Harry Potter author goes to court
Larry Neumeister

NEW YORK—Author J.K. Rowling is eager to tell a judge this week that one of her biggest fans is in fantasyland if he believes a “Harry Potter” encyclopedia he plans to publish does not violate her copyrights. The showdown between Rowling and Steven Vander Ark is scheduled to last most of the week in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Rowling is scheduled to testify Monday in a trial that is sure to generate huge interest among Harry Potter fans and the public. Her lawyer has arranged with the judge to have a private security guard for Rowling in the courtroom and for the author to spend breaks in the seclusion of a jury room — away from any die-hard Potter fans in attendance.
The trial comes eight months after Rowling published her seventh and final book in the widely popular Harry Potter series. The books have been published in 64 languages, sold more than 400 million copies and spawned a film franchise that has pulled in $4.5 billion at the worldwide box office. Rowling brought the lawsuit last year against Vander Ark’s publisher, RDR Books, to stop publication of the “Harry Potter Lexicon.”
Rowling is actually a big fan of the Harry Potter Lexicon Web site that Vander Ark runs. But she draws the line when it comes to publishing the book and charging $24.95. She also says it fails to include any of the commentary and discussion that enrich the Web site and calls it “nothing more than a rearrangement” of her own material. One of her lawyers, Dan Shallman, on Friday told Judge Robert P. Patterson, who will hear the trial without a jury, that Rowling “feels like her words were stolen.” He said the author felt so personally violated that she made her own comparisons between her seven best-selling novels and the lexicon and was ready to testify about the similarities in dozens of instances.
David Saul Hammer, a lawyer for RDR Books, which plans to sell the lexicon, said the publisher will not challenge the claim by Rowling that much of the material in the lexicon infringed her copyrights. But the judge will decide whether the use of the material by the small Muskegon, Mich., publisher was legal because it was used for some greater purpose, such as a scholarly pursuit. In court papers filed prior to the trial, Rowling said she was “deeply troubled” by the book.