Entry tags:

fandom: harry potter, this is the wank that never ends

"Obviously, it was not the outcome we had hoped for or wanted"
So did you hear the news? cleolinda's head exploded Er, I mean RDR Books is appealing.

That's right, you heard me: RDR Books has issued a notice of appeal. Wankas can scarcely believe it. I mean, even Trelawney wouldn't have seen this one coming, yuk yuk yuk.

Naturally, it's reported on various blogs, like Slashdot as well as Leaky Cauldron, and the same arguments from before are rehashed.

You can still refer to RDR Books' website for, uh, information as well.

ETA: Recording Industry vs. The People, which had just recently shared an opinion about the Lexicaon fair use decision, revisits the topic. For those of you who wants to know what {The Common Man} has to say about this.

Also, did you know that the www.hp-lexicon.org was recently named one of the nation's top 15 "Great Web Sites" for children last week by the American Library Association? How embattled.

ETA 2: I just did an ETA and forgot to tack this on. "It ain't over til it's over!"

Info/Law says Slashdot commenters are oversimplifying things, and Techdirt says JKR made her case based on emotion rather than law and says the case is damaging her rep.

ETA 3: sheep gives us another judicial document that I really wish were really real.

Also, a post on rattlesnakeroot's journal commemorates the anniversary of the judicial proceedings, casting Lexicongate characters as Harry Potter ones.

ETA 4: From mariem_1:“It was all very hurtful,” says Vander Ark , who is still such a fan himself that he doesn’t blame the multi-millionaire author at all for her actions... Vander Ark says that he now longs to meet Rowling - purely to say how much he regrets upsetting her.

mariem_1 continues to make my life easier by pointing out where an anonymouse took issue with rattlesnakeroot's comments on the case. A summary:

Anonymous:
Is the lack of reading comprehension (whether willful or not, I have no idea) contagious around here?

rattlesnakeroot:
Thanks for the psychoanalysis. It's so kind of you to study us this way.

And in case anyone missed it, I'm not actually Cleo; she retired from Lexicongate and I'm merely ~~Sugitchi's ghostwriter~~ her subpar replacement. cleolinda was last seen dancing with glee.

And, in celebration of cleolinda's contributions to keeping us all on top of the tsunami of this wank, here's a refresher course of the past year in Lexicongate:

1: The First Report.
2: "How would it benefit us in any way?"
3: "I would never have thought that a print version could be judged differently"
4: "A vast international smear campaign"
5: "Well, unless you find lawyers sinister"
6: The book has been seen
7: Autographed by who?
8: Another wad of tinfoil for your chewing pleasure
9: RDR lawyers up
10: On the third day of Wanksmas...
11: Just a quick update
12: JK Rowling, Defender of Fandom
13: Old Faithful returns
14: Epic burn
15: A slight change of plans
16: "Friends can disagree and still be friends"
17: "We differ so greatly as to be polar opposites"
18: And so it begins
19: Lexicon trial, day 2
20: Lexicon trial, day 3
21: The day after
22: Trial Transcripts
23: “Melissa has done more to hurt me than Rowling”
24: Lexicongate is over... for certain values of "over"

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mariem_1
2008-11-17 09:13 pm UTC (link)

Steven Vander Ark: I’m back, JK, and I forgive you (Sunday Times):

As the creator of the world’s most successful Harry Potter website, Steven Vander Ark was the American high priest who presided over worship at the shrine of JK Rowling. He spoke at conventions, where other fans took his picture and asked for his autograph; he even left his job so he could devote more time to Pottermania.

Then, just over a year ago, the lecture invitations dried up. Friends began snubbing him and he started receiving death threats online. Suddenly he was about as popular as Lord Voldemort, the boy wizard’s deadly enemy. And all because Vander Ark, 50, had wanted to bring out a Harry Potter encyclopedia.

Now he is about to risk the wrath of Potter fans all over again by publishing a new book that matches real British locations to fictional ones in the novels.

The former school librarian lost a lot of his Potter credentials when Rowling applied for a court order asking for his first book to be banned. When the case came to court in New York earlier this year, she wept and was damning about the encyclopedia. “He has simply taken [my work] and copied it,” she complained. “It is sloppy, lazy and it takes my work wholesale.” The judge agreed, and the book had to be withdrawn.

