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Steve Vander Ark being sued over Lexicon book
If you're just here to read my fanfic, feel free to skip this rant. I am working on the latest "Scars" chapter, I promise!
So on to the rant...
When I saw this article on the Leaky Cauldron about Steve Vander Ark of the Harry Potter Lexicon being sued, along with his publisher, by Warner Bros. and JKR, I was shocked. I've never met him, but he seems like a nice guy and die-hard HP fan from his Pottercast "Canon Conundrum" segments, various interviews, and his posts on the Lexicon. Obviously no one but a fan would have put such a tremendous amount of work into building the Lexicon. And JKR has praised the Lexicon in the past, given them a fansite award, even admitted that she used it to check up on facts sometimes when she was writing.
So on to the rant...
When I saw this article on the Leaky Cauldron about Steve Vander Ark of the Harry Potter Lexicon being sued, along with his publisher, by Warner Bros. and JKR, I was shocked. I've never met him, but he seems like a nice guy and die-hard HP fan from his Pottercast "Canon Conundrum" segments, various interviews, and his posts on the Lexicon. Obviously no one but a fan would have put such a tremendous amount of work into building the Lexicon. And JKR has praised the Lexicon in the past, given them a fansite award, even admitted that she used it to check up on facts sometimes when she was writing.
Oh, and some people are saying, well, it's not JKR, it's her lawyers, and I'm sure that it is WB's lawyers who are mostly behind the lawsuit. But I'm assuming that she's supporting them, because she posted a statement on her website criticizing an unauthorized companion book that's trying to take away sales from her upcoming encyclopedia.
That's particularly shocking to me, considering that there's about a bazillion (okay, I exaggerate, but not by much) other unofficial companion guides out on the market, so why is Steve's book being targeted? In particular, I'm thinking of the "Ultimate Unofficial Guide to the Mysteries of Harry Potter" books by Galadriel Waters. They do little more than summarize the books chapter-by-chapter, with a bit of added speculation as to what will happen in future books. (Written pre-DH, obviously.)
But to say that the Lexicon book will take money away from her planned encyclopedia? Give me a break! She hasn't even started writing the damned thing yet, and we might not see it for years. Anybody who's fan enough to buy the Lexicon book is going to buy her book too when it comes out. Let us have something to enjoy in the meantime. The cynical part of me wonders whether she was going to use the Lexicon to help compile her "official" encyclopedia, and irony of ironies, it will look like she copied his book if the Lexicon comes out first.
Or, in my more paranoid moments, I wonder if this is about controlling the flow of information about the HP universe, not wanting any opinion other than hers to reach the fans. I know that fans are constantly clamoring for more information about the characters, but it seems like she's determined to take away the mystery, if you know what I mean. Like she knows that many fans like to ship Neville/Luna, but instead of leaving it open to speculation, she throws out a bone, saying that she never envisioned it before, but now she can see the two of them being compatible. Then she takes it back, saying that Luna married some guy we've never even seen, the grandson of Newt Scamander, and Neville married Hannah Abbott. Did the two of them even say one word to each other during the entire series? And she seems bound and determined to control how we view the characters, insisting that we shouldn't like Snape because he's bitter and vindictive, and insisting that we shouldn't like Draco too much, either. An author can control what's written, but he or she can't control a reader's thoughts.
Contrast this to Tamora Pierce, author of the fantasy series about Alanna, a girl who disguises herself has a boy in order to become a knight. Towards the end of the series, she has to decide whether to marry her friend Prince (and eventually King) Jonathan, or her other friend George, who was, I believe, the King of Thieves, though he eventually reformed. (It's been a long time since I read the books.) She chose George, which was a controversial decision for some fans, who had their hearts set on Jonathan. Pierce explains on her website, that if Alanna married Jonathan, she'd have to become Queen and either embarrass her husband, or become a "proper" Queen and give up the things that she loves. George loved and accepted her the way that she was, and that was why she chose him. She also said that she originally intended for Alanna to marry Jonathan, but the writing didn't go well because Alanna really wanted to marry George. ^_^ I like it when characters take on a life of their own; it's happened to me, too, in my fanfics. Anyway, Pierce sums up by saying, "That's the best explaining I can do. I don't know if readers will ever agree with me, but at least now you know why things turned out as they did." She doesn't back down from her position, but she explains why she did it, and speaks to her fans in a respectful manner. Unlike JKR, who dismisses Snape and Draco fans, saying that we only like them because the movie actors are good looking, and makes disparaging remarks about "bad boy" syndrome.
