Latest Expert Witness News
The Case of the Harry Potter Lexicon : J.K. Rowling vs. the Cyclopians
New York Federal District Court Judge Robert Patterson has scheduled a trial for March 24, 25 and 26 in the matter of Warner Bros. Entertainment and J.K. Rowling v. RDR Books.
The judge consolidated a previously scheduled injunction hearing with the trial. The plaintiffs want to block publication of librarian Steve Vander Ark's Harry Potter Lexicon. Here is the RDR Books statement on the case:
In this action, a distinguished and tremendously successful novelist demands the suppression of a reference guide to her works. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, asserts that this reference guide infringes both her copyright in the seven Potter novels and her right to publish, at some unidentified point in the future, a reference guide of her own. In support of her position she appears to claim a monopoly on the right to publish literary reference guides, and other non-academic research, relating to her own fiction.
This is a right no court has ever recognized. It has little to recommend it. If accepted, it would dramatically extend the reach of copyright protection, and eliminate an entire genre of literary supplements: third party reference guides to fiction, which for centuries have helped readers better access, understand and enjoy literary works. By extension, it would threaten not just reference guides, but encyclopedias, glossaries, indexes, and other tools that provide useful information about copyrighted works. Ms. Rowling's intellectual property rights simply do not extend so far and, even if they did, she has not shown that the publication of this reference guide poses a sufficient threat of irreparable harm to justify an injunction. Her preliminary injunction motion should be denied.
Read RDR Books' Opposition Brief filed by our attorneys David Hammer, Lizbeth Hasse, Anthony Falzone, Julie Ahrens and Robert Handelsman. Also filed was expert witness testimony on the Harry Potter Lexicon by Professor Janet Sorenson of the English faculty at the University of California at Berkeley.
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