There is more information today about the ongoing legal battle between Warner Bros./J.K. Rowling and RDR Books/Harry Potter Lexicon. In preparation for its case, RDR asked J.K. Rowling to hand over, among other things, her notes from her seven Harry Potter books, Scholastic and Bloomsbury’s notes from the books, and "further material from Ms. Rowling’s creative mind" in an effort to determine "how far Ms. Rowling had progressed in this project…how similar, and thus how competitive, Ms. Rowling’s guide, and the Lexicon, were likely to be."
A judge has denied the requests, stating RDR has "not shown the Court that any further discovery about Ms. Rowling’s notes would be helpful to Defendant’s position."
The judge has, however, asked Rowling to submit statements she has made previously in publications in regard to plans for her encyclopedia.
RDR has also asked for an additional three days to file their reply, which was due today, to address the complaint filed by Warner Bros. and Rowling. It is now due on Feb. 8. The hearing is scheduled for March 13.
You can view RDR’s letter
here.
You can read more on the history of the case at the links below.
J.K. Rowling files lawsuit J.K. Rowling’s statement RDR Publisher’s statement The Lexicon’s statement Judge issues restraining order Stanford Law School defends RDR Books Jo & WB file full injunction request – part I Jo & WB file full injunction request – part II
Source:
The Leaky Cauldron UPDATE: There is now
information on J.K.Rowling/Warner Bros. response to RDR's aforementioned request. They object to RDR's, “pattern of writing the Court whenever it wishes without first making any effort to meet and confer, let alone giving sufficient advance notice of its intended communication with the Court.”
They have called their attempt to claim notes, “extremely burdensome and unnecessary for the resolution of any issue in this case, particularly in light of Ms. Rowling’s interrogatory responses and the documents that Plaintiffs produced in support of their motion for preliminary injunction.”
Quote:
The note calls JKR’s notes and publishers’ materials “completely irrelevant” to the question of whether the Lexicon book infringes copyright. “Obviously, needing to concede copying, RDR’s defense to such copying is based on fair use. It is in connection with RDR’s fair use defense that Plaintiffs have addressed the issue of potential market harm. ... Whether or not the books would be similar or identical and therefore directly competing is not the correct inquiry; it is rather whether or not Ms. Rowling would generally enter the market for companion books, which she already has done with her first two companion guides and has repeatedly stated she will continue to do with her planned encyclopedia to the world of Harry Potter.”
RDR also tried to determine when Jo would start her encyclopaedia, using news articles several weeks old to try and justify attempting to scoop her.