What’s more humiliating than being a 50 year old Harry Potter superfan getting sued by JK Rowling for copyright infringement? Breaking down and weeping on the witness stand.
In a moment that compellingly argues for cameras in all court rooms, Steven Vander Ark, the man behind the Harry Potter Lexicon website, went all blubbery like a big diaper-shitting baby while defending his plans to publish a book version of that Lexicon. See, Rowling was chill with the web site version, but took offense when Vander Ark hooked up with a publisher to sell copies of a book compiling the entries and defintions, which she claims includes unauthorized swipes of large passages from her books.
Here’s how the Associated Press describe the moment when the fanboy broke:
Vander Ark wept openly when he was asked to reflect on what the case
has done to his relationship with the community of Harry Potter fans.
The former middle school librarian,
who fell in love with the books in 1998 and has devoted years to
studying them and indexing their content online, could barely speak.
“It’s been … it’s been,” he stammered, choking on his words. “It’s
been difficult because there has been a lot of criticism, obviously,
and that was never the intention. … This has been an important part
of my life for the last nine years or so.”
Besides offering the thrill of schadenfreude when a grotesque dweeb gets splattered in the national spotlight, this case is also one that I think is incredibly important in a world where copyright is becoming more and more amorphous. Fanfic – all of it* terrible and made for and by prime candidates for sterilization – is choking the internet as people who love properties and characters lose all perspective and start believing they own them. Then there are the fan sites that want to honor or celebrate a property or character but that cross the line into infringement on a regular basis.
Rowling says that she wants to do her own Harry Potter encyclopedia, making a text Lexicon clear cut infringement. The publisher is arguing that the Lexicon is an interpretive and analytical book, making it completely legal. It seems to me that this is an important distinction – for example, how much of the source can you use when writing about the source, and not just using the characters and concepts in your own fanfic? This trial, which will last about a week and does not include a jury, could very well set guidelines for that.
By the way, being on the stand has been a real rollercoaster experience for Vander Ark. Check this out:
His face lit up when an attorney for RDR books informed him that
Rowling had complained that the Lexicon had given the wrong etymology
for the door-opening charm “Alohomora.”
Vander Ark had speculated that the word was a combination of
the Hawaiian word “aloha” and the Latin word “mora.” Rowling explained
that the word actually came from a West African dialect.
“Really!” Vander Ark said, his eyes alight. “Sorry. That’s very exciting stuff for someone like me.”
* Especially the furry fanfic
19 comments
I went through the same thing when some fan started compiling the "Simple Men Encyclopedia."
this guy is almost as bad as JK "OMG I'm so stressed I can't write that non-HP novel I really am going to write, honestly I'm not just the George Lucas of Literature" Rowlings little bit of acting work in the stand.
There but for the grace of God, Devin.
Love the straightforward hilarious headline.
From the title, I thought this article was about Devin.
SHouldn't this have the "Devin Faraci and the Unhealthy Obsession" logo on it?
But see Ryan, that would be irony. And Devin hates irony. He hates us all.
If people spent more time writing orginal fiction as fan fiction we might have more fandom projects out there.
Same goes for Fan art.
CREATE YOUR OWN WORLDS PEOPLE!
"Grotesque dweeb?" I believe that's called psychological projection, Devin. Now go masturbate to your Harry Potter slash fiction you fucking cocksucker.
honestly I was wondering if the article would be ABOUT devin when i clicked on it
Rowling's intent to publish her own encyclopedia has no bearing on whether or not Vander Ark's work infringes, contrary to what you say. It infringes on her copyright or it doesn't, regardless of what she intends to do with her work. Let's also consider how Rowling's claim that this guy's encyclopedia will interfere with her own plans to produce an encyclopedia are bullshit—who is going to SKIP Rowling's because this guy put one out first? Thats a ridiculous claim. All that matters is where this judge decides the book falls on the spectrum of Fair Use. This will be a telling case, but it is not as unusual a case as you might think. Just bigger.
Devin is such a fat fatty. Can you even type of the keyboard with your fat little fatty fingers? I should, for the record, point out that Devin Faraci is indeed overweight in the eyes of the law. Can we really trust a rotund American to give us insightful movie news? At least Ebert eventually saw the error of his ways. Furthermore and in conclusion: homosexual sucker of the penis. Amen.
What does a reviewer's weight have to do with anything? Reminding our heavy-set friends of their condition is just wrong. Talk about the article or the writing, not what or how much was digested!
As I've heard it explained, authors are basically required to sue and defend their intellectual property. If they don't, they risk losing control over it. Ultimately, if Rowling didn't prevent THIS guy from publishing work with her property in it, she would be less able to prevent others from doing the same or worse.
