That stupid Lexicon timeline thing.
Okay. So, this is the only issue that interests me in the Lexicon lawsuit, and, rather than babble on f_w endlessly about it, I'm going to put it here. Scroll on by if you don't care (wise!).



So, RDR books has indicated on their website which timeline they believe to be copied. Specifically, the timeline at issue is the day calendar for book one, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The reason they believe the timeline is copied is because the date of Harry's first visit to Hagrid's hut is given as September 7 on the official timeline, when it should clearly be September 6, according to the book. And the September 7 error was one that appeared on the HP Lexicon site until a revision, as noted on the timeline page. (And, actually, let's just link in the Wayback machine to the old timeline with the error as well, shall we?)

The Official Timeline of Hogwarts (CS/dvd) matches this timeline almost exactly. Events which are actually listed on that timeline are indicated on this calendar in red. There is one other adjustment which must be made in order to make the calendar agree with the books: September 7 is listed on the Official Timeline as being when Harry and Ron visit Hagrid in his hut. This was an error which also appeared on this calendar until my most recent revision. Curiously, the DVD timeline happened to reproduce the error from the Lexicon timeline. At any rate, the 7th is a Saturday, while the book states that they visited Hagrid on the afternoon of the Friday of their first week. This calendar now places that visit on Friday, September 6, which is correct.

Aha! So clearly this means something.

Except for the part where it doesn't.

Why? Skip up a couple of paragraphs. It is noted there that the calendar for 1991 (apparently the proper year, according to the DVDs) doesn't match up with the book's calendar. Harry's birthday is stated to be on a Tuesday, when it should actually be a Wednesday in 1991:

Monday. This reminded Harry of something. If it was Monday -- and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days the week, because of television -- then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday. Of course, his birthdays were never exactly fun -- last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks. Still, you weren't eleven every day. (Chapter 3)

So they take out a day, to make July 31 fall on a Tuesday, then add in a day afterward. They have to do this, you see, or September 1 (when Harry is to go to King's Cross, according to McGonagall's letter in Chapter 4) would be a Saturday. This makes "the next day" a Sunday, and the book indicates that:

Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormitory the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring. Harry wished they wouldn't, because he was trying to concentrate on finding his way to classes. (Chapter 8)

And obviously that can't be right, because there wouldn't be classes on Sunday! Ha! So, clearly, the extra day needs to be added to shift September 1 to a Sunday (while keeping Harry's birthday on Tuesday), and, lo, this makes the 6th a Friday, when Harry has the afternoon free, and is invited to tea with Hagrid. The Lexicon foolishly had an error in previous versions of the timeline, indicating that this was the 7th, which appeared on the DVD timelines, and so..., since it doesn't say the 6th, they obviously copied!


The problem here is that there's another entirely plausible way that the visit to Hagrid could fall on September 7: and that's if September 7 is a Friday.

This is precisely what happens if you have Harry's birthday remain on July 31 (a Tuesday), and then, instead of adding another day into the calendar to make it match up to 1991, simply ignore that the book claims classes start on "the next day" after September 1 (a Saturday). Instead, assume they start September 3, or assume there are classes on Sunday. Then the first Friday after the start of classes is indeed September 7.

Now, if SVA can show the wording on his timeline is entirely the same as that used on the DVDs, he may have something. (ETA: Or, that other events occurring on specified days of the week are shifted by a day in the DVD timeline from the September 7 Hagrid tea event, I suppose.) But the date issue, when the Lexicon timeline adds and subtracts a day to make it match up with the 1991 calendar? I don't think that's much of an argument that the DVD timeline is copied.

ETA2: (Oh, God! I'm turning into Cleolinda!) Well, I have continued working through the official timeline vs. Lexicon timelines/day calendars. By doing my own calculations based on the information in the books, I've produced my own timelines.

In essence, WB must have used the Lexicon's timelines, because the Lexicon is not so good at arithmetic. Because WB duplicates several of the Lexicon's errors (I have a list), they almost certainly did use the timelines.

Even so, however, that's not a problem, because you can't copyright arithmetic (even bad arithmetic). Anyone and everyone is free to use the Lexicon's date calculations; they sure as hell can't copyright them.

So, next point: expression. In many cases, the text on the two timelines matches or nearly matches... but, in nearly all of them, the Lexicon's text is an exact copy of the text in Rowling's books, or, at best, a paraphrase of the book text using several words of Rowling's unique expression... so the text on the Lexicon's timeline is plagiarized anyway, and they can hardly scream if the copyright and/or trademark holder makes use of it. In a few cases, the Lexicon's expression is distinctly different from that used in the books and matches portions of the expression used in the WB timeline.

But, since the Lexicon can't copyright the timelines, we can find those 2-3 instances of likely plagiarism icky, but that's pretty much it. If SVA thinks that allows him to sue for copyright infringement, he is a complete moron.

Layout: WB used a few dates from the timelines as a framework for people to view video clips from the movies, and this bears no resemblance to the layout used by the Lexicon.

In short, I can't imagine there's anything remotely actionable here. The use of the Lexicon's arithmetic is funny (considering the errors) but not objectionable. The few instances of plagiarism by WB are icky, and I don't have to like them.

I should also say: the reason this interests me is because I am interested in plagiarism. The copyright infringement suit by JKR/WB does not interest me, because I find it very hard to imagine RDR/SVA publishing anything that bears the remotest resemblance to the HP Lexicon that doesn't constitute copyright infringement, so I don't think there's much to discuss there.