Cast a Subpoena

I'm not a fan of J.K. Rowling or the Harry Potter thing at all, but I can't really blame her.

Rowling should prevail, but I wonder if her and Warner Brothers' early support of Vander Ark's site will water down their legal position.

From today's Freep: (link)

Harry Potter guru is sued by author J.K. Rowling
Mich. man tried to turn Web site into a book

...(Steve) Vander Ark's profile has risen beyond the hard-core Potter fans who mob him at conventions -- thanks or no thanks to his literary hero, J.K. Rowling. The author of the Potter series and Warner Bros., producer of the Potter movies, have sued infederal court to block a small Muskegon publisher from converting Vander Ark's fan site into a book.

The suit, filed Oct. 31, pits one of the richest and most famous women in the world against one of her biggest fans, a small-town educator whose devotion to the Potter canon has earned plaudits from Rowling herself. She admits she searches the site for Potter arcana.

One irony of the lawsuit is that Rowling and Warner Bros. have long supported Vander Ark and his site, which is linked to Rowling's Web site.

...The book, they say, "regurgitates ... J.K. Rowling's own material," with only a minimum of original commentary.

But the suit then addresses what appears to be Rowling's chief complaint: that a Lexicon book would harm her plans to "produce her own companion book to the Harry Potter she created." Rowling and her attorneys argue there is a big difference between discussing the Potter books on free Web sites and repackaging those sites to cash in on her work.

The Harry Potter Lexicon is at http://www.hp-lexicon.org/.
RDR Books is at http://www.rdrbooks.com/.
J.K. Rowling's site is http://www.jkrowling.com/