The Cauldron

So I guess this guy who owns a Harry Potter fan site on the internet is going to go ahead and publish all of his HP web material into some kind of unofficial Harry Potter Encyclopedia.  And well, J.K. Rowling is taking him (and his publisher) to court to try and stop it (article here).

Apparently, (unbeknownst to me) in the U.S. you can actually use other people’s intellectual property in a published form if that work is solely in the context of reference material or a guide (or something like that).

Now that I think about, no wonder when you go to the book store you see all those “unauthorized” bios and guides about various famous things and subjects.  I mean no way all those people got permission to write all that stuff.     

Anyway, what do you guys think of that?  Should the guy be able to publish his own Harry Potter Encyclopedia against J.K. Rowling’s wishes?

I can totally understand where J.K. Rowling is coming from, because she plans to make her own Harry Potter Encyclopedia and no doubt this unauthorized version will draw attention (and money) away from her version from all those HP fans that simply cannot wait for the official version to come out.

I understand “fair use” and all, but IMO this just seems wrong for some reason; IMO anything HP should belong to J.K.

So I guess someone could do the same thing with SoA too.

From what little I know about the case, she had (and still has) no problem with the online Lexicon, and actually used it in a pinch (along with her editors) on at least one occasion for cross-referencing material when she was completing the series.

The break occured when the owner of the Lexicon went against previously documented statements which he himself made regarding intellectual property rights - he previously maintained that he wouldn't come out with a published book (when asked) because it would violate her rights.  He also has copyrighted information contained in the Lexicon to himself, when a lot of the information was compiled and contributed by a number of un-named individuals in addition to the material that belongs to JK Rowling and Warner Brothers.

Another point of contention is what defines the parameters of the "Fair Use" clause, which enables scholarly discourse.  An academic career is often made or broken by the "publish or perish" premise, and the lawyers are arguing the case primarily upon the Lexicon being a scholarly resource - due partly to the "writer" having been employed as both a teacher and school librarian. 

Personally, I feel that JK Rowling should maintain the rights to her work in any form, but there is the added complication that Harry Potter has become a common household name, and has taken on numerous lives of its own in the imaginations of millions of people around the world.  Where does one draw the line on the imagination, especially when it comes to children's literature?    Though not truly and exclusively "children's" stories, the Brothers Grimm essentially did the same thing by compiling various folk tales, tweaking them and putting out the collection in their own name - yet they remain a celebrated and cherished (albeit frightening!) gateway into our shared ancestral heritage.  Walt Disney then took a bunch of these platforms to create his own castles...the company even setting their own stamp on the association by calling them Disney Princesses!

It is a hotly contested case, and one that is sure to set precedent for defining IP rights in the future. 

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"No, they're not real, but thanks for noticing"! WoW Dwarf Female /silly
Avatar by Krinsel

Krinsel wrote:

...but there is the added complication that Harry Potter has become a common household name, and has taken on numerous lives of its own in the imaginations of millions of people around the world.

No kidding; even my mom knows about Harry Potter and she's ol...  *coughs*  my mom.  LOL.  She has never read a HP book, but she LOVES the movies.  The weird thing is she doesn't like the Harry Potter character; she likes Ron Weasley.  LOL.


Anyway, so besides that Harry Potter Lexicon that J.K. Rowling is going to write (see above posts) I wonder what is next for Harry Potter.  Will the Harry Potter franchise have staying power?  I mean I know there are two more movies to go, but after that it is pretty much over right?  I mean look at it now; buzz wise; HP is pretty much dead.

It cannot be like Star Wars, because George Lucas continued the series after a fifteen year hiatus, and in between he allowed other authors to continue the lore that happened after Return of the Jedi.  And of course, with each next generation of consoles there were all those Star Wars games to keep people interested in the series throughout the absence of actual films.  

I don’t think J.K. Rowling will let others handle HP.  Or will she?  Will there be a…  “Hogwarts: The Next Generation,” in which we follow a new class of wizards through the eyes of alternate authors?  I doubt it.  And well; HP doesn’t lend itself to gaming all that well, so it can't continue to live on in that medium.

