Harry Potter Author Wins Copyright Claim

J.K Rowling is the author of Harry Potter book that has just won her claim that a fan violated her copyright with the plans to publish it in a Potter encyclopedia. The judge said that it had been proven that Steven Vander Ark’s “Harry Potter Lexicon” would have caused her irreparable harm as a writer. Furthermore, the British author had also taken a legal action against Michigan-based RDR Books last year. This is to prevent publication of the book from claiming copyright violation. Rowling also stressed out that this book is from her own material and idea. Hence, it cannot be consider as a plagiarism. The publisher defended their lexicon as just a reference guide and did not invade into Rowling’s copyright as they used it fairly. Vander Ark also contacted an RDR books employee to inform that the publication of lexicon would not go against the copyright law. He also insisted that RDR books have already incorporate a clause that the publisher would defend and pay any damages in the agreement. An overview of copyright was provided in Wikipedia (2009), copyright is a form of intellectual property that gives the author of an original work exclusive right for a certain time period in relation to that work including publication, distribution and adaptation. Therefore, a copyright act can prevent other people from copying a work of authorship illegally. In this case, the Harry Potter’s author, Rowling was protecting his own work as she feels that other people are planning to copy her work. She decided to use the copyright law to protect herself. According to Tysver (2008) the exclusive rights granted by the copyright act are limited by several statutory and constitutional limitations on copyright law. The limitation is known as the ‘fair use’. The fair use is used to balance the rights of copyright owners and letting certain copying to happen in restricted conditions. For instance, the publisher is claiming that they did not copy any work or writing but it is a fair use acceptable by the law.

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Source: Counterfeit Chic

Reference List

1. Copyright 2009, Wikipedia, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright>
2. Tysver, D A 2008, Fair Use in Copyright, BitLaw, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/fair_use.html>