Today Judge Robert Patterson
ruled in favour of Warner Brothers and J.K. Rowling in their copyright infringement case against RDR Books, who were intending to release a
Harry Potter Lexicon written by Steve Vander Ark. He said that the defence;
Quote:
"had failed to establish an affirmative defense of fair use" and publication of "The Harry Potter Lexicon" should be halted."
Thanks to
Blog Hogwarts for the tip!
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UPDATE: Warner Bros has sent us the following statement in response to the judge's decision:
Quote:
We are obviously pleased with today’s ruling by Judge Patterson supporting the position that the proposed lexicon book infringes on Ms. Rowling’s rights. As a content company, it is imperative that we work vigorously on all fronts to protect the intellectual property rights of those who create the stories and characters, words, pictures and music that entertain and benefit the worldwide audience.
J.K. Rowling also released a statement in regards to the ruling:
Quote:
“I took no pleasure at all in bringing legal action and am delighted that this issue has been resolved favourably,” said J.K. Rowling. “I went to court to uphold the right of authors everywhere to protect their own original work. The court has upheld that right.
The proposed book took an enormous amount of my work and added virtually no original commentary of its own. Now the court has ordered that it must not be published.
Many books have been published which offer original insights into the world of Harry Potter. The Lexicon just is not one of them.”
UPDATE #2:
The Guardian has a brief comment from Steve Vander Ark on the outcome of the case;
Quote:
Of the Harry Potter Lexicon, Vander Ark said that although yesterday's judgment appeared to leave "a lot of leeway" for a revised edition, there were no immediate plans to produce one.
UPDATE #3: A
statement from RDR Books is now online, which reads;
Quote:
"We are encouraged by the fact the Court recognized that as a general matter authors do not have the right to stop the publication of reference guides and companion books about literary works. As for the Lexicon, we are obviously disappointed with the result, and RDR is considering all of its options."
The full transcript from the outcome can be found
here; it notes that the publisher has to pay $750 per book that was infringed, bringing the owed figure to a total of $6,750.