And it can’t even be like the Lord of the Rings because it took Peter Jackson’s films to bring that celebrated franchise back, but Harry Potter will have already made all of its films in a few years' time.

Hmmm…  I think Harry Potter will be a decade long phenomenon and then quietly slip into the annals of pop culture history.

Well, there is the theme park that is scheduled to open (in 2009) at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida. 

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"No, they're not real, but thanks for noticing"! WoW Dwarf Female /silly
Avatar by Krinsel

*Jaw drops* No way! OMG! We will have to take a trip there. Lord knows when we'll be able to, but I really, really want to see it.

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Avie pic by me.
Elwood: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.
Jake: Hit it. ~ The Blues Brothers (1980)

Mri Nuin, I don't know what the heck happened, but I was making a few corrections in your post. I don't know what I did but it kept putting all this code in the post with it, so I deleted the whole post. Sorry 'bout that! You may want to repost here.

BTW, you might want to check out the Google toolbar. It is free and comes with a spell check option. I've used it for a long time now, until the new release of Firefox. It hasn't been working correctly for me since then but Firefox has its own spell check.

I usually stick with that too, but this time I had Word already opened so I copied and pasted it back and forth. I even used the "Remove Formatting" button but it still didn't work. IDK... It was weird.

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Avie pic by me.
Elwood: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.
Jake: Hit it. ~ The Blues Brothers (1980)

That’s what I did Val'. I always use my Word to take what I already wrote from my post, paste it in there to check it, than paste it back into the post so everything is correct. I would had sworn I did that for the last post... Hmm.

Anyway, yes! Harry Potter ride, I'm only an hour away from it... Hehe.

So what was the outcome of the Harry Potter trial? And I'm with Sam I Am, I think the HP craze will eventually die, just like the disco craze did. That's pretty much what I said in that post Val'.

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"Fire-child, star-child, what is kel? Sword-bearers, song-weavers, that is kel."
-The Faded Sun trilogy by C.J.Cherryh.
My Avatar is my cat, Niun.
*Keeper of The Dictionary of All Symphony of Ages Knowledge & The Ven Polypheme Dictionary Guide.*

I don't even know where the HP hype came from...I am still scratching my head over that one.

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"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."
~Edgar Allan Poe
"Darest thou now O Soul, Walk out with me toward the unknown region, Where neither ground is for feet Nor any path to follow."
~Walt Whitman
~Avatar made by Me, madhatter.

I agree madhatter. I enjoy Harry Potter, but I don't understand what makes it so much better then all the other books out there that it gets five movies (so far) and a theme park along with all every imaginable product made from the books.

Perhaps madhatter and Nymeria, it is so popular and the books so attractive to teenagers, children alike, (whom don't normally read) pick-up the series and find something that they can refer to. Harry Potter takes your ordinary world and creates a mysterious, new universe within it that is so appealing, especially with the elements of Harry being an only child, lost his parents and never knew them, and is fighting against an evil with magical elements and lovable characters.

Of course, this is just me, but I think Harry Potter is a slight step-down compared to other books we love (such as our beloved Symphony of Ages series and The Lord of the Rings, etc, which are more serious, realistic works of fiction). While Harry Potter is a new breathe to readers, not particularly in the fantasy (romance) genre, but in a whole new level and special genre. Its something new, not your typical little person or "not what you expected heroin," traveling on an adventure to stop the evil sorcerer from taking over the world which is the main staple of almost every fantasy series. Yes, HP does contain that, but it has the background boost of children attending a magical school that seems to sap all the children into reading it like a horrific cyclone.

Too bad we don’t have a fanatical HP Fan here that can perhaps explain. But while Symphony of Ages is just as good, or even better than the Harry Potter series, SOA doesn't have the franchise boost it needs, even though it is a World Wide Bestseller series. Maybe once the HP craze is over, and the Inheritance craze dies down as well, SOA might be noticed by many more fans as an awesome series and will be developed into the movie we heard about from EH. I just hope that maybe the Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme might be just as popular as the HP books someday and that will help the SOA series gain that.