Predictably, many online Pottermaniacs sided with Rowling. “It was all very hurtful,” says Vander Ark , who is still such a fan himself that he doesn’t blame the multi-millionaire author at all for her actions. “People were digging into everything they could find out about me - family, jobs, where I went to school. They even found a picture of a close friend, posted it on the internet, and attacked her weight and her hair.”

He was shocked when he greeted a pal in the street - only for her to ignore him and flounce off. Some contributors to internet chat rooms, he says, were even discussing plans to find him - “They said they wanted to get rid of me.”

By this time, he had come to London for a year to research his latest book. Yet he didn’t think of calling in the police. “I guess I didn’t think people would really come after me because it was an online world,” he says. “If there had been online police, I would have gone there.

“But I didn’t go out much. I hunkered down and just tried to protect myself. I was shocked to go from someone who signed autographs to being the worst person in the world.”

Vander Ark is one of life’s natural librarians. As a boy, he catalogued and cross-referenced episodes of Star Trek. In his late teens, he drew up blueprints for the Star Wars Death Star, night life presumably being quite slow in 1970s Michigan. He worked at a grocery store before deciding on a career change in his mid-thirties, then went to university and ended up working as a teacher librarian.

Ironically, his first David and Goliath battle was with colleagues at his ultra-Christian school, who believed that Rowling’s tales of ghosts and wizards were unsuitable for God-fearing young children. Vander Ark lost: the school library remains Potter-free. However, he was already totally hooked - and now claims to have read each book 40 times.

“I love keeping track of all the little details, and finding connections between things,” he says. “But I knew how much work it would take to catalogue a world that richly imagined.” So he didn’t crack until page 34 of the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, where Mrs Weasley’s recipe books (Charm Your Own Cheese, Enchantment in Baking) proved too enticing to resist. “I grabbed a notebook, and just started taking notes.” As you do. By 2000, the notebooks had turned into a website: the Harry Potter Lexicon, which attracts 10,000 hits a day.

He has just endured a nail-biting wait as his latest book - In Search of Harry Potter (Methuen, £14.99) - was scrutinised by Rowling’s lawyers. In the end, they asked only for small changes on the cover. Vander Ark says that he now longs to meet Rowling - purely to say how much he regrets upsetting her.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	trinity_destler 2008-11-17 10:53 pm UTC (link)
	What is it about this guy which seems to universally inspire papers to write fanciful, bizarre purple prose about him? Is this just a Harry Potter thing I don't get as a wretched outsider? It's vomitrosious either way. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	_goblin_ 2008-11-17 10:54 pm UTC (link)
	former school librarian Oh thank frakking goodness they're finally using that first modifier. Vander Ark says that he now longs to meet Rowling - purely to say how much he regrets upsetting her. headdesk (Reply to this)(Parent)

	caito 2008-11-18 12:27 am UTC (link)
	I also linked to this in the main report. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	anonyrat 2008-11-18 02:16 am UTC (link)
	Vander Ark is one of life’s natural librarians No. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	disdainful_soul 2008-11-18 05:18 am UTC (link)
	I'm just baffled. He is in the wrong, and he says he forgives her? Whut? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	dragonfangirl 2008-11-18 03:36 pm UTC (link)
	He's in the wrong, but he forgives her for making him be in the wrong by being in the right! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	rudemistress 2008-11-18 05:59 pm UTC (link)
	Well, it's like Dumbledore said in HBP: People find it much easier to forgive others for being wrong than for being right. So, actually, if you look at it through that lens, SVA's being a real sport about this! Now tell your publisher to give up the ghost and knock it the hell off, Steve. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	narcissam 2008-11-18 09:09 pm UTC (link)
	He was shocked when he greeted a pal in the street - only for her to ignore him and flounce off. Is he referring to Melissa outside the courthouse? I remember him complaining about her ignoring him there. Meeting someone who's testifying against you that day isn't quite meeting "a pal in the street" but would be up to his usual standard of veracity. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	celtic_mysts 2008-11-20 03:02 am UTC (link)
	I love how completely and utterly objective this article is... (Reply to this)(Parent)

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