I'm not convinced Vander Ark was playing for sympathy, but then both Vander Ark and Rowling are, in my opinion, a bit tipped.
I'm not really interested in reading a fan site's redaction of what Rowling sez, because Rowling flat out threatened her OCD fanbase on the stand that she wouldn't write more about Harry Potter if the owners of the copyrights on her other books lost their case. But I'm biased. No matter whether she gives the money to charity, I'm not impressed with what the Fan Sites have reported as Rowling's statements.
The Fan sites also are all up in arms about the "gibberish" thing, which cracks me up; it seems to me that if she can explain that only she could sort out the gibberish (the gibberish, after all, being the majority of the originality in the books-- that's why it's so easy for me to find Miss B. both newer and older books of magical school fantasy to feed the habit created by Harry Potter)
I just don't buy the idea that ALL the Obsessed Fans won't rush right out and buy the bloody Encyclopedia if she writes it, and that librarians all over the world won't have to buy the thing even if it's as unreadable as Joyce's Ulysses. Of course, if she does a crappy job on the Encyclopedia, and someone else does a better one, her publishers (the only ones who will make money on the thing, if she sends her royalties to charity) may have trouble selling it for the next hundred years.
But I think we all agree that Vander Ark's publication isn't going to be the better version. No matter what happens now, there's every indication that any reference work about the Potterisms is going to require major indemnities on the part of anyone who isn't one of the Publishers who currently hold the copyrights. (You do have to wonder, for instance, if the US publishers win and Rowling's UK publishers get tired of waiting for Rowling to get on with making an encyclopedia -- assuming she ever does-- and come up with something by one of their tame writers, assuming the UK copyright law also gives them as copyright owners the right to prepare derivative works... you have to wonder how much it will cost Rowling's US publishers to be able to print that too...)
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Plagiarism vs. copyright infringement
Date: 2008-04-20 11:24 pm (UTC)I'm not really interested in reading a fan site's redaction of what Rowling sez, because Rowling flat out threatened her OCD fanbase on the stand that she wouldn't write more about Harry Potter if the owners of the copyrights on her other books lost their case. But I'm biased. No matter whether she gives the money to charity, I'm not impressed with what the Fan Sites have reported as Rowling's statements.
The Fan sites also are all up in arms about the "gibberish" thing, which cracks me up; it seems to me that if she can explain that only she could sort out the gibberish (the gibberish, after all, being the majority of the originality in the books-- that's why it's so easy for me to find Miss B. both newer and older books of magical school fantasy to feed the habit created by Harry Potter)
I just don't buy the idea that ALL the Obsessed Fans won't rush right out and buy the bloody Encyclopedia if she writes it, and that librarians all over the world won't have to buy the thing even if it's as unreadable as Joyce's Ulysses. Of course, if she does a crappy job on the Encyclopedia, and someone else does a better one, her publishers (the only ones who will make money on the thing, if she sends her royalties to charity) may have trouble selling it for the next hundred years.
But I think we all agree that Vander Ark's publication isn't going to be the better version. No matter what happens now, there's every indication that any reference work about the Potterisms is going to require major indemnities on the part of anyone who isn't one of the Publishers who currently hold the copyrights. (You do have to wonder, for instance, if the US publishers win and Rowling's UK publishers get tired of waiting for Rowling to get on with making an encyclopedia -- assuming she ever does-- and come up with something by one of their tame writers, assuming the UK copyright law also gives them as copyright owners the right to prepare derivative works... you have to wonder how much it will cost Rowling's US publishers to be able to print that too...)