J.K. Rowling Extends "Olive Branch" To Potter Lexicon

When I wrote the title to this blog post, I said to myself-what a bunch of fugery-it's not real:

Ms. Rowling told the judge in Federal District Court in Manhattan that she had been misunderstood.

“I never ever once wanted to stop Mr. Vander Ark from doing his own guide — never ever,” she said as she took the stand for the second time in the three-day trial, as the last rebuttal witness. “Do your book, but please, change it so it does not take as much of my work.”

Her words were not that sincere since her attorney proceeded as usual. Apparently she just felt compelled to utter them since her opponent had been crying. Be honest, J.K., you really don't want him to publish the Lexicon.

Profiting On The "Harry Potter" Craze

J.K. Rowling goes to court:

Ms. Rowling and Warner Brothers Entertainment, which produces the Harry Potter films, are suing RDR Books, a small Michigan publisher, to stop the publication of Steven Vander Ark’s “Harry Potter Lexicon,” an encyclopedia based on Mr. Vander Ark’s popular Web site of the same name.

Ms. Rowling argued on Monday in Federal District Court in Manhattan that the proposed encyclopedia — she has read the manuscript — is a copyright infringement and is little more than an alphabetical form of plagiarism.

What she denounced as plagiarism and a waste of money, the publisher defended as literary scholarship and an invaluable tool for Harry Potter readers, similar to a Shakespeare concordance, the Encyclopedia Britannica, the dictionary and other reference books.

While I never understood the hype behind the "Harry Potter" books, I do agree with Rowling's assessment of this situation.