Author Topic: Rowling: bigger drama queen than legions of fanfic followers  (Read 3438 times)

Offline jcompton

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Rowling: bigger drama queen than legions of fanfic followers
« on: April 14, 2008, 03:32:32 PM »
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080414/en_nm/harrypotter_lawsuit_dc_8

"An emotional J.K. Rowling said on Monday she had stopped working on a new novel because her creativity was stifled by a fan's bid to print an unofficial encyclopedic companion to her Harry Potter series."
...
"The author, who wrote seven novels about the boy wizard, said the stress has 'decimated my creative work over the past month.'"
...
"But she told U.S. District Court Judge Robert Patterson that she was now not sure if she had 'the will or the heart' to publish her own encyclopedia and that if she did, 'I would rather lock it away; it's associated with stress.'"


Give me a freaking break.

I'm not even sure how to judge the legal merits of a book-about-other-books, although certainly there is a long, long tradition of literary criticism and analysis. I kinda doubt this would be sold as a scholarly text, but that's not even the point. The point is that this easily is the most shrill and ridiculous carping I've heard in a long time. Even as a (doubtless coached and premeditated) piece of acting in the theater of a courtroom... man.
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Offline devSin

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Re: Rowling: bigger drama queen than legions of fanfic followers
« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2008, 03:41:26 PM »
If she wins, I'm going to have to lock away my 99¢ Kelsey Codex, aren't I?

But yeah. Total douche.

Offline the bigg

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Re: Rowling: bigger drama queen than legions of fanfic followers
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2008, 03:50:29 PM »
You don't get to be the richest woman in the UK (or the most downloaded mod author somewhere else) without being a douchebag cry-boy.

See also: everybody in the music/film industry.
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Offline Kulyok

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Re: Rowling: bigger drama queen than legions of fanfic followers
« Reply #3 on: April 15, 2008, 01:19:26 AM »
It's not about the money. It is all about control. She doesn't care if Mugglenet makes six-digit profits, that "What will happen in HP7?" became NYT's #2 bestseller, or that The Leaky Cauldron's admin bought an apartment in New York with the money that the site made. But she cares that someone would take attention from HER encyclopedia.

I understand the desire to have one's world in one's hands, as it were, but my sympathy is on RDR's side, because they're not publishing _fiction_ about Harry Potter - they are publishing commentary. And as to her reaction - what Jason said.

(As to her encyclopedia, maybe it's for the best if she does not publish it. A book which tells us who marries who, who has how many children and who sleeps with what gender? Sorry, not interested.)

An interesting question, by the way: what if we published a commentary on Salvatore's books? Or an encyclopedia on Faerun? Where would we stand then, in terms of copyright infringement?

Offline the bigg

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Re: Rowling: bigger drama queen than legions of fanfic followers
« Reply #4 on: April 15, 2008, 06:46:42 AM »
Copyright is not an issue if you don't copy (large?) portions of text. The problem is trademark: you can't use Harry Potter or Drizzt without authorization, except for cases of use A B and C (certainly not in the title - so Unofficial Encyclopedia of Drizzt will have issues, Unofficial Encyclopedia of Good Dark Elves has sligthly better chances).

Also, these guys have so much money that, even if you're technically right, they can just sue you until you're out of money to pay for attorney fees and thus forced to give up your struggle. Rowling in particular has more money than the frigging Queen of the UK.
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Offline Pigeon

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Re: Rowling: bigger drama queen than legions of fanfic followers
« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2008, 12:54:26 PM »
Hello I do not follow Harry Potter or this matter at all but here is my commentary!!

This issue is sort of involved and complicated.

Offline jastey

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Re: Rowling: bigger drama queen than legions of fanfic followers
« Reply #6 on: April 15, 2008, 01:10:48 PM »
What exactly is an "encyclopedic companion"?

Offline devSin

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Re: Rowling: bigger drama queen than legions of fanfic followers
« Reply #7 on: April 15, 2008, 01:41:06 PM »
This issue is sort of involved and complicated.
Fair use is not terribly complicated.

What exactly is an "encyclopedic companion"?
An encyclopedia of dubious authenticity detailing the fictional works as presented in the books (i.e., wikipedia). Harry Potter ate this and some other douche said that and another turd did this that one time -- details on the characters, places, and events (pretty clearly transformative and allowed under current copyright law unless this yeast infection gets her way).

Offline theacefes

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Re: Rowling: bigger drama queen than legions of fanfic followers
« Reply #8 on: April 15, 2008, 04:28:22 PM »
rotf re: yeast infection, devSin. :)

I don't know...Rowling may be acting on the oddball side (again) this time, but her crazy followers still frighten me.
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Offline gertjanvh

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Re: Rowling: bigger drama queen than legions of fanfic followers
« Reply #9 on: April 16, 2008, 06:56:48 AM »
A multi-billion income would probably do that to anyone of us :)

Offline Bookwyrme

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Re: Rowling: bigger drama queen than legions of fanfic followers
« Reply #10 on: April 16, 2008, 06:26:14 PM »
A multi-billion income would probably do that to anyone of us :)

I'd be willing to try the experiment.
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Offline Blayze

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Re: Rowling: bigger drama queen than legions of fanfic followers
« Reply #11 on: June 03, 2008, 02:54:58 PM »
Quote
"An emotional J.K. Rowling said on Monday she had stopped working on a new novel because her creativity was stifled by a fan's bid to print an unofficial encyclopedic companion to her Harry Potter series."

I've seen this type of reaction before. Back when I was a child, teachers would try and guilt trip us into doing everything they said. With one specific teacher, I remember an incident where one kid said or did something that the teacher didn't like. Her response?

"I *was* going to give out sweets, but I'm not going to any more!"

That was what she said. This is what she meant:

"I'm going to pretend I was going to do something nice for you all until that child ruined it for everybody else! Blame him! Blame him! Blame him!"

While I have no doubt that Rowling actually did intend to churn out more meaningless words, she's playing the victim card here and needs to be punched in the face and told to stop being such a whining tool.
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