Author filed claim over 'Harry Potter Lexicon'
A approximate ruled Monday in favour of "Harry Potter" source J.K. Rowling in her copyright violation lawsuit against a fan and Web site operator who was set to publish a Potter encyclopedia.
U.S. District Judge Robert P. Patterson aforesaid Rowling had proven that Steven Vander Ark's "Harry Potter Lexicon" would cause her irreparable harm as a writer. He for good blocked publishing of the reference pathfinder and awarded Rowling and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. $6,750 in statutory damages.
"I took no pleasure at all in bringing legal action and am delighted that this issue has been resolved favourably," Rowling aforementioned Monday in a statement. "I went to royal 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 tremendous amount of my work and added virtually no original comment of its own. ... Many books have been published which offer original insights into the world of Harry Potter. The Lexicon just is not 1 of them."
Rowling and Warner Bros., god Almighty of the "Harry Potter" films and owner of intellectual holding rights to the "Potter" books and movies, sued Michigan-based RDR Books last year to stop publication of real from the Harry Potter Lexicon Web site. Vander Ark, a former schoolhouse librarian, runs the site, which is a guide to the seven Potter books and includes elaborate descriptions of characters, creatures, spells and potions.
The small publisher was not contesting that the lexicon infringes upon Rowling's copyright only argued that it was a fair use allowable by law for reference books. In his ruling, Patterson noted that reference materials ar generally useful to the public merely that in this case, Vander Ark went likewise far.
"While the lexicon, in its flow state, is not a fair manipulation of the "Harry Potter" works, reference works that share the lexicon's determination of aiding readers of literature broadly should be encouraged sooner than stifled," he said.
He added that he ruled in Rowling's favor because the "Lexicon appropriates likewise much of Rowling's creative work for its purposes as a reference guide."
Anthony Falzone, world Health Organization argued the case for RDR Books, said he had not yet seen the opinion and could not yet comment. RDR publisher Roger Rapoport did not return a telephone message quest comment.
Though Rowling had erstwhile praised the Web web site, she testified earlier this year that the lexicon was goose egg more than a rearrangement of her material.
She aforementioned she was so distressed at the prospect that it would be published that she had stopped work on a new novel. "It's really decimated my originative work over the last month," she said during the trial in April.
If the dictionary is published, she went on, "I firmly trust that carte du jour blanche will be given to anyone who wants to score a quick bit of money, to divert some 'Harry Potter' profits into their possess pockets."
Vander Ark, a devoted fan of Rowling, began work on his Web site in 1999 and launched it in 2000.
The seven Potter books, which ended terminal year with the terminal book in the serial "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," have been published in 64 languages, sold more than than 400 million copies and produced a celluloid franchise that has pulled in $4.5 billion at the worldwide boxoffice.
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