Orson Scott Card, "Rowling's hypocrisy is so thick I can hardly breathe" - Page 2

pieter · 05-02-2008, 07:13 AM

Poor J.K. Rowling. The law is making her sue. Obviously she is also just a victim of how the law works.

I'm guessing it will become all the more painfull for her, because she will probably win this one as well. And rightly so. She was thinking of making a lexicon herself, which will obviously sell less if there is another lexicon available. And thus they should pay poor Rowling a lot of money as compensation for stealing from her. I think they could calculate the millions of lexicons Rowling would not sell because of this lexicon and multiply that by 20 dollar to come to a fair compensation for the "lost sales" that they were trying to steal from her.

Lobolover · 05-02-2008, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Want a good laugh this morning? Check out what Orson Scott Card, best known for his Hugo-award winning novel Ender's Game, has to say about J.K. Rowling and her latest copyright suit against the Harry Potter Lexicon.

Read his full commentary, you won't be disappointed. So, if author J.K. Rowling and publisher Warner Brothers were successful in suing a middle-school librarian, who provided a reference guide to one of the most successful children books, over copyright infringement, would this make all fan guides illegal? What do you think?

Related Link: Archive of the official complaint

[via Pat's Fantasy Hotlist]

"revisit Oz?

As in:

Boy,he must realy hate her.

and yeah,she's kinda full of herself.

CommanderROR · 05-02-2008, 08:45 AM

I can't say what exactly the legal situation is here, but I think it is ridiculous to sue somebody for creating a Lexicon...come on...in my opinion this is not stealing adn won't hurt the HP bnooks at all, if anything it will increase sales because there will be one more book on the market that carries Harry Potter in it's name, thus increasing the chance of somebody actually going out and buying the original 7 books.
If somebody had written a story that get's pretty close to her own, uses some of the names from her books or has other suspicious similarities I would support her POV, but a lexicon is completely different, at least imho...

If I understood this correctly, this is not about somebody stealing ideas or copying a tale but of creating an "Index" of the Harry Potter books for people to look up facts...
There is only one reason why I could imagine anyone going against that, and that is because that person wanted to write such an index themselves and sell it and now sees danger for the profits of that endeavour...so let's just say it out loud.-..the motif is...GREED!!!

JK Rowling started from nothing and wrote some good books (the last two were rather weak in my opinion, but that is a different matter entirely). She earned a fortune (good for her) and then somehow can't cope with all the fame, starting to lash out at people because of "copyright infringements" where there probably are none and also the whole ebook thing...not the last bit of strangeness surrounding Mrs. Rowling...I think it is about time she pulled out of the whole writing business, took her millions and ived happily ever after as a wife and mother somewhere...would be better for all involved, because the way I see it, this is all going to end in tears.
I've read a lot of fantasy, and I could probably find a few dozen "Copyright and Trademark infringements" commited by Mrs. Rowling...it's all a matter of looking at it the right way...and that's just in the books I've read so far, everybody knows how many Fantasy Novels are available out there...

DaleDe · 05-02-2008, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TadW

I think kacir was referring to the complainant's argument that the lexicon could deprive of Rowling's income.

My understand is that Rowling wants to write and sell a lexicon of her own. The income is future income.

Dale

curtw · 05-02-2008, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

<snip>Besides which, this is not a "fan guide", distributed free on the internet. It's a commercial publication. This is just a guy who's cynically trying to make money from Ms. Rowling's work.

I have to beg to differ here. I wouldn't call this a cynical effort to make money from Ms. Rowling's work. It's a relatively scholarly effort that points out where she derived some of "her work." I think it would be great for her pre-teen audience to learn that she didn't invent the Philosopher's (Sorcerer's) Stone, a three-headed guard dog, a serpent with a poisonous glare, etc. It may very well be that Mr. Vander Ark is relying too heavily on her specific descriptions, but not having seen the book, I can only assume that this is for the purpose of comparing and contrasting her descriptions with those of Classical mythology (her basilisk does deviate from the "classical" model). In addition, a "Latinate translation" of the names of her spells would be a very handy tool for a young scholar.

HarryT · 05-02-2008, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by curtw

I think it would be great for her pre-teen audience to learn that she didn't invent the Philosopher's (Sorcerer's) Stone, a three-headed guard dog, a serpent with a poisonous glare, etc.

I completely agree with that. The issue appears to be that he may have used Ms. Rowling's trademarks without permission in doing so, and you can't do that regardless of how useful the work might be!

Everyone's entitled to the protection of the law, regardless of how "rich and famous" they might be. The fact that a wealthy person is taking an "ordinary" person to court doesn't automatically mean that the wealthy person is in the wrong.

Let's wait and see what the court decides.

Lobolover · 05-02-2008, 11:05 AM

hmm-I don't think alot of people got my remark.

chewielogan · 05-02-2008, 11:27 AM

She's not doing it for "deprived income," she's doing it because 80 - 90 per cent of the book is direct quotes or passages from the series. She's not getting any money for her new book anyway, it's already been slated to go to charity, just like her other harry potter side books. it sucks that this had to go to court, but she's not money-grubbing.

Lobolover · 05-02-2008, 11:32 AM

im talking about the series of handwriten "fairy tales" she's selling for those outrageous prices.

HarryT · 05-02-2008, 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lobolover

im talking about the series of handwriten "fairy tales" she's selling for those outrageous prices.

She's not "selling" them. She wrote 7 copies, gave 6 away to people who had been closely working with her over the series' life (presumably people like her agent) and auctioned one copy off (the one which Amazon bought) with all the proceeds of the auction going to a very worthwhile childrens' charity.

Lobolover · 05-02-2008, 11:41 AM

I know that-the auction itself,how much did it even "earn" ?