Okay, I'll stop babbling now.

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"Fire-child, star-child, what is kel? Sword-bearers, song-weavers, that is kel."
-The Faded Sun trilogy by C.J.Cherryh.
My Avatar is my cat, Niun.
*Keeper of The Dictionary of All Symphony of Ages Knowledge & The Ven Polypheme Dictionary Guide.*

Harry Potter books are great.

Honest to goodness, I read purely for my own enjoyment, unless it is for school. I hate to say it, but some of the "classics" are just plain too much work for me. Perhaps I am lazy...so be it, but I read what grabs my attention and imagination. All of the Harry Potter books did both, as compared to The Scarlet Letter, which I suffered through one whole chapter of, before I said "to heck with it" and decided to be uncultured.

Now, that isn't to say that I don't appreciate a well written story. But if I have to spend 3 hours just trying to figure out what is being said, that isn't enjoyable reading to me. That's work. As I said, I realize I may be lazy, but this is just my opinion. And I figure I am not doing to badly, since I've met all the folks here who also love SoA. It gives me hope that I'm not too uncultured.

All joking aside, I really look forward to seeing what else Rowling writes. She has a fan in me.

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Avie pic by me.
Elwood: It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.
Jake: Hit it. ~ The Blues Brothers (1980)

Don't get me wrong...I love the Harry Potter books. But I don't see how it became so popular. I read the first three before they were well known. Suddenly they were an international bestseller? It seems like it happened overnight, that's all.

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"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."
~Edgar Allan Poe
"Darest thou now O Soul, Walk out with me toward the unknown region, Where neither ground is for feet Nor any path to follow."
~Walt Whitman
~Avatar made by Me, madhatter.

I remember the same thing, madhatter. It was weird. Maybe because the first three books weren't as deep as The Prisoner of Azkaban?

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"Fire-child, star-child, what is kel? Sword-bearers, song-weavers, that is kel."
-The Faded Sun trilogy by C.J.Cherryh.
My Avatar is my cat, Niun.
*Keeper of The Dictionary of All Symphony of Ages Knowledge & The Ven Polypheme Dictionary Guide.*

I really, really, like Harry Potter.  I started the first one by reading it to my then kindergarten-aged oldest, and was very much taken in by the story.

Part of it I think was the way it spoke to kids and didn't speak down to them, much like what EH is doing in the Ven series.  Kids pick up on writing that they can understand - yet is enjoyable to a broader age group...you can't classify HP as "kiddie lit" because the context goes much deeper than what appears on the surface.  With each book, JK Rowling matured as a writer, just as Harry was maturing into himself. 

Another thing that my daughters learned with HP is that they were given incredible "AR" (Accellerated Reader) points for each book completed with a passing reading comprehension test.  I think Goblet of Fire was worth more than 40 points when they read it towards their AR yearly goals...and if your annual goal was 50 points, one book satisfied most of that benchmark.

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"No, they're not real, but thanks for noticing"! WoW Dwarf Female /silly
Avatar by Krinsel

MN, Prisoner of Azkaban was one of the first three. No, I think the quality and the depth of the first three is on par with the rest of the books.

I can definitely see what you're saying, K, at least about the not-talking down to the kids, in hindsight. I didn't see it that way when I first read them, but then I was only a kid myself.

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"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."
~Edgar Allan Poe
"Darest thou now O Soul, Walk out with me toward the unknown region, Where neither ground is for feet Nor any path to follow."
~Walt Whitman
~Avatar made by Me, madhatter.

I enjoyed the Harry Potter books; it’s just that I have read other books that I think are much better. The only advantage I think the Harry Potter books have is that both Kids and Adults can enjoy them on many different levels. But there are other books out there that have the same depth.

I just think building a theme park off the book is going a bit far. That’s not to say I am not planning to go the first year it’s open. Who doesn’t need an excuse to go to Florida?