But this probably has nothing to do with the lawsuit, and I'm probably just being paranoid. Probably.
The Leaky Cauldron article also says that the lawsuit "doesn't seek action against the Web version of the Lexicon, but criticizes it for numerous sections that it said 'regurgitate Ms. Rowling's original creative expression with minimal additional commentary.'" Now that was just plain mean, and in contradiction to the praise she has given the Lexicon in the past. And besides, while much of it is simply a compilation of characters, places, spells, etc. from the book, there are numerous essays on the site as well. I especially like the ones that try to figure out where a particular place from the book is in real-life Britain, or the one that tries to figure out the timeline of events after the Potters' deaths using clues from the books. There's also an atlas of real-world places that were referenced or hinted at in the books. For example, one of the Sorting Hat's songs said that Salazar Slytherin came from the fens, and the atlas points out that there are many fens in Norfolk, although it's not stated in the books that Salazar came from Norfolk. (Btw, this came in very handy for my "Scars" fanfic story when I needed to decide where Macnair might have hidden a safe house. I don't know much about England's geography, but I wanted to choose a specific location, so I turned to the Lexicon for ideas. It seemed logical that a Death Eater might choose Salazar's birthplace as a safe haven.)
Anyhow, getting back to the lawsuit, that sort of thing seems to be at least as valid as Galadriel Water's books, in my opinion. There's also the rather cheesy but fun "Discovering the Real World of Harry Potter" dvd, although I guess they're on the safe side because they're looking more at the myths, legends, and history that might have inspired elements of the HP books, rather than using material directly from the books or movies. They also talk to a neighbor of JKR's, who claims to be the inspiration for Harry Potter. I hear that she later debunked that theory, but as far as I know, never tried to sue the producers for libel or anything. Oh, and as an added bonus, the dvd is narrated by Hugh Laurie of House.
There is a follow-up article about the lawsuit here.
Steve's publisher, RDR Books, states their position here.
I suspect that JKR and WB have the law on their side, though most of my sympathy lies with Steve at the moment. However, I'm not sure that RDR is doing him a favor by making claims "that the book is being published in part to 'make its information available to underprivileged children and those in impoverished nations, who may have no access to computers or to the World Wide Web.'" It comes off as sounding self-righteous to me, has nothing to do with the copyright issue, and besides, do impoverished children have money to buy Harry Potter books? Unless RDR is planning to donate them.
The latest response from both WB and Steve's publisher, RDR books is here.
I am a little troubled by RDR's statement that information from the Lexicon website will appear "verbatim" in the planned book, since some sections contain direct quotes from the HP books. I can't judge without actually having seen the book, of course, but I've been assuming that direct quotes would be pared down to a limited number of cited references, and that enough summarization and speculation would be added to keep the publisher on the right side of the law. I admit that I don't really know much about copyright laws, so I don't know what the proper ratio of referenced vs. original work would be needed to keep the book legal. WB does say that the other published unofficial companion books are literary criticism/analysis and therefore do not count as plagiarism, but as I mentioned above, Galadriel Water's books don't seem to have much originality beyond "maybe this will happen in the next book". (Well, the first book did have a crackpot theory that Lupin was really James Potter in disguise, which I guess was original, if not very likely.)
I'm a little surprised that RDR is taking such a combative stance, considering that WB has way more money than them, but maybe that's standard lawyer talk. I'm also wondering if it was worth RDR making an issue of WB using the Lexicon's timeline for its dvd, since they claim that that's what incited WB to sue them. (Although WB denies this.) It's hard to tell who's in the right since both sides are claiming that they were rebuffed in their efforts to work things out beforehand. I wish that both sides would back off and try to work out some sort of compromise--say, Steve adding more original analysis and taking out some of the more derivative stuff. Whether or not RDR is in right, the guys with the most money usually come out on top, so it might behoove them to take a more conciliatory approach and work out a compromise. I don't know; maybe they're really confident that they're in the right, or maybe they're afraid that if they try to compromise, it will seem like an admission of guilt. Which reminds me...
A lot of people online have been criticizing Steve for not making a statement in response to the lawsuit, but I'm figuring that RDR's lawyers probably told him not to say anything in case WB tries to use it against him later. The same sort of logic that applies when people are afraid to apologize after a fender-bender because it might be used against them as an admission of guilt in court. Which is a sad statement of our society, I guess.
