. will clamp down on fan-everything.
The Lexicon is arguing in part that because JKR let them have the website, she can’t stop them from publishing the book. The easy answer there is to shut down all the websites, if you’re a content creator/owner. Certainly, if the Lexicon wins, it’ll vindicate all the copyright hard asses, who for years warned authors etc. not to encourage or approve of fan content in any way, lest it be used against them later (as the lexicon is now trying to do.) Even pure fan works that are made for enjoyment, not profit, will be targeted (the lexicon started out that way too.)
All in all, it’s probably for the best if JKR and Warner win. They’ll know that they can allow fan works to flourish, without at the same time building up the competition to their own bottom lines. They won’t have to worry that allowing fans to play in their sandbox will come back to bite them in the ass later.
Does everyone think that fan communities can continue to write fan fiction, etc. because the authors and publishers let you out of the goodness of their hearts? I get the sense that they’ve led fans to believe that.
You can write fanfiction. No one is going to check your hard drive for it. Anne Rice will not sniff you out and administer a keyboard-enema for the crime.
You just can’t put fanfiction on the internet if the author will immediately have a hissy fit and slap you with a cease and desist order for doing so.
Although fanfiction has existed, and would continue to exist, without the internet, fandoms could not be the enormous and popular communities they are without their members being able to easily promote and share their
pr0n
fanart and fanfiction with each other.
In order for fandom to survive, fanfic writers need the copyright holder’s blessing. Or at least their blind eye. And we can’t continue to have their blessing/blind eye if some twit interprets that benevolence to be permission to copy, reprint and sell the author’s words in order to pay for his plane fare to England.
Robin, the legal case you cited involves a parody. Fair Use decisions have generally allowed the use of copyrighted work in a parody that is created specifically to ridicule the work. Is that the intent of fan fiction, to ridicule the original work?
But I’m not making a legal argument here, just asking an ethical/philosophical question. There was a great outcry and gasps of moral outrage when Edwards was discovered to have copied some paragraphs of description about ferrets. She was castigated fiercely for plagiarism and stealing someone else’s work. It was considered a Bad Thing in no uncertain terms.
But I’m not seeing the same fierce attitude toward fan fic, which in general seems to me to be at least as deep and perhaps a more far-reaching psychological “theft” of an author’s creative work. Instead of sitting down and working from scratch, making the effort to develop their own characters and worlds—an effort which takes months and years for most authors—fan fiction writers grab someone else’s entire and specific concept (not just a general idea like “magic school,” but a very specific complex of characters, setting and story) and put it to their own use. They don’t do the work to create their own world and characters, they take someone else’s.
So that’s what I’m asking. Why is that so different from Cassie Edwards? Why is taking a paragraph about a ferret, or even a page of dialogue, so worthy of scorn and ridicule, but fan fiction is supposed to be a nice compliment to the author of the original work?
Is it merely the money? Is it not plagiarism if there’s no money involved? If it’s done openly and attributed?
Just what IS the ethical difference?
M”However, since DH she has been becoming more controlling. Did we want her to control every single damn loose thread? She’s killing the character and the story by doing so. It’s not related to the case but she should bloody well let it be and let it stand on its own feet!”
OK, I don’t see how answering fan questions is controlling. It’s how *she* saw things, for fans who wanted her vision. Also, she’s hardly brought up anything except kids’ names since the suit started (jkr.com, the “room of requirements”, “Weasley family tree”). Since DH came out, there’s been updates to her site about the Elder Wand, the India suit…couple other meaningless things. Goodness, hissy much?
“She’s deluding herself if she thinks Steve is the first or last to use her books for financial gain. The Potter craze has been a total cash hole for many in the fandom. Not Steve Vaander-Ark. This librarian is utterly ruined. There have been horrible things said about it and I think it’s likely that he’s going to be driven to bankruptcy by the fallout of this case.”
Yup. Smart people, who have unique thoughts, have written books tying HP into history, mythology, religion, et al… They DARE to have original thought, and simply use HP as a starting point, yeah? They *gasp* adhere to Fair Use!
Steve. Doesn’t.
I’m a huge fan of the HPL online. I seriously check it daily, as I beta read fan fiction, and it’s easier to access than looking up facts in the books sometimes. This FREE SITE love, however, doesn’t extend to “I have to pay for it book”. That Jo once praised the FREE SITE doesn’t mean she is OK with a need-to-pay-for-it book. And quashing the charity wank, RDR says that the Lexicon book will allow POOR people to access the Lex knowledge – Um, Hi! The web-Lex is over 1000 pages, and updated all the time. The BOOK is just over 400 pages, horrible writing where it’s original, paraphrasing when it’s not, and $25 for something that will never be updated again, and isn’t (as of the time of the suit) being translated into any 3rd world country language (thinking kids in Africa here).
I seriously question the sanity of anyone on the side of RDR/SVA, if they’ve reviewed all the facts in this case.
Meg
Fan fiction doesn’t copy the author’s story and call it their own, but uses it or the characters, as a springboard for another story. And not for profit. Much different, to my mind, than what Edwards did over many years and with many sources.
But this suit seems to involve someone who IS taking the author’s words, without her permission, and trying to sell it for profit. I’d sue, too.
I don’t mind fan fiction (understand those authors who do), but when I find my work on the internet—for profit or not—copied and claimed by someone else, I shut it down.
Just commenting to say that I’m so happy that the readers on SBTB are showing a level-headed sanity I haven’t seen since this whole thing started. There are a lot of people in and out of the fandom who are supporting RDR, solely because “She’s just a greedy controlling bitch and deserves to have her intellectual property stolen.” It’s great to see that there are some people who are willing to look at the facts instead of just jumping on the JKR Hate wagon.
Rock on, Smart Bitches. *salutes*
I’ll second that, Tara.
Laura,
What’s mainly at stake is the money and the precedent. If JKR didn’t fight this, what would stop somebody from taking her work, rearranging the chapters and slapping on a price tag and calling it a reference tool?
I consider this worst than Edwards. Edwards, at least, had her stolen words couched among a lot of original words. If those stolen words were removed, the book would still basically exist without much difference. If all the stolen words were removed from the Lexicon, there wouldn’t be much of a book left if any at all. And yeah, I consider Vander Ark as stealing her words, RDR is his fence, and anyone who buys the book will be purchasing ‘hot’ goods.
I’m not saying I condone Edwards. Just in comparison, I think Vander Ark’s crime is worse, though the court will decide whehter this is a crime. I really can’t see how they won’t.
~There was a great outcry and gasps of moral outrage when Edwards was discovered to have copied some paragraphs of description about ferrets~
I’d like to point out that it was hardly a single instance involving the poor ferrets, but a pattern of copying, over years, and many sources.
I just hate to see what was clearly posted here regarding the plagiarism, all of the cited examples in various books, boiled down to a couple of paragraphs about ferrets.