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A potty Potter-right copyright case
By Steven | January 11, 2008
Good grief. JK Rowling is joining the Idiot Copyright Lawsuit club, suing the folk who want to publish in book form the material on website the Harry Potter Lexicon. (She’s happy with the website). The book would be a sort of encyclopaedia of Potterworld. The sort of encyclopaedia, in fact, that she would like to write herself. But unless it’s going to grab great big chunks of text from her books, or claim some sort of official authorisation that it doesn’t have, there’s nothing illegal about this. You don’t have copyright you can assert against other people discussing your work. At least, you don’t in the Muggle world. In fact, as Tim Wu explains on Slate, Rowling’s threats make her sound “entirely too much like a Death Eater”. She has obtained an injunction for now. Let’s hope the federal courts give her the old avra cadavra.
Topics: Copyright, General | Comments Off on A potty Potter-right copyright case