J.K. Rowling Says Lawsuit is Causing Writer's Block

There’s troubling news today for fans of fantasy tween novel franchises: Choking back tears in a Manhattan courtroom yesterday, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling testified that her lawsuit to stop the publication of an unauthorized “Harry Potter Lexicon” has caused her such stress and heartache that it “decimated the demands of my creative work for the last month. You lose the threads, you worry if you’ll ever be able to pick them up again. I really don't want to cry, because I'm British.”

As detailed yesterday, the proposed book is essentially a print version of a Harry Potter fan site that Rowling previously awarded for excellence in web fandom (something she now “regrets bitterly”). But the website is free, and the billionaire author (along with Warner Brothers Entertainment) claims that a print version, if sold, would amount to “the wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work.” Rowling went on to dismiss the book as “sloppy, lazy, dire and atrocious,” which is ironic because Rowling once confessed that she consulted the Lexicon website to check facts while writing the Potter series.

In her opening statements, a lawyer for the publisher, RDR Books, characterized Rowling’s lawsuit as an exercise in dark magic to see if she has “the power to make the Lexicon disappear from our world.” The author claims her litigious sorcery is simply motivated by her plans to publish her own Potter encyclopedia, with the proceeds going to charity, not Voldemort – the dark lord’s name that Rowling’s lawyer actually apologized for uttering in court yesterday.

Photo of Rowling speaking to the press outside court courtesy AP/Louis Lanzano.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in News on April 15, 2008 10:17 AM

Comments [rss]

ihateallbrokers

BITCH ia WORTH A BILLION BUCKS?

why, theres that many loser nerds who read her books???

damm let the guy write a whole HP book,

you'll be fine lady!!!

The Edge

Read the first collected volume of DC/Vertigo's "The Books of Magic" by Neil Gaiman.

Then tell me HP wasn't (blatantly) ripped off of something else. Even if Gaiman himself won't publicly say it.

angry_pickle

The fact that she's suing someone for "ripping her off" when she has 4,000 pages of stuff ripping other more talented fantasy writers off is sickening.

And who are these supposedly "more talented fantasy writers" that you speak of that she allegedly ripped off? Give me a break. There is a difference between being influenced by books and wholesale ripping off from books.

Scientists have proved that if you are over 13 and are on a skateboard or have read "Harry Potter", or both, you are most likely a real douchebag.

I'm guessing you've never skateboarded and never read anything except Penthouse.

Barbj8

Ahhh, Muffin :>(

She's really crying because she looks like shit in that picture.

zpk

I read this book called Harry Potter. There was a character in it named Harry Potter.

Oh no! I've infringed on her copyright!

bklynd

My favorite detail, from the NYTimes: "She said she had sat down at her dining room table with her 14-year-old daughter and typed up a list of “pilfering” and errors..."

Mmm hm, sounds like some quality legal research went into this lawsuit.

Jen S

From what I've read about the case, the dude's book simply lists the characters and places from the books, without any embellishment. A companion reader will offer insight, as well as its own research.

And if he hadn't felt an ounce of guilt about publishing this book, he wouldn't have "insisted that RDR Books include a clause in his contract that the publisher would defend and pay any damages that might result from claims against him."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/04/14/rowling.trial.ap/index.html

babyhitler

maybe she'll make copernicus copywright and the leaky litigation next. I hate all her books. I can't believe someone made ten billion dollars on made up words.

Fritzdecat

I had to check if I was reading Th Onion or Gothamist on this one...

wowthatsucks

i'd hit it. that'll really make her cry.

Spirit of 76

Want to avoid all this stress, heartache and writer's block? Walk away. Just walk away. Wash your hands of it and let them do what they will. If it's half as shoddy as she says it is, the fans will shun it in droves. It's not as if she needs any more money.

PBRK

Maybe some pics of Radcliffe's full frontal will get her juices flowing.

Nunyah Bidnit

Is this something that anyone cares about? Really?

Politburo

"Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling testified that her lawsuit to stop the publication of an unauthorized “Harry Potter Lexicon” has caused her such stress and heartache..."

Is she writing and researching all the briefs herself? What a fucking joke.

Phil McCracken 222

Scientists have proved that if you are over 13 and are on a skateboard or have read "Harry Potter", or both, you are most likely a real douchebag.

Mari xxx

I'm guessing you were bullied in school by thirteen-year-olds on skateboards who happened to have read Harry Potter. So lame.

Derekasaurus

I have mixed feelings about this. Companion guides are nothing new, but I can see how it's unfair for someone to profit from repackaging or summarizing someone else's work. Mind you I don't have much sympathy for anyone worth $1 billion, but if she loses it could set a precedent that will penalize far less financially successful authors by giving them no recourse against similar derivative works. I think the author should have some authority over derivative works that are based strongly on the original.

Reality Czech

I thought the Harry Potter crap was finished? Why does she need to write? I predict she's losing this one. Sorry, but you can't let a website continue with your knowledge for years and then object once they want to print a companion guide.

TKaisen

Writer's block being caused by the fact that she's a one-trick pony and she knows it. Granted, it was a really good trick, but do yourself a favor and retire on top.

The fact that she's suing someone for "ripping her off" when she has 4,000 pages of stuff ripping other more talented fantasy writers off is sickening.

AHT

Well, writer's block won't be a problem for Steve Vanderark, given that the lexicon is some 90% directly taken from Rowling's own words, mostly unsourced. If I'd tried that in college I would have been expelled.

zpk

Jen S: This "dude" has a pretty good case. Companion guides are well established as legal, and there have been hundreds, if not thousands of articles on Harry Potter published over the last ten years that have covered similar material.