I was very troubled the ruling also.  The court erroneously states the
unofficial Lexicon will kill all demand for Rowling's official compendium.

"publication of the Lexicon would also result in harm to the charitable
organization … More concretely, publication of the Lexicon would cause
irreparable harm to the sales of Rowling's companion books, all the elements
of which are replicated in the Lexicon for a similar purpose.* Readers would
have no reason to purchase the companion books* since the lexicon supersedes
their value" (emphasis added page 64)

I am troubled when transformative works have to compete with hypothetical
works where the reality is that the market is not mutually exclusive. Many
many people will buy the offical version simply becease it is offical, the
court fails at understanding markets for offical goods. The Lexicon may also
encourage Rowling to put some new information into her compendium, which
would actually encourge new works.

http://freedomforip.org/2008/09/08/fair-use-takes-a-beating-from-jk-rowling/
I blogged on this yesterday, but only covered a few of the issues with the
opinion.
The court is also very negative on paraphrasing which troubles me.  I am
worried that the court is ignoring the idea that fiction can contain facts
(facts about fictional things or events).  I am working on a second post
covering these issues later this week.

-Brian


On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 12:11 PM, Rob Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

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> Groklaw has some good coverage as well:
>
> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080909014304275
>
> - - Rob.
>
> Parker Higgins wrote:
> > I was pretty surprised by this result.  I've been reading coverage all
> day,
> > and while I will say that this opinion is a little disappointing, it's
> not
> > as bad as it may have been.  For one thing, the judge explicitly defends
> the
> > genre, saying that this example just happens to be infringement.  Also,
> > looking at the bright side, Anthony Falzone (of the Fair Use Project, and
> > one of the lawyers for RDR) said, "We have a decision that's a very
> useful
> > guide to show people what they can do in the future as far as creating
> > companion guides."  So at least there's that.
> >
> > Also, it took me a while to find the (68 page) ruling, so if you're
> > interested, it can be found on this page:
> >
> > http://www.likelihoodofconfusion.com/?p=1641
> >
> > /parker
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 11:17 AM, Rob Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >>
> http://www.theage.com.au/world/jk-rowling-wins-battle-to-block-fans-lexicon-20080909-4cet.html
> >>
> >> "The magic still works for author J.K. Rowling, who has won her US
> >> court battle to block publication of an unauthorised Harry Potter
> >> encyclopedia."
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Discuss mailing list
> >> [email protected]
> >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >>
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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-- 
Brian Rowe
3L Seattle University
(206) 335-8577 (Cell)

Access To Justice Technology Principles
www.ATJWeb.org

Freedom for IP
www.FreedomforIP.org
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