The New York Times has printed a thorough article about JK Rowling winning her lawsuit against Steven Jan Vander Ark, who has run the Harry Potter Lexicon for years.
It’s a little sad, because Vander Ark tried to publish a book based on his work on the HP Lexicon, and a judge found it had almost no original material. But I remember how useful his website was when I was prepping for books six and seven of Rowling’s series. For instance, I couldn’t figure out exactly how old various members of the Weasley family were, and the Lexicon pointed me in the right direction. It is, for all intents and purposes, a sort of encyclopedia of the Harry Potter world.
I do not know much about the contents of Vander Ark’s book, but I do know that I appreciated his site when I was reading the series. And, if I remember correctly — I could be wrong on this — Rowling linked to the website way back when as a fan site she appreciated.
Of course, if he was attempting to profit from her work, that’s not cool. But there is a certain amount of work involved in piecing together all this information, and in trying to be as accurate as possible, because the books often left us wondering. Wait, exactly how old are Charlie and Bill? That would make Molly and Arthur how many years older than Harry’s parents?
The website was a good resource for fans, though I honestly don’t see the point of publishing a book now, when no amateur sleuths are trying to figure out what will happen in the next book.
It would have been nice if Vander Ark could have tried to work with JKR instead of going ahead and publishing a book containing her life’s work without her permission. And I honestly don’t know what really happened, especially with the book’s contents, except that it ended in court. Which is extremely unfortunate. It seems — though I could be wrong here — that Vander Ark had good intentions, but was unclear on where the line was drawn on intellectual property rights. Which, umm, is why he needed an agent. And a publisher that knew copyright law backwards and forwards. And a bunch of other things.
I don’t know. What do you think?
A few more things. Vander Ark claims that Warner Brothers borrowed from the Lexicon when they made an official timeline and put it on disc two of the Chamber of Secrets DVD. He (accidentally) used something John Green refers to in Paper Towns: a mistake in his work:
“How do I (Steve Vander Ark) know that they borrowed the timeline from the Lexicon? Because I had made a tiny, stupid little typo on my day-by-day calendar of the first book. I had accidentally put the first visit of Harry and Ron to Hagrid’s cabin on Saturday instead of Friday. I did that because I write Monday-through-Friday schedules all the time as part of my job, filling information onto week grids. The last square of the calendar I work on usually is Friday, so I put the visit to Hagrid’s cabin in the last square without thinking. That typo is reproduced in the “official” timeline on the DVD.”
Also: Jo Rowling did indeed give the HP Lexicon her Fan Site Award in 2004. Again, it’s sad to see a good relationship come to this sort of an end; we know that she appreciated Vander Ark’s work up to a point. But at what point was it plagiarism, or IP theft, rather than a dedicated fan doing his best to put together a complete timeline?
http://www.mugglenet.com/mugglecast/index.php?page=episodes.php
If you go there and scroll to episode 142 there’s a great episode about the trial. It came about way before the verdict, but still.
Thanks, khy. That’s a great resource. I’m downloading the podcast now.
Oh, man. This trial has been sort of horrible for the Harry Potter fandom. On one side you have Steve Vander Ark, who many fans have admired and loved. On the other you have Jo Rowling.
I think this situation was handled poorly on both sides, but I think Steve and his publisher should have backed off. Having information online is one thing, profiting off another person’s work is another.
Also, in the world of Harry Potter podcasting, I have to say that I like this better than the link above. http://pottercast.the-leaky-cauldron.org/episode/show/184 It’s from April, but it is a good recap of the trial and its impact.
Oh, no. Elena, another podcast? I haven’t finished listening to the first yet! The other was from April, too, I think, but was also … oh, I see. You’ve got Mugglenet up against the Leaky Cauldron folks, eh?
Well, I have to say I find the whole thing very fascinating. It turns out Rowling DID try to work with Steve, but he wasn’t willing to back off. Which seems silly to me. Furthermore, some of the folks on Mugglenet wisely pointed out that if Rowling eventually lost — let’s say this went to the Supreme Court or something — the outcome could have dire effects on people who write fanfic or keep fan sites for authors.
You know, there are a lot of authors who DON’T want any fan sites at all, and although webbish people sort of accepted what Rowling did by allowing fan sites and fan fic and all that to exist as the status quo, she was actually setting a really great example by effectively saying, “Hey, yeah. That’s cool. Go have fun, just don’t make money off MY intellectual property unless you’re adding analysis; you need to have your own creative vision if you’re going to publish a book about the HP universe.”
We’ve all sort of gotten to the point where we think the web is our place to do whatever we like, but that’s not quite accurate. When it comes to another person’s work, it really, really, really is important to be super-careful about how you approach things. Trust me, I know.
Anyway, it’s sad that Steve Vander Ark, and more importantly his publishing house, couldn’t work things out before Rowling and WB had to drag them to court. On the other hand, I’d be interested in hearing his opinion on why the book is publishable under the fair use clause. No chance he’ll log on here, is there?