Fandom seems to be pretty divided and heated on this subject. Judging by the comments on Leaky, support was about half and half for Steve and JKR at first, though it seems to be shifting in JKR's favor. Some people take a reasonable approach, stating that they love the Lexicon but JKR has a right to control the use of her copyrighted material, while others think you're automatically in the wrong if you dare to utter anything the least bit critical of JKR or the HP books. One person said, "He’s been arrogant on every pottercast and at prophecy he said mean thicngs [sic] about the last book and said she had done too many scenes to make the books movie friendly." I didn't go to Prophecy, but I listen to every Pottercast episode, and I don't recall him (or any of the other Pottercasters) ever saying anything bad about JKR. If anything, I'd say that lean towards being too uncritical of her, but I'm still a tad bitter about DH and JKR's mean-spirited remarks about Snape. ;) I guess if you don't praise her every move, that makes you the antichrist to some people.
And to be fair, some people are going to the opposite extreme, saying that JKR is just being greedy and/or trying to generate more publicity, as if she doesn't have enough of either already. Personally, I'd say that both JKR's and Steve's images seem to be taking a hit from the fans: JKR for attacking the owner of a popular fansite, and Steve for trying to "steal" JKR's work, depending on your point of view. Though of course Steve has a lot more to lose, not being a billionaire author.
I don't know who's really in the right, but I love the Lexicon website, and I've used it countless times as a reference for my fanfics and essays. I would love to have a print version of it, and it wouldn't stop me from buying JKR's encyclopedia, although her rants about Snape might. I know I said that I wanted her to leave more "mystery" in the series, but I also know that I probably wouldn't be able to resist buying it, especially if it contains more backstory about Dean Thomas and Theodore Nott. This whole lawsuit has kind of soured me on it though, and if it actually prevents the Lexicon book from being published, then I don't want to support her even if the money goes to charity. Maybe I'll just read it at the library. *sigh*
It's too bad that the lawyers ended up getting involved, and she couldn't just call Steve up and say, "Hey, can we talk this over?" I still hope that they can work out a compromise, although it doesn't sound likely. What she should have done was collaborate with him on the encyclopedia, let him organize all the facts--which he obviously does better, since she admits that she's made mistakes on things like the Weasley kids' ages--while she works on the "new" material. Although from that latest Leaky article, it seems like he proposed something similar, and she rejected the idea. Which maybe should have given him an inkling that she wouldn't approve of him writing the Lexicon book on his own, but whether she likes it or not, I still think he has as much right to write a book as any of the other unofficial guide book writers. I just hope this whole mess doesn't result in the Lexicon website being taken down.
EDIT 11/10/07: This has been cross-posted to![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
snapedom, and I'm continuing to update the situation there.
That's particularly shocking to me, considering that there's about a bazillion (okay, I exaggerate, but not by much) other unofficial companion guides out on the market, so why is Steve's book being targeted? In particular, I'm thinking of the "Ultimate Unofficial Guide to the Mysteries of Harry Potter" books by Galadriel Waters. They do little more than summarize the books chapter-by-chapter, with a bit of added speculation as to what will happen in future books. (Written pre-DH, obviously.)
The lawsuit states that: "The infringing book is particularly troubling as it is in direct contravention to Ms. Rowling's repeatedly stated intention to publish her own companion books to the series and donate proceeds of such books to charity."
Now, I would be more sympathetic if JKR said something like, "I love the Lexicon, but if I allow Steve to publish the book, it will open the door for less scrupulous people to use my work to make a quick buck." Well, she probably wouldn't say but "buck" since she's British, but you get the idea. I can understand an author needing to protect their copyright; it's the same reason why most authors will not officially sanction fanfiction of their works.But to say that the Lexicon book will take money away from her planned encyclopedia? Give me a break! She hasn't even started writing the damned thing yet, and we might not see it for years. Anybody who's fan enough to buy the Lexicon book is going to buy her book too when it comes out. Let us have something to enjoy in the meantime. The cynical part of me wonders whether she was going to use the Lexicon to help compile her "official" encyclopedia, and irony of ironies, it will look like she copied his book if the Lexicon comes out first.
