J.K. Rowling wins copyright case

8 comments

September 8, 5:23 PM

by Guy Incognito, Writing Examiner

 

 

J.K. Rowling. Source.

A man who ran a fan website for J.K. Rowling's bombastically successful Harry Potter series decided to publish a book on the Harry Potter lexicon and world.

J.K. Rowling asked him not to, but he decided to go through with it anyways, claiming that as a majority of the book was generated by people who used his site, the material was more or less his to publish.

J.K. Rowling sued him, saying that even though the book contained new information that she didn't create, the vast majority of the text were ideas and content that had been stolen from her own work.

This case is incredibly important in determining the extent to which an author owns his or her creation. This can be seen as a big victory for authors, or a blow to creativity, depending on how you look at things.

I'm personally very pleased with this decision, but then again I'm an author. I'd love to hear what you all think of this. So what say you? Is this a wonderful victory for creative people and intellectual property?

Or is this a sign of future rulings that will stifle creativity by giving absolute intellectual property to the people who own it, and thererfore keep anyone else from being able to experiment and create their own remarkable contributions to society but using another author's work as a springboard?

   Subscribe   Feed

Include other special offers from Examiner.com
Terms of Use