If you haven't heard about this, there is a fair use trial going on in New York over a copyright infringement lawsuit. Warner Brothers Entertainment, Inc. and Harry Potter author and multi-gazillionaire J. K. Rowling are suing poor but valiant Roger Rapoport, owner of tiny RDR Books.

Roger wants to publish The Harry Potter Lexicon by Steven Vander Ark, who is a huge Harry Potter fan with his own web site.

Ms. Rowling and Warner say: I don't think so. Unless Rowling does it herself, and she said she's working on her own version of a Harry Potter encyclopedia.

The oddest moment in the trail occured when the judge said the Harry Potter books are filled with strange words that would be gibberish in any other context.

That is not a direct quote, but I read it on the Internet, so it must be true.

"I found it extremely complex," the judge said, after reading some of the first Harry Potter book out loud to his grandchildren.

The issue comes down to who, if anyone, owns the words that Rowling wrote. Is it OK to use one of them? A lot of them? Exactly how many are OK? Is it lawful for another writer to compile a book that uses Harry Potter quotes to explain Harry Potter? Just how powerful is a copyright, anyway?

No one would argue against someone publishing a lexicon on the works of Shakespeare, because the Shake is no longer protected by copyright, if he ever was, and he's not alive to complain, anyway. No one would argue against a book of literary criticism that took Harry Potter as its theme and quoted from the books.

So what is the difference here?

Rowling said in court "I am vehemently anti-censorship" but also said Vander Ark had "plundered" her prose.

By contrast, Judge Patterson suggested there was genuine worth in an encyclopedia like The Harry Potter Lexicon.

In a statement Warner Entertainment and Rowling said, "...the Lexicon takes an enormous amount of Ms. Rowling's work and adds virtually no original commentary of its own. As we've said in court, it takes too much and adds too little. Authors have a duty to prevent the exploitation of their works by people who contribute nothing original, creative or interpretive."

I personally know and personally like Roger Rapoport, and happily admit to bias in this case. After the three-day trial concluded with the verdict due later, Roger wrote me a nice letter.

He said that the trial "was held on three perfectly beautiful spring days and except for his testimony and an opportunity to listen to closing arguments, author Steve Vander Ark heard none of it. He was sequestered in a small room with a great view of lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge.

"The entire matter was an English student's dream with long discussions of classic and modern literature. The entire spectrum of reference works was examined intensely by experts. UC Berkeley and Oxford U. experts on literary reference presented sharply contrasting views on the value of the Lexicon.

"A personal highlight for me was being chased by half a dozen cameramen from papers and TV stations until one of them called off the press posse with the words, 'That's not him, he's just the publisher.'"

Aired Sunday April 20, 2008 at 10:55 am and Wednesday April 23, 2008 at 1:00 pm

NOTES:

An editorial in the London Times online titled "Words Worth: J.K. Rowling may own Harry's world, but we own her words now" http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article3746609.ece

The Boston Globe writes "Even Harry Potter's wizardry may not prevail in Manhattan's Federal District Court: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2008/04/16/harry_potters_lawyer/#

The Wall Street Journal law blog on the trial: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/04/15/harry-potter-lexicon-author-breaks-down-on-the-stand/?mod=WSJBlog

Home page for RDR Books and Roger Rapoport: http://rdrbooks.com/

Home page for Steven Vander Ark and the Lexicon http://www.hp-lexicon.org/help/lexicon.html

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