Or, in my more paranoid moments, I wonder if this is about controlling the flow of information about the HP universe, not wanting any opinion other than hers to reach the fans. I know that fans are constantly clamoring for more information about the characters, but it seems like she's determined to take away the mystery, if you know what I mean. Like she knows that many fans like to ship Neville/Luna, but instead of leaving it open to speculation, she throws out a bone, saying that she never envisioned it before, but now she can see the two of them being compatible. Then she takes it back, saying that Luna married some guy we've never even seen, the grandson of Newt Scamander, and Neville married Hannah Abbott. Did the two of them even say one word to each other during the entire series? And she seems bound and determined to control how we view the characters, insisting that we shouldn't like Snape because he's bitter and vindictive, and insisting that we shouldn't like Draco too much, either. An author can control what's written, but he or she can't control a reader's thoughts.
Contrast this to Tamora Pierce, author of the fantasy series about Alanna, a girl who disguises herself has a boy in order to become a knight. Towards the end of the series, she has to decide whether to marry her friend Prince (and eventually King) Jonathan, or her other friend George, who was, I believe, the King of Thieves, though he eventually reformed. (It's been a long time since I read the books.) She chose George, which was a controversial decision for some fans, who had their hearts set on Jonathan. Pierce explains on her website, that if Alanna married Jonathan, she'd have to become Queen and either embarrass her husband, or become a "proper" Queen and give up the things that she loves. George loved and accepted her the way that she was, and that was why she chose him. She also said that she originally intended for Alanna to marry Jonathan, but the writing didn't go well because Alanna really wanted to marry George. ^_^ I like it when characters take on a life of their own; it's happened to me, too, in my fanfics. Anyway, Pierce sums up by saying, "That's the best explaining I can do. I don't know if readers will ever agree with me, but at least now you know why things turned out as they did." She doesn't back down from her position, but she explains why she did it, and speaks to her fans in a respectful manner. Unlike JKR, who dismisses Snape and Draco fans, saying that we only like them because the movie actors are good looking, and makes disparaging remarks about "bad boy" syndrome.
But this probably has nothing to do with the lawsuit, and I'm probably just being paranoid. Probably.
The Leaky Cauldron article also says that the lawsuit "doesn't seek action against the Web version of the Lexicon, but criticizes it for numerous sections that it said 'regurgitate Ms. Rowling's original creative expression with minimal additional commentary.'" Now that was just plain mean, and in contradiction to the praise she has given the Lexicon in the past. And besides, while much of it is simply a compilation of characters, places, spells, etc. from the book, there are numerous essays on the site as well. I especially like the ones that try to figure out where a particular place from the book is in real-life Britain, or the one that tries to figure out the timeline of events after the Potters' deaths using clues from the books. There's also an atlas of real-world places that were referenced or hinted at in the books. For example, one of the Sorting Hat's songs said that Salazar Slytherin came from the fens, and the atlas points out that there are many fens in Norfolk, although it's not stated in the books that Salazar came from Norfolk. (Btw, this came in very handy for my "Scars" fanfic story when I needed to decide where Macnair might have hidden a safe house. I don't know much about England's geography, but I wanted to choose a specific location, so I turned to the Lexicon for ideas. It seemed logical that a Death Eater might choose Salazar's birthplace as a safe haven.)
Anyhow, getting back to the lawsuit, that sort of thing seems to be at least as valid as Galadriel Water's books, in my opinion. There's also the rather cheesy but fun "Discovering the Real World of Harry Potter" dvd, although I guess they're on the safe side because they're looking more at the myths, legends, and history that might have inspired elements of the HP books, rather than using material directly from the books or movies. They also talk to a neighbor of JKR's, who claims to be the inspiration for Harry Potter. I hear that she later debunked that theory, but as far as I know, never tried to sue the producers for libel or anything. Oh, and as an added bonus, the dvd is narrated by Hugh Laurie of House.
There is a follow-up article about the lawsuit here.
Steve's publisher, RDR Books, states their position here.
I suspect that JKR and WB have the law on their side, though most of my sympathy lies with Steve at the moment. However, I'm not sure that RDR is doing him a favor by making claims "that the book is being published in part to 'make its information available to underprivileged children and those in impoverished nations, who may have no access to computers or to the World Wide Web.'" It comes off as sounding self-righteous to me, has nothing to do with the copyright issue, and besides, do impoverished children have money to buy Harry Potter books? Unless RDR is planning to donate them.
The latest response from both WB and Steve's publisher, RDR books is here.
