Steven Vander Ark, a fan of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, lost court battle with J.K. Rowling herself. He was said on planning to launch an encyclopedia of Harry Potter. As a rightful writer, of course, Rowling claimed Vander Ark to be violating her copyright.(CBS News 2008)
According to the United States Copyright Office (2008), the term “copyright” refers to “a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works.” Therefore, Rowling was right to defend her rights.
Vander Ark and his lawyers insisted that what they plan to do is not going to violate her copyright act seeing what Vander Ark is trying to do is use the Harry Potter world as a reference to explain about the complicated world of Harry Potter. However, in my opinion, he is clearly wrong in that: First, he made it seem as if he is student writing an essay based on a literary work without citing it. If he was seen in that context, one would clearly see that he was plagiarizing. Second, say that he just want to “make reference out of it”. However, indeed, he was making an encyclopedia.
According to the to the New American Oxford Dictionary (2005), encyclopedia is “a book or a set of books giving information on many subjects or many aspects of one subject and typically arranged alphabetically.” Thus, the question is: How can one writes an encyclopedia about Harry Potter without stating exactly what has been written in the series itself? The answer to this question is of course, it is not possible. Of course it does not necessarily mean that people are not allowed to make encyclopedia out of anything. What it means is just that when a person is doing so, he/she must consult the original author to do so, especially if he/she wants his/her encyclopedia to be published.
Thus, the outcome of this copyright battle is very clear. What Vander Ark did was certainly a copyright violation. I strongly feel that it is very ridiculous that Vander Ark kept defending himself by saying that the publishing company told him it was not going to be a copyright violation.
Reference
CBS News 8 September 2008, ‘Harry Potter Author Wins Copyright Claim’, viewed 7 June 2009, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/08/entertainment/main4426302.shtml
New American Oxford Dictionary 2005, Oxford University Press, New York
United States Copyright Office 2008,Library of Congress, Washington DC , viewed 9 June 2009, http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf
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