Banksy's Latest Stunt!
Apr. 15th, 2008 12:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mundensOne Nation Under CCTV
The current case between J K Rowling's publishers and RDR who are publishing an unauthorized "Harry Potter Lexicon" is interesting to me. I can understand both sides of the case, and while an outcome against Rowling may have a great affect on some author's relationships with their fans, and on fan-writers, I tend to feel that RDR's supporters have a valid point.
Anthony Falzone, a law lecturer at Stanford University, for instance, is representing the publishers for free on the grounds that it is "a hugely important case about a third party's right to create a new reference book that is designed to help others understand the original work.". That's extremely important to literature geeks everywhere, are "Cliff's Notes" illegal? Can you publish theses on in-copyright literary works without being sued by the publishers? That's basically what this case is asking, and although this is probably the worst example of such a work, with an obvious emphasis on pecuniary interest rather than literary, the point of law seems to be the same.
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grendel_khan.
seraphs_folly, fy anwylyd, rwy'n dy garu di!
The current case between J K Rowling's publishers and RDR who are publishing an unauthorized "Harry Potter Lexicon" is interesting to me. I can understand both sides of the case, and while an outcome against Rowling may have a great affect on some author's relationships with their fans, and on fan-writers, I tend to feel that RDR's supporters have a valid point.
Anthony Falzone, a law lecturer at Stanford University, for instance, is representing the publishers for free on the grounds that it is "a hugely important case about a third party's right to create a new reference book that is designed to help others understand the original work.". That's extremely important to literature geeks everywhere, are "Cliff's Notes" illegal? Can you publish theses on in-copyright literary works without being sued by the publishers? That's basically what this case is asking, and although this is probably the worst example of such a work, with an obvious emphasis on pecuniary interest rather than literary, the point of law seems to be the same.
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grendel_khan.seraphs_folly, fy anwylyd, rwy'n dy garu di!
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-15 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-15 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-17 08:59 pm (UTC)As for the Rowlings case, it seems like shameless moneygrabbing. It'd be aweful if the law changed to prevent reference works like that as a result of shameless moneygrabbing...