I am a little troubled by RDR's statement that information from the Lexicon website will appear "verbatim" in the planned book, since some sections contain direct quotes from the HP books. I can't judge without actually having seen the book, of course, but I've been assuming that direct quotes would be pared down to a limited number of cited references, and that enough summarization and speculation would be added to keep the publisher on the right side of the law. I admit that I don't really know much about copyright laws, so I don't know what the proper ratio of referenced vs. original work would be needed to keep the book legal. WB does say that the other published unofficial companion books are literary criticism/analysis and therefore do not count as plagiarism, but as I mentioned above, Galadriel Water's books don't seem to have much originality beyond "maybe this will happen in the next book". (Well, the first book did have a crackpot theory that Lupin was really James Potter in disguise, which I guess was original, if not very likely.)
I'm a little surprised that RDR is taking such a combative stance, considering that WB has way more money than them, but maybe that's standard lawyer talk. I'm also wondering if it was worth RDR making an issue of WB using the Lexicon's timeline for its dvd, since they claim that that's what incited WB to sue them. (Although WB denies this.) It's hard to tell who's in the right since both sides are claiming that they were rebuffed in their efforts to work things out beforehand. I wish that both sides would back off and try to work out some sort of compromise--say, Steve adding more original analysis and taking out some of the more derivative stuff. Whether or not RDR is in right, the guys with the most money usually come out on top, so it might behoove them to take a more conciliatory approach and work out a compromise. I don't know; maybe they're really confident that they're in the right, or maybe they're afraid that if they try to compromise, it will seem like an admission of guilt. Which reminds me...
A lot of people online have been criticizing Steve for not making a statement in response to the lawsuit, but I'm figuring that RDR's lawyers probably told him not to say anything in case WB tries to use it against him later. The same sort of logic that applies when people are afraid to apologize after a fender-bender because it might be used against them as an admission of guilt in court. Which is a sad statement of our society, I guess.
Fandom seems to be pretty divided and heated on this subject. Judging by the comments on Leaky, support was about half and half for Steve and JKR at first, though it seems to be shifting in JKR's favor. Some people take a reasonable approach, stating that they love the Lexicon but JKR has a right to control the use of her copyrighted material, while others think you're automatically in the wrong if you dare to utter anything the least bit critical of JKR or the HP books. One person said, "He’s been arrogant on every pottercast and at prophecy he said mean thicngs [sic] about the last book and said she had done too many scenes to make the books movie friendly." I didn't go to Prophecy, but I listen to every Pottercast episode, and I don't recall him (or any of the other Pottercasters) ever saying anything bad about JKR. If anything, I'd say that lean towards being too uncritical of her, but I'm still a tad bitter about DH and JKR's mean-spirited remarks about Snape. ;) I guess if you don't praise her every move, that makes you the antichrist to some people.
And to be fair, some people are going to the opposite extreme, saying that JKR is just being greedy and/or trying to generate more publicity, as if she doesn't have enough of either already. Personally, I'd say that both JKR's and Steve's images seem to be taking a hit from the fans: JKR for attacking the owner of a popular fansite, and Steve for trying to "steal" JKR's work, depending on your point of view. Though of course Steve has a lot more to lose, not being a billionaire author.
I don't know who's really in the right, but I love the Lexicon website, and I've used it countless times as a reference for my fanfics and essays. I would love to have a print version of it, and it wouldn't stop me from buying JKR's encyclopedia, although her rants about Snape might. I know I said that I wanted her to leave more "mystery" in the series, but I also know that I probably wouldn't be able to resist buying it, especially if it contains more backstory about Dean Thomas and Theodore Nott. This whole lawsuit has kind of soured me on it though, and if it actually prevents the Lexicon book from being published, then I don't want to support her even if the money goes to charity. Maybe I'll just read it at the library. *sigh*
It's too bad that the lawyers ended up getting involved, and she couldn't just call Steve up and say, "Hey, can we talk this over?" I still hope that they can work out a compromise, although it doesn't sound likely. What she should have done was collaborate with him on the encyclopedia, let him organize all the facts--which he obviously does better, since she admits that she's made mistakes on things like the Weasley kids' ages--while she works on the "new" material. Although from that latest Leaky article, it seems like he proposed something similar, and she rejected the idea. Which maybe should have given him an inkling that she wouldn't approve of him writing the Lexicon book on his own, but whether she likes it or not, I still think he has as much right to write a book as any of the other unofficial guide book writers. I just hope this whole mess doesn't result in the Lexicon website being taken down.
EDIT 11/10/07: This has been cross-posted to
snapedom, and I'm continuing to update the situation there.