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JK Rowling Wants Unauthorised Potter Rip Off to Vanish!

April 16, 2008

Will a little spell or incantations rub out unauthorized Harry Potter books?

J.K. Rowling is definitely hoping so.

The smash hit brains behind the tome took the stand in a Manhattan federal court Monday and state under oath that the planned reference guide, The Harry Potter Lexicon, “constitutes wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work.”

Production company Warner Bros. Entertainment together with the megaselling author submitted a complaint last October versus Steven Vander Ark, owner of the Harry Potter Lexicon website and Michigan-based RDR Books. It charges the defendants of copyright infringement and alleged the publication of an encyclopedia without authorization dishonored Rowling’s intellectual property rights and destabilized her facility to come up with her own best guide to the magical realm she single-handedly formed.

Words she slaved over…now appear in a book under the name of somebody else,” opening remarks of Rowling’s attorney, Dale Cendali, as told to judge Robert P. Patterson.

Rowling maintained that the mêlée over Lexicon has “decimated my creative work over the last month” to the position where she’s been strained to shelve her newest endeavor.

I really don’t want to cry,” she hushed, when asked about how she felt about the creation of the guide.

Cendali said RDR’s project was a sparsely obscure effort to cash in on the astoundingly booming Potter books, which have gained so far more than 400 million copies and gave birth to five movies that have earned around $4.5 billion.

Anthony Falzone, defense attorney, on the other hand, argued fair-use policy, which he held gave RDR and the website’s editor ample of margin “to organize and discuss the complicated and very elaborate world of Harry Potter.

That opinion was backed up by co-attorney David Saul Hammer, who advised the adjudicator on Friday that although the publisher does not plan to challenge Rowling’s infringement allegations that a substantial portion of her effort was used without endorsement, RDR’s book emits academic light on the topic of Potter and was consequently protected.

Vander Ark, meanwhile, has been maintaining that he is contained by his right to publicize the reference guide, selling for $24.95 a piece, since it’s gathered from supplemental stuff spawned by his Harry Potter Lexicon website, which Rowling apparently a fan of.

She maintains that the website simply reprocess copyrighted bits and pieces she hatched on her own, counting the directory of characters, magical creatures, potions, spells and other Potter treats and trivia. Simultaneously, she disputed that Vander Ark’s book disregards the original annotations and fan-based debates that she believed made the site so exceptional and helped boost the publicity.

Releasing such a companion guide for money could gravely damage the income of certified authors and eventually do a disfavor to followers of their work, she stresses.

If RDR’s position is accepted, it will undoubtedly have a significant, negative impact on the freedoms enjoyed by genuine fans on the Internet,” Rowling says in court documents. “Authors everywhere will be forced to protect their creations much more rigorously, which could mean denying well-meaning fans permission to pursue legitimate creative activities.”

As of the moment, Rowling is not demanding for compensation or seeking to blackout the website, but just intend to obstruct the guide’s release.

It’ll be up to the judge to settle on whether RDR’s release is a justifiable fair-use claim or embrace what Rowling and her legal counsel says is a ripoff for financial achievement.

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