This just in: Super rich author J.K. Rowling, creator of my much-loved Harry Potter, has just gotten richer! Even as I am typing this post, her wealth will grow. When you are so filthy rich, your money grows while you while you do absolutely nothing. She's so rich that she probably makes $100 in the time if takes to type this sentence. Or more, I don't know - math isn't my strong suit. But it's probably a lot more than you and I can ever dream about.And thanks to a law suit she just won, she has won another $6,750 in damages against a guy who was trying to sell his encyclopedia of Harry Potter-related words and concepts.
Ok, so I'm a lawyer and I realize that the law is totally on Rowling's side. These are words and concepts she created and therefore owns. But still, come on....I have been following the Harry Potter Lexicon for YEARS. It used to be a feature on my favorite Harry Potter fan site: Mugglenet.com. And that web site makes bank BTW. I read that the owner paid his way through college just by hosting it. So some people are allowed to make money off Harry Potter and some aren't? It's not fair if you ask me.
And while we're on the topic of bashing J.K. Rowling, she's gotten a little crazy since Deathly Hallows was published (spoiler alert) - announcing that Dumbledore was gay and all. I mean, I don't care either way if he is (he's not real), but it's not something that occured in the books so why must she continue to craft fan's opinions of the characters when the series was over (and also that particular character was dead)?
It's just greedy. Like other great works of fiction - fans get to be really involved with the characters. I once spent several months at a temp job devouring Harry Potter fan fiction on the Internet. There were really great novel-length stuff stories out there - many of which predicted what would occur in the next book. But J.K.'s army shut down those sites too! Not the only fan fiction you will find out there is the kind that could have been written by 12 year olds.
So anyway, I love Harry Potter, respect Rowling for giving him to me, but wish she and her money would just leave the fans alone.
6 comments:
Oh that's a real bummer. Here's an interesting tid bit, though: I was a classmate of the attorney for RDR books during undergrad. (We both attended UCSD.) But Anthony Falzone was clearly a LOT smarter than I, since he went on to attend Harvard Law and is now a professor at Stanford Law :-P
I don't get why she shouldn't protect her work. SHe didn't whine when she was poor, a single mother writing in coffee shops because she couldn't afford to heat her flat but more importantly, she didn't try to make money on someones elses work either. She beleived in her self and now she gives more to charity than most of us will see in our lifetime. If I was her I wouldn't want anyone else messing with my 'baby' either.
Wasn't Dumbledores love of Grindelwald so obviously what shaped him in his life. To do his duty was more important than to follow his emotions?
I don't know about the statement that she didn't take anyone else's work. I mean the whole idea of wizards school - very familiar to one of my fave t.v. shows when I was a girl - "The Worst Witch" and the sorcerer's stone is also a concept written about in other sci fi books. I give her a lot of credit - I am a huge Harry Potter fan - but also think you shouldn't be able to stop people writing a book ABOUT your books.
Its a strange line and one I'm not sure they're correctly following. I see plenty of books that say "Unauthorized Guide" or "Unauthorized Biography" right on the cover. Would the book be allowed to print with that caveat?
I understand her need to protect intellectual property but going after internet fanficcers hardly seems the best way of doing so.
I think she's entitled to protect her earnings in this way, but that's not why I don't like her. Has anyone ever seen that woman crack a smile in public?? Someone ought to tell her they're free.
There is no way one can say she didn't try to make money off of another person's ideas...C.S Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien were huge influences on her if she admits it or not. I had to write an essay for school comparing Harry Potter (the first one) to The lion, the witch and the wardrobe and to The Hobbit. There are many similarities between the novels.
I can see how using her vocabulary and making a dictionary of that is more than been inspired, but maybe there was a need for this book. Instead of suing, she should have worked with the guy who put it together.
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