In retrospect, it appears that a claim by J.K. Rowlings that she won a court battle last year over Harry Potter copyright issues, may have been a trumped-up spin on the actual court ruling to save face for the author.
A case in point.
Last year, J.K. Rowlings filed a lawsuit against a young writer in a bold-faced effort to block his efforts to publish a useful tool to enlighten fans about terminology used in the Harry Potter fiction materials.
In the contentious court battle that followed, a myriad of intriguing aspects of law came to light.
For example, lawyers for Ms. Rowlings argued strenuously that the "Lexicon" crafted by Steven Vander Ark violated copyright laws and that - in sum - Vander Ark was seeking to obtain ill-gotten financial gains by virtue of the fruits of Ms. Rowlings creative labor.
In response, Vander Ark - a mild-mannered librarian - broke down on the witness stand under the stress of the allegations.
According to his testimony, he was not seeking to "steal" any material from Ms. Rowling - or claim any of the original fiction materials - as his own.
In sum, he stressed for the record that he merely drummed up the idea in a good-faith effort to publish a sort-of encylopedia of words and phrases, so that fans of the popular best-selling series could better understand the fiction materials onscreen and off.
During that trial, I penned a post on the maneuverings that went down in court.
Post:
http://ijulian.blogspot.com/2008/04/jk-rowlingsbig-meanie-with-big-bucks.html
Shortly after that first round of legal tit-for-tat, it was announced that Rowlings had prevailed in the action.
Curiously, in a sort-of footnote, it was noted that an "agreement" had been reached between the two parties.
Huh?
Just this past week, the obvious conflict resolved itself in my eyes, when Steven Vander Ark announced that RDR Books will publish his unauthorized guide to the Harry Potter fiction series and other related materials.
At that press conference, Vander Ark and the publishers noted that the revised manuscript met with the guidelines of the court set forth in the prior litigation.
Ha!
Obviously, in order to "settle" the suit, both parties agreed to specific terms.
J.K. Rowlings would claim victory in respect to the basic copyright issue, while Mr. Vander Ark would be free to publish his own "Lexicon" on Harry Potter materials provided the manuscript fell within the guidelines set by the Judge.
Personally, I am looking forward to Vander Ark's encyclopedia so I'll be able to fathom a lot of that troublesome - but intriguing - gobbley-gook spounting from the mouths of the Potter characters ad nauseam!
Juicy gossip on Daniel Radcliffe: http://www.julianayrs.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment