“I really don’t want to cry because I’m British, you know,” J.K. Rowling said. “You know, these books, they saved me, not just in the very obvious material sense, although they did do that. … I would have to say that there was a time when they saved my sanity.”
J.K. Rowling, famous for stealing every fantasy idea ever written and plopping it down in a new Harry Potter book is suing a fan of Harry Potter to keep him from publishing a book about Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling sued Michigan-based RDR Books to stop publication of Steven Vander Ark’s “Harry Potter Lexicon,” claiming copyright infringement. Vander Ark runs the Harry Potter Lexicon web site.
The site is, as you might expect, all about Harry Potter, Harry Potter books, Harry Potter movies, Harry Potter costumes, and anything else in the Harry Potter universe. This Harry Potter website has an Alexa rank of 35,423 and seems to be popular with Harry Potter fans. There are plenty of ads and money making links on the site-but a book would likely make a bit more money and be a bit more tangible.
JK Rowling’s argument against the new Harry Potter book is that it is not well done, and is nothing but stolen Harry Potter material from her own books. She didn’t mind having Harry Potter online when she was starting out and still trying to sell more Harry Potter books. But now Rowling is unhappy that this fan is trying to make money off her Harry Potter creations. To me it seems a bit silly. There is more Harry Potter merchandise than Star Wars merchandise. Will one more Harry Potter book make much difference?
Well, it would make a difference to J.K. Rowling if she were writing her own Harry Potter Lexicon. JK Rowling has begun her own encyclopedia, but does not expect to complete it for two to three years. She has stated that if Vander Ark’s lexicon is published, “I’m not at all convinced that I would have the will or the heart to continue with my encyclopedia.”
So this is the real Harry Potter news, Rowling doesn’t want competition for her own new Harry Potter series book. But that can’t be right, as Harry Potter fans are famous for buying anything with Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling on the cover. So maybe she really does just want to protect he works.
There is nothing new about other writers writing Anointed editions of favorite books-books about other books with lists of details and references. Rowling seems to think that since there is little to no real world references in the Harry Potter books, anything anyone has to say about Harry Potter has to be outright plagiarism. Ander Ark seemed to think so as well, since he had a clause put in his book contract that the publisher would have to settle any legal battles over copyrights.
This would be a good time for the Harry Potter Sorting Hat to make an appearance. Or maybe J.K. Rowling could use one of Harry Potter’s wands to turn the publishers into toads.
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