Harry Potter Superfan Is A Big Fucking Crybaby

I'd heard about this story -- including the weeping -- but never gave it much thought. I figured it was some 21-year-old who loved the books since he was ten.

But this?

Jesus, if you ever needed an example of a loser with no life. There you have it.

Whatever gets him out of the middle school library.

"Expelliarmus Pedophilio!"

Hoy many hits does his website get?

Because we can all laugh at the dude, but if he gets the book published, he'd make a killing.

Winner.

Who said having someone's dreams crushed is not entertainment.

It must be weird to be J.K. Rowling and have to respond to stuff like this.

.....Really?

I really don't see how this fellow ever thought publishing the book wasn't going to get him in hot water. Rowling has an established reputation of staunchly defending her intellectual property. More power to her.

This is fantastic.

Lucas is accused of destroying the spirits of his fans through inferior product, Rowling says fuck the indirect route and destroys her fans to their faces!

She rocks.

EDIT: This has to show up on South Park soon.

God. Does "lame" even cover this?

I think I'll just imagine that she made up the "West African dialect" thing to dispirit the guy.

In fairness, the guy's trying to make money from selling a book made up mostly from her work. I'd kick him until he bled my royalty fees.

What I can't figure out is why this guy continues fighting to publish this book. (Or is it the publisher pushing him?) If the works of J.K. Rowling really mean that much to him, you'd think he'd kindly back down once she asked him to do so and announced her intention to write her own Potter universe encyclopedia. Ignoring her wishes strikes me as the motivations of a sad, greedy bastard, not of a devoted Potter fan.

If he's smart he'll roll this whole experience into a book deal.
"The Harry Potter Fan Inside Me"

You would think the fact that the author of the books he admires and loves so much tells him, "No. Don't do this because I want to do one myself," is enough to stop him from doing it.

Damn it! 2 minutes too late.

I can already see the sequel, in light of the pedophilia remarks around here: "Me Inside the Harry Potter Fan".

Waiting outside the courthouse...

Yeah, I hope Rowling stomps him out of existence in this trial and shuts down other people trying to do the same. The last thing we need is a flood of fucking.. internet fan-fic geeks thinking if this guy can get work published than surely they deserve to be published too. Especially considering it's just making easy money off of someone else's intellectual property/hard work.

It would be a different story if they had the writer/creator/right holder's blessing, but in a situation like this? Fuck off.

All this talk of pedophilia reminds me of that great Onion video.

J.K. Rowling Hints at Harry Potter Date Rape.

I'm curious as to what kind of fanfics this book was set to include -- are we talking boring 'Harry really hates Malfoy!' stories, or epic tales of Hermione practicing her fellatio technique?

It's at least gotta have an orgy with all the big characters. At some point, Draco and Harry will DP Ginny and Hermione will feel the Longstick of Longbottom.

And Dumbledore and Snape get freaky in the afterlife.

Hey That's A Spoiler! Heh.

If it's the latter, sign me the fuck up!

I'm more interested in the legal ramifications of the final decision. What will this mean to all other "Non authorized" books out there based on others work. This type of book practically has it's own section at Barnes and Noble.

I hope it ends in better copyright laws or at least causes a good review. Because I really want to see that Chuck Norris book go away.

A copyright is only valuable if the owner defends it. It's not an automatic shield of protection. So anyone could write a book based on someone else's intellectual property and even get it published. It's up to the copyright owner to challenge the new work. I doubt we'll see that book store section go away any time soon, but we might see more authors choose to defend IP in court.

There's nothing wrong with, say, a book of original critical essays on a particular film, TV show or series of novels, as long as the writer(s) keep exact material from the property they're discussing (i.e. direct quotations pulled from the source) to a minimum and attribute it accordingly.

But what this guy's trying to sell is essentially just a list of characters, locations, spells, etc., with descriptions pulled from the books. That's a totally different animal, lacks any sort of original work by the author, and probably shouldn't be allowed under copyright law. Hopefully, the court sees it the same way.

