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More on the Lexicon trial...and Neil Gaiman rocks!
I found this entry on Neil Gaiman's blog via this news post on The Leaky Cauldron. He's weighing in with his opinion on the trial: My main reaction is, having read as much as I can about it, given the copyright grey zone it seems to exist in, is a "Well, if it was me, I'd probably be flattered", but that obviously isn't how J.K. Rowling feels.
He goes on to say that he's never tried to stop publication of any unauthorized books about himself or his works, even those he doesn't like, and that he tends to weigh in on the side of the unauthorized books, since he's authored two himself. One, believe it or not, is an unauthorized Duran Duran biography written (obviously) before he got famous. The other is a collection of bad quotes from sci fic movies called "Ghastly Beyond Belief".
He also points out that "Most commentary on the internet seems to break down into people picking sides based on personalities and opinions"--too true! That's exactly what's been driving me crazy about this case: all the "You are not a true fan if you do not support Jo" on one side vs. the "JKR is a greedy bitch" accusations from the other. It's supposed to be about the facts and the law, which are none too clear in this case, as Neil again points out: As with most grey areas of law, it isn't cut and dried, and even when an appeals court-sized decision is handed down, it probably won't become cut and dried, because "Fair Use" is one of those things, like pornography, we are meant to know when we see them.
Thank Merlin for a reasonable, level-headed opinion on this very emotional topic! Of course, it's probably easier for him to be level-headed about it, since I don't think that he's a big Potter fan. But in general, he comes across as a really cool and easy-going guy. I'm not surprised that his sympathies tend more towards the liberal end of fair use, since he is a strong proponent of free speech, and a staunch supporter of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. I have a video presented by said entity, titled "Neil Gaiman: Notes from the Underground". In it, he said that people sometimes ask him why does he care about the First Amendment when he's not American, and he says that's precisely why he cares so much, because British law does not guarantee the same rights to free speech that US law does, and that when you have such rights, they are something to be treasured. (I'm paraphrasing, since I don't remember his exact words, but that's the gist of it.)
Interestingly enough, he did get embroiled himself in a minor Potter scandal in the past. In the blog post that I mentioned, he talks about how it was falsely reported that he accused JKR of plagiarizing his "Books of Magic" comic book series, and that WB paid him off to shut him up. ("Books of Magic" is about a teenage boy who discovers that he's a wizard, oh, and by the way, he wears glasses and there are owls that carry messages. It was published before the HP series came out. It's a very good story, though a little darker in tone than HP.) His response was that JKR probably never even read his story and that he was hardly the first one to write about a young magician, either, and that's it not so much about the ideas themselves as what you do with them. He also clarifies that he doesn't even own the "Books of Magic"; the rights belong to the publisher, DC Comics, which in turn is owned by Time-Warner.
I really must check out his website further: there are many interesting blog posts, short stories, audio and video downloads, and much more.
Moving on to non-Neil Gaiman news...for those who want to slog through the complete trial transcripts, Leaky has posted a link here. I don't think I have the heart to read through them in their entirety. Mugglecast's latest episode is devoted entirely to the trial, and I don't think I have the heart to listen to an hour and a half of that, either, knowing that a lot of it will probably be "Go Jo!" I did notice, however, that comments have been disabled on several of the Mugglenet news posts, including the one that had the death threats I mentioned in my earlier post, so maybe they did pay attention to the e-mail I sent them, after all. I had gotten no response and seen no follow-up for several days, so I was a little peeved that they didn't seem to be taking the matter seriously.
EDIT 4/24/08: Oops! I said that Neil wrote an "authorized" Duran Duran bio; obviously that should be "unauthorized," and I've made the correction.
ETA again 4/24/08: a commenter on my IJ post said that Mugglecast's trial podcasts were reported to be more even-handed than Pottercast's, although not perfect. And after I thought it over, I decided it wasn't fair to make a judgement about it without having listened to it myself, anyway. All the hosts stated that they were supporting JKR, but one of them, Eric, made a very good effort to be fair and objective and try to examine the issues from both sides; the others, not so much. Micah obviously felt very passionate about the matter, and you could tell from his voice that he was barely holding back his anger against Steve at times. However, the conversation was mostly civil; I think Andrew did start to poke a little fun at Steve, and I believe it was Eric who jumped in and said that they shouldn't mock Steve, and Andrew quickly agreed.
As I said, Eric did try to be fair--he pointed out that there is some creative material on the Lexicon, such as the floor plans Steve created for Grimmauld Place based on the description in OotP. However, Micah and Laura claim that there is no such creative material in the book (as opposed to the website), and were quite adamant about it, and I was a bit confused by their certainty. Not sure if they're just going along with WB's claims, or if there was something in the full court transcripts confirming that the book is simply a dictionary list of spells, people, etc. He also said that he felt sorry for Steve, who is such a big Harry Potter fan and now is being attacked by the fandom. Micah said that he wants to feel sorry for Steve but can't, and says he brought it upon himself.
They did bring up at the beginning of the podcast that emotions have been brought into the trial, but the case has to be judged on the facts and not those emotions. However, later Micah stated that he couldn't understand how Steve, as a Harry Potter fan, could have gone ahead with the book without taking into consideration JKR's "feelings". So obviously they are having a little trouble separating the two themselves. And they brought up JKR's accusations that the Lexicon is sloppy and full of errors, without pointing out the inherent contradiction that JKR once used the website for fact-checking.
However, I do give them credit for at least acknowledging that they don't want to piss off WB, whereas Leaky/Pottercast has expressed indignation at accusations that they're siding against Steve to make nice with WB/JKR.
So it's a somewhat mixed bag. I think they tried to be fair, but their own biases obviously showed through. It was meant to be more of a discussion, I think, than objective reporting, though, so everyone has the right to express their own opinions, as I am doing in my journal posts. I do think it would have been good if they had included one actual Lexicon supporter on the panel just to give a true POV from both sides. I did send in a polite response to their points, so I'll see if they address any of those in a later episode. But I'm not sorry that I listened to the podcast, and I will check out the HP Prognostications podcasts that Venturous1 suggested.
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tis muddy water, and when fans choose sides vehemently, I find it painful. I stumbled upon some Steve VanderArk bashing on an unrelated comments thread yesterday and experienced some rage of my own! :p
I listened to the podcast HP Prognostications and they actually had a calm and unbiased intelligent discussion about the case. http://www.hpprogs.com/
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