-
Affilliation
Orson Scott Card Criticizes J.K. Rowling for Suing Harry Potter Lexicon
Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game) criticizes J.K. Rowling for suing a small publisher who made “The Harry Potter Lexicon”. If you’re not familiar with the various legal disputes over Harry Potter, I suggest you read up on them.
It would’ve been really nice if the fan site link Card provided in his article worked, but since it didn’t when I tried it, check out the link above to give you a taste of what he was trying to say in that part of his piece. I also recommend reading the comments in Slashdot to help provide a broader picture on the issue aside from the points from Card.
I agree with Card in many aspects of his piece. I mean, Timothy Hunter anyone? This issue, however, is not simply on Harry Potter’s “questionable originality”, it also tackles on fair-use and what would constitute as derivative work. I do believe that the copyright holder should have the say-so over derivative work. It is arguable, however, if a lexicon, which is research/commentary on a subject, is actually derivative work. Perhaps excepts from the source material are, and I don’t really know if the Lexicon had any excepts.
Funny thing is, Rowling herself appears to have supported the effort when it was in it’s free-website/blog form. It would appear that publishing contents of the site in print form for profit gave her a change of heart.
To be honest I loved the Harry Potter series. I didn’t feel it was overly original or well written, but it struck the right chords personally, and I loved it. Which is why I’m very very disappointed that Rowling is getting herself into things like these.
Tags: opinion-
Flavor of the Month
-
Other Profiles
-
