Entry tags:

entitlement, fandom: harry potter, internet lawyers, lying liar that lies, person: terry pratchett, this is the wank that never ends

A slight change of plans
Okay, on Friday, a document appeared on Justia that said... well, we weren't entirely sure what it said, or what it was really in response to. The upside of it was that there was going to be an injunction hearing on March 13, but... something about going ahead and squeezing in a trial rather than waiting on a summary judgment that sent both sides into a flurry of trying to figure out how to fly witnesses to New York on six days' notice (JKR is apparently attending another trial--involving paparazzi?--in England on that date already). Fortunately, RDR has an update:

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 preliminary injunction hearing with the trial.

Also:

SUPPORT THE HARRY POTTER LEXICON AND THE RIGHT TO WRITE
The Right to Write Fund, a new activity of the Center for Ethics in Action, is supporting the legal defense of RDR's Harry Potter Lexicon by librarian author Steve Vander Ark. Now your voice can be heard on this important fair use case. Support from London to Los Angeles is also helping Right to Write create a national archive and clearinghouse that will defend writers, academics, filmmakers, photographers and other creative artists on similar cases. Learn more about this important free speech 501C3 public nonprofit here.

That link goes to a PDF file; the actual Center for Ethics in Action site is here.

Oh, I almost forgot--more from David Langford at Ansible: "Even my name was bandied in the legal filings, with RDR citing my own HP exegesis as one of six works which didn't get sued despite 'especially striking similarities to the Lexicon in both format and content'. I can't see the likeness myself, and neither can JKR/WB, whose counter-filing agrees that the Langford epic wasn't marketed as 'an encyclopedia or guide'. I also heard from RDR, asking how I got away with it -- that is, whether JKR/WB had been horrid to me. In fact, once Gollancz had let the author's agents see early proofs, all was sweetness and light."

ETA: Conflict-of-interest shenanigans! hooloovoo_too points out,

[RDR being involved with] Right to Write is probably more the brainchild of Lizbeth Hasse (one of RDR's lawyers, who I think is working pro bono or at low cost, so a non-profit to pay her would be right up her alley) and Anne Zill, both of whom care more about copyright in the arts and how that relates to academia than about RDR's case in particular. There's a good chance that Right to Write can petition the Mott Charitable Trust (Zill's a long-time staffer there, and apparently well-liked) for funds, which would pay Hasse and possibly the other legal staff for RDR. So I'm guessing this one's more about the lawyer side than the fannish side of the case. They probably won't actually be doing much activism work in the future, once the financial side of the RDR suit gets worked out. Plus, this way if RDR gets taken for the shirt on their back by JRK's legal sharks, there will still be a protected way for RDR's lawyers to get paid (can't take money from what's ostensibly an academic non-profit). Clever.

To which insanitys_place replies,

Also, two of the Right to Write's advisors, Dan Royer, the chairman of GVSU's creative writing department, and former GVSU president Lubbers have somewhat of a invested interest in RDR being around after the big smack down. I have this gut feeling that Royer still would like to have RDR around for writing students needing internships.

Bonus: Leaky writeup, including a timeline of the Five Months' Wank case. Wank in the comments already; may or may not also come in Terry Pratchett flavor. (P.S. Pratchett was very likely set up, btw.)

ETA 2: Via hangingfire: The Guardian weighs in. Shocker: The Guardian has actually read some of the court filings.

By the way--and this is a standing offer--if you are unhappy with the focus of these reports, comment with a link to an article, site, commentary, or evidence of some kind, and I will be more than happy to post it. Be warned that grudges will most likely be called out by the community, however. But if you want equal time for a pro-Lexicon viewpoint in the main entry, you can have it.

ETA 3: Holy crow, it's going to be a jury trial.

Also, two things I initially missed because I am slow:

Roger Rapoport is the president of Right to Write? Did they just create this organization specifically for the Lexicon case?

Did RDR outright lie to the Guardian reporter? "We were contacted once by the CLLA," he says, "but there was no hint there was any scope for manoeuvre. Their message seemed to be 'Don't publish or else.' So, having taken legal advice that our book was lawful, we left it at that. The next we heard was that an injunction had been taken out." Are the four intervening C&D orders mentioned in the court filings, or am I just dreaming those?

