A judge ruled on Monday in favor of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling in her copyright infringement lawsuit against a fan and Web site operator who was set to publish a Potter encyclopedia.
US District Judge Robert Patterson said Rowling had proven that Steven Vander Ark’s Harry Potter Lexicon would cause her irreparable harm as a writer. He permanently blocked publication of the reference guide and awarded Rowling and Warner Bros Entertainment Inc US$6,750 in statutory damages.
“I took no pleasure at all in bringing legal action and am delighted that this issue has been resolved favorably,” Rowling said on Monday in a statement.
“The proposed book took an enormous amount of my work and added virtually no original commentary of its own. ... Many books have been published which offer original insights into the world of Harry Potter. The Lexicon just is not one of them,” she said.
Rowling and Warner Bros sued RDR Books last year to stop publication of material from the Harry Potter Lexicon Web site. Vander Ark, a former librarian and devout Harry Potter fan, runs the site.
The small publisher agreed that nearly everything in the lexicon came from Rowling but argued that it was a fair use allowable by law for reference books. In his ruling, Patterson noted that reference materials are generally useful to the public but that in this case, Vander Ark went too far.
“While the lexicon, in its current state, is not a fair use of the Harry Potter works, reference works that share the lexicon’s purpose of aiding readers of literature generally should be encouraged rather than stifled,” Patterson said.
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