My favorite part of the story is that the guy evidently wrote a clause into his book contract stating that the publisher had to pay any legal fees in the event of a lawsuit -- he knew this was coming down.

I suppose this trial justifies his life's work by making it "important".

Does Azkaban have a copyright infringement wing?

I was disappointed to find out that this article wasn't autobiographical.

Since you mentioned it in the article. Why isn´t there some court-footage? Not allowed in the U.K.? I guess the guy could sell this for ten times more than this encyclopedia thing.

I saw Yahoo video of this guy leaving the courtroom. 50 years old and he has a Harry Potter haircut and Harry Potter glasses. JK must have been really freaked out facing him in the courtroom.

There he is, with the female Snape ...



So this is his normal look?



Wow

This trial is taking place in NY.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/ny...15rowling.html

Rowlins almost cried on the stand too;
Oh God ...

Bingo.
Not that the trial's actually in the UK, mind you.

It has long failed to surprise me that fans are shocked and upset that authors and other creators won't let them make money off of copyrighted intellectual property.

I'm reminded of a recent case where some doof asked permission from 20th Century Fox to show a musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the cinema where he worked, and it was granted. It was to be a one-time showing, but this doof assumed it would be alright take the show on the road. So after multiple sold-out showing in many states across the land, various people involved with the series asked "where's our cut of that money, huh?" and next thing you know 20th Century Fox hits the guy with a cease-and-desist letter. The response from fannish quarters, including the guy who started the whole mess was a lot of whining about how unfair and mean the company was being. Give some fans an inch and some idiot will steal a mile, ruin it for everybody and the whiny fans will blame the copyright holders.

Really, as little love as I have for the whole Potter franchise, a little toad like this needs to be stomped on. Even if the only reason he failed to realize the difference between "approved fan website" and "book to be sold for money" was because he's a dimwit manchild.

PS It's not like the shelves of bookstores need to be weighed down with yet another nonfiction "guide" to someone else's SF/F franchise. But I guess that's my bias showing through (unlike the rest of this post).

I agree with the opinion in the article by Wu (former clerk to Justice Breyer):

"J.K. Rowling's Dark Mark - Why she should lose her copyright lawsuit against the Harry Potter Lexicon."
http://www.slate.com/id/2181776/

This is not fanfict, and there is precedent already in place protecting this type of work. I'm not sure why people here would be pro-Rowling in this case, a ruling favoring her in this case would place restrictions on things like wikipedia, and be detrimental for society.

Plus, she's super rich, her argument that this is a threat to her future work is laughable.

The 'doof' is Clinton McClung, someone I'll vouch for personally and in a business capacity. He secured licensing for the show through Criterion, the company that controls Fox's back catalogue. He provided details of what he was doing to Criterion, specifically that the show was running in movie theatres. SAG learned that admission was being charged and billed Fox, which hit Criterion, who claimed they didn't know that the show was booked theatrically. Fox explicitly pulled all theatrical licensing for their shows and Clinton complied immediately. And he never spoke out against Fox, saying "please don’t use this as an excuse to lash out at Fox."

There is zero legal similarity to this case.

So Dev, I take it we can definately class this guy as a 'fanboy' then?

He has exceedingly good hair for a 50-year-old man.

Exaclty what I was thinking - I was confused by the whole fanfic angle to the arcticle its clearly a reference guide he attempting to publish not the further adventures of Harry and Co.

What strikes me most about this case is that JK Rowling seems more upset that it s a crappy refrence guide more than anything else (see her comments in court.)

Today on my way to work I was behind some 40 year old guy driving a Lexus with a license plate that read VLDMORT. I pray his name is Vlad Mortensen or something but it kind of scared me. Some guy makes a hundred grand a year and on the weekends probably dresses up like the Dark Lord. Insane.

I wonder if Rowlings is getting a piece of those "Republicans for Voldemort" t-shirts.

I really think her lawyers told her to argue this point, which is irrelevant, it doesn't matter what the quality of the work is it is still not copyright infringement.