NatCh · 05-02-2008, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lobolover

hmm-I don't think alot of people got my remark.

Some folks may be Ignoring you, lobolover.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lobolover

im talking about the series of handwriten "fairy tales" she's selling for those outrageous prices.

She wrote seven copies, gave most of them away and only sold one, then she gave proceeds from that sale to charity.

Regardless of what other things she may or may not have done out of greed, it seems brutally clear to me that this action is not greed motivated.

I will admit that I'm a bit annoyed that I can't read those stories, but I don't imagine that I have some sort of right to do so, either.

HarryT · 05-02-2008, 11:42 AM

£1.95m - a little under US$4m.

Lobolover · 05-02-2008, 11:44 AM

natch-I meant that they wouldn't understand what I meant.

and what I MEANT was that why not give some of her own money then earn more to give away?

NatCh · 05-02-2008, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lobolover

natch-I meant that they wouldn't understand what I meant.

I realized that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lobolover

and what I MEANT was that why not give some of her own money then earn more to give away?

I believe I'll decline to find fault with the way other people give money to charity: I've been trying for over twenty years to fight my own tendency toward rampant arrogance, and that just seems like a step in the wrong direction to me.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Heartfire - Orson Scott Card	leebase	Reading Recommendations	0	06-24-2010 04:30 PM
Alvin Journeyman - Orson Scott Card	leebase	Reading Recommendations	0	06-24-2010 04:19 PM
Prentice Alvin - Orson Scott Card	leebase	Reading Recommendations	0	06-21-2010 12:42 PM
Seventh Son - Orson Scott Card	leebase	Reading Recommendations	3	06-18-2010 10:34 PM
"Magic Street" by Orson Scott Card	Andybaby	Reading Recommendations	15	01-20-2009 10:56 AM

05-02-2008, 07:13 AM	#16
pieter Connoisseur Posts: 59 Karma: 501 Join Date: Mar 2008 Device: CyBook Gen3	Poor J.K. Rowling. The law is making her sue. Obviously she is also just a victim of how the law works. I'm guessing it will become all the more painfull for her, because she will probably win this one as well. And rightly so. She was thinking of making a lexicon herself, which will obviously sell less if there is another lexicon available. And thus they should pay poor Rowling a lot of money as compensation for stealing from her. I think they could calculate the millions of lexicons Rowling would not sell because of this lexicon and multiply that by 20 dollar to come to a fair compensation for the "lost sales" that they were trying to steal from her.

05-02-2008, 08:45 AM	#18
CommanderROR eink fanatic Posts: 2,022 Karma: 4924 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Germany Device: STAReBOOK, iRex Iliad, Sony 505, Kindle 2	I can't say what exactly the legal situation is here, but I think it is ridiculous to sue somebody for creating a Lexicon...come on...in my opinion this is not stealing adn won't hurt the HP bnooks at all, if anything it will increase sales because there will be one more book on the market that carries Harry Potter in it's name, thus increasing the chance of somebody actually going out and buying the original 7 books. If somebody had written a story that get's pretty close to her own, uses some of the names from her books or has other suspicious similarities I would support her POV, but a lexicon is completely different, at least imho... If I understood this correctly, this is not about somebody stealing ideas or copying a tale but of creating an "Index" of the Harry Potter books for people to look up facts... There is only one reason why I could imagine anyone going against that, and that is because that person wanted to write such an index themselves and sell it and now sees danger for the profits of that endeavour...so let's just say it out loud.-..the motif is...GREED!!! JK Rowling started from nothing and wrote some good books (the last two were rather weak in my opinion, but that is a different matter entirely). She earned a fortune (good for her) and then somehow can't cope with all the fame, starting to lash out at people because of "copyright infringements" where there probably are none and also the whole ebook thing...not the last bit of strangeness surrounding Mrs. Rowling...I think it is about time she pulled out of the whole writing business, took her millions and ived happily ever after as a wife and mother somewhere...would be better for all involved, because the way I see it, this is all going to end in tears. I've read a lot of fantasy, and I could probably find a few dozen "Copyright and Trademark infringements" commited by Mrs. Rowling...it's all a matter of looking at it the right way...and that's just in the books I've read so far, everybody knows how many Fantasy Novels are available out there...

05-02-2008, 11:05 AM	#22
Lobolover Gorosei Posts: 421 Karma: 334 Join Date: Feb 2008 Device: Microsoft Word	hmm-I don't think alot of people got my remark.

05-02-2008, 11:27 AM	#23
chewielogan Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2008 Device: Sony Reader PRS-505	She's not doing it for "deprived income," she's doing it because 80 - 90 per cent of the book is direct quotes or passages from the series. She's not getting any money for her new book anyway, it's already been slated to go to charity, just like her other harry potter side books. it sucks that this had to go to court, but she's not money-grubbing.

05-02-2008, 11:32 AM	#24
Lobolover Gorosei Posts: 421 Karma: 334 Join Date: Feb 2008 Device: Microsoft Word	im talking about the series of handwriten "fairy tales" she's selling for those outrageous prices.

05-02-2008, 11:41 AM	#26
Lobolover Gorosei Posts: 421 Karma: 334 Join Date: Feb 2008 Device: Microsoft Word	I know that-the auction itself,how much did it even "earn" ?

05-02-2008, 11:42 AM	#28
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383099 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	£1.95m - a little under US$4m.

05-02-2008, 11:44 AM	#29
Lobolover Gorosei Posts: 421 Karma: 334 Join Date: Feb 2008 Device: Microsoft Word	natch-I meant that they wouldn't understand what I meant. and what I MEANT was that why not give some of her own money then earn more to give away?

Advert

Advert