Legal News

Will Potter Fanatic?s Next Book Idea Draw Legal Heat from Rowling?

By Dan Slater

J.K. Rowling speaks during a press conference, in New York, Aug. 1, 2006. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

It’s been one week since the SDNY’s Judge Robert Patterson ruled that Steven Vander Ark’s book version of the “Harry Potter Lexicon” failed to qualify for fair use protection and therefore violated J.K. Rowling’s copyright in the Potter series.

We’re happy to note two pieces of news demonstrating that the court loss hasn’t stifled the intensity of Vander Ark’s abiding Potter passion.

First, a blog at the Detroit Free Press reports that Roger Rapoport, the owner of Michigan-based RDR, which planned to publish the “H.P. Lexicon,” expects his attorneys to file a notice of appeal preserving his and Vander Ark’s right to edit the book in order to pass muster with Judge Patterson.

“I’ve always been very much willing to work with” Rowling and Warner Bros “and try to see what can be done,” Vander Ark told the Freep. Representatives for Rowling could not be reached for comment.

But even assuming that effort fails, and the H.P. Lexicon is forever relegated to Web site status, Vander Ark says he has plans to publish a travel memoir detailing visits to British locations he claims inspired the Harry Potter series. Here’s a report from the Times of London.

Rowling’s agents have reportedly asked to see a copy of “In Search of Harry Potter” before it’s published next month. The book apparently recounts Vander Ark’s travels to King’s Cross station, where Potter and the other wizards board the Hogwarts Express, London’s Charing Cross Road, the site of the Leaky Cauldron pub, and Surrey, where Harry lived in the fictitious town of Little Whinging. He also claims to have discovered the location of Hogwarts school on Rannoch Moor in the Highlands.

“This is my own writing about my own experiences and I can’t imagine there will be any problem with this book,” he told the Times.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on September 15, 2008 (boomark / email).