ETA 4: False alarm, false alarm! If they want a jury, they have to request it by March 14 (according to Melissa of TLC, who called the courthouse, "March 27" is additionally an error on the document, and should be "March 24"). (Thanks, cbm.)

ETA 5: From TLC's Melissa on Leaky Lounge: "FYI, there is a new document you can read here, which is RDR's 'Answer' to the complaint, and is a very long, very repetitive, very resistant- to- summarization document. It basically says, as expected, 'We deny that allegation,' to all counts."

Due to massive news about the Deathly Hallows movie, the new Lexicon story will not actually be posted for a while, so you're getting it here first. If anything particularly interesting jumps out at y'all, let us know in the comments.

(Of note already: RDR "asserts to this Court its withdrawal of any allegations that Plaintiffs may have infringed any rights of Defendant in the [DVD] timeline.")

From insanitys_place (thread):

ETA in light of impressive sleuthing skillz on sdcurtis's part: Turns out that the Right to Write fund is actually tied with the University of New England but..

To raise money for a Right to Write Defense Fund to cover legal expenses in the J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. injunction and other possible legal actions against RDR Books.

They expect to get hit more after this?

Also: A pro-SVA entry at Bad Rhetoric.

ETA 6: Did RDR perjure themselves in the response, or was there some kind of miscommunication?

Defendant denies the allegation that it sold the rights to The Lexicon in Australia and England. [*]

O rly?


New at RDR Books:

* Another interesting commentary on the Harry Potter Lexicon controversy from Yatterings
* An article on the letigiousness [sic] of JK Rowling from the Portland State University Vanguard

Note: The Vanguard link is incorrect on the RDR page; I've fixed it for the link above.


ETA 7: The trial has been moved to April 14. Hope everyone's already done their taxes!

Via Silver Ink Pot at Leaky Lounge: Diana Birchall will be a witness for WB at the trial. 

We also have foresthouse's commentary on RDR's response, in which she notices that RDR denied knowledge of its own website;

the thread on this entry where we've been discussing it, with much input from auralan

and hinoema's commentary: "(Fair Use - Dark Trademark) Defendant does not use the Dark Mark as a trademark, but only as a marky looking thing. Or possibly a fish. Anyway, it's ok too. We won't trade it, we'll sell it, duh."


ETA 8, because I'm just going to keep on trucking on this one entry until something important actually happens:

Via rustybitch: Info/Law, the one blog that gets it, has posted a new analysis. Key passages:

For transformation, let’s dispose quickly of a red herring: RDR/VA’s work - and it’s extensive - in cataloging and assembling information about the Potter world gets zero weight in fair use analysis. Feist makes this clear: "sweat of the brow" copyright is dead - you get no protection for your work because of the effort involved in pulling it together. Rather, the key is the new expression you add - or, here, the new transformative expression. And I don’t think there’s enough of it.

[...]

Is this a good outcome? I think so. Remember that the 4 factors are non-exclusive. I’d argue Judge Patterson should consider an additional factor here: behavior by the copyright owner. Rowling has been supportive - very much so - of the Lexicon as long as it remained on-line and relatively non-commercial. To the degree that free speech concerns arise in this case (as the memo in opposition of the injunction argues, at p. 6), Rowling’s conduct mitigates those worries.... She’s allowing this information to be presented to her fans and the public in general, while trying to minimize financial harm to her works. Copyright is often presented as a balance between incentives to produce and access to that production; here, Rowling’s approach seems to find that balance.... In Potter terms, though, I think this is a triumph for Dumbledore’s Army, and not for the Death Eaters.

From auralan: "RDR Books has set up Media contacts for the Harry Potter Lexicon Case. They're not bothering to make any pretense that this isn't all about getting as much press coverage as possible."

From hooloovoo_too: More conflict-of-interest weirdness.

From insanitys_place: "I was able to dig up the two Lanthorn articles if anyone is interested in them. This one was before the GVSU forum. And here's the follow up article."

From alexielnet: The Lexicongate drinking game.