Why ISN'T there more furry fan-fic? It'll spruce this place up a bit…
Well, put yourself in his shoes, Devin. Imagine one of the many celebrities you fawn over publicly, formally registering contempt for you. For instance, Edgar Wright thinks you have very small hands.
Vinz, the defense of intellectual property requirement only applies to trademarks, not to copyright:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Comparison_with_patents.2C_designs_and_copyright
I think Point of Clarification is right; Devin's statement is ill informed. Rowling's intention to create a similar book has no bearing on whether this is infringement, no more than Rowling's intention to write a review of her books would make other reviews infringement. Either the work on it's own is infringement of the existing intellectual property, or it ain't.
As I understand it, writing about a book is considered fair use, though it depends on how much has been excerpted. Fanfic on the other hand is essentially copyright infringement. There's no real overlap here, though Devin's article attempts to make connections between the two.
So really, it comes down to whether this guy has crossed the boundaries of fair use. The description of the book sounds like fair use, and from what I've read about the case it's yet another example of attempts to diminish fair use rights. Rowling's whining about how the case is crushing her creativity are just pathetic. She and Warner Bros are using their deep pockets and fame to make it look like some kind of horrendous infringement at a fundamental level (as if the very idea of such a book is unjustified), when it is clearly not.
FWIW, the Fair Use Project at Stanford University Law School is part of the defense team.
Copyright law has changed over the years to work against society and to the benefit of corporations and artists who get to lock up their work and milk it for life + many decades thereafter. It's a worrying trend when they continue to exert further and further unreasonable restrictions.
Fuck Devin and fuck that gazillionaire bitch JK Rowling. I don't even like Harry Potter, (not the books nor the films), and I think her lawsuit is about something else: rich authors/singers/actors/whatever want us to make THEM rich, but the idea of some nobody else getting rich or getting rich off them is completely unbearable. AHHH!!!! GOD FORBID!!! Fuckin' evil librarian and his fuckin' money makin' racket!!! This is why celebs claim to hate gossip blogs, gossip rags, and some have even gone after their own fansites claiming copyright infringment and sicking their lawyers on those evil copyright infridgers for having a site with their copyrighted likeness, (this includes Prince, Michelle Williams, who is a cunt for this and a cunt anyway, and Alyssa Milano, who should be thankful anyone even wants to operate a fan site dedicated to her scowling, D-List likeness). Thousands of books are published every year that are about other people's properties…books about films, biographies, music…and most of them are UNAUTHORIZED. This is no different than any of those as far I'm concerned, and had that rich cunt not decided to sue this goofy loser, you or I and most importantly DEVIN wouldn't have given it a second fucking glance. I like how Devin always manages to comment on something as though he had the opinion all along, though deep down, we all know he needs to be led so he can pretend he's smarter than the rest of us. Here his opinion is being led by the Rowling's suit and the way it's been so blown out of porportion, in the same way he's been led by Al Gore into being just another tired cheerleader for the environment, (which is fine is u wanna help, but threatening and cussing out others who think u should be more objective just makes u look like more of an idiot than u already are). Yeah this guy is a nut, he looks like his breath stinks, he's probably got a small dick like Devin, but he should have the right to publish whatever the fuck he wants, so long as he's not plagerising. I just can't understand how anyone as rich as JK Rowling would gives two shits one way or another about this, other than my theory about rich celebs who sure as hell don't want us commonfolk rising up and becoming as wealthy as them, otherwise they're might be a class mutiny or something that u know rich people sit around and talk about. My advice to JK: please keep your whiny British ass overseas with Gwyneth "Post-Partem" Paltrow, Madonna, and the rest of the whaambulance crew, and to Devin, please for the love of Guillermo Del Toro, just stick to recycling your toilet paper and wiping your ass with bio-degradable cocktail napkins ya fruit….Dear God I fucking hate Devin!!!
I have no problem with Devin but I think he has things a little backwards. You can't copyright intent, so Rowling's intent to write her own encyclopedia has nothing to do with this. However, the book is straightforward infringement since it quotes passages from the novels–any time you quote a movie, book, review, etc. you're technically infringing on copyright. The question is whether an encyclopedia of characters and items from Harry Potter books, using quotations from said books, is FAIR USE or not.
This kind of thing is judged in large part by how much of the source material is lifted directly and how much of his own work the infringer added. To be honest I see nothing inherently wrong with someone publishing a reference book about a book or movie, containing summaries of characters and events. People do that all the time, though admittedly they don't normally piss off a franchise as massive as Harry Potter.
To be honest I hope the guy wins and the judge tells Rowling, "Tough shit." Copyright's already unnecessarily restrictive without granting the creator exclusive rights to publish reference works about their material. If copyright has a chilling effect on people making things, it's not doing its job.
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