I don't see why the court would possibly reverse a decision on a book that do blatantly plagiarizes Rowling's work. However, if they've fixed the plagiarism, then (according to the past ruling) making an encyclopedia should be fine. But I really don't think they can expect to win when the book copies Rowling word for word without citation at some points.

Give it up man, it's like a call in football. If it's too close to reverse, the calling on the field stands. They've already ruled it plagiarism, let it go. They're not going to achieve anything other than looking like bigger jerks.

My gosh. Why don't they just give it up already?!

idiots

i HATE RDR n Steve Vander Ark. What the hell is their problem?? LOSERZ! J.K. ROWLING ALL THE WAY! =D [five...! :P]

*sigh

I really don't understand RDR books at all. They're ridiculous.

I'm surprised it has taken RDR this long to file an appeal. You knew they were going to do this anyway, this book (if they are successful) is going to be a big seller for them. Also this probably wont stop here, these appeals could go as far as the supreme court.

It's going to cost RDR more to fight this then they'd make from selling it. Move on people!! Steven Van Der Ark has another book to publish and it sounds like that one has original material in it. It's over... you lost (and deserved to!).

Oh good lord RDR..... lets not become like Laura Mallory. I mean is it too much now a days to ask people to use a little common sense? Oh, and the other book that he's writing is also based on HP, so how original is it really going to be. Save what's left of your pride RDR..... you may not agree with the judge's decision but it's time to come to terms with it.

Correct me if I am wrong but, I thought that the lawyers for RDR( Stanford Free Use or whatever they are called) were doing this Pro Bono.

Wow...the time they are spending on this could have been used to write like FIVE new books. That shows they are doing it for the court presidence (sp?) it would set. That's a bad thing, because the standard it would set for other cases like this would make idea-stealing easier, which is sad. RDR is going at it like a bulldog, why don't they let go of the bone and see there's not much left anymore??

RDR, what IS it with you not giving up a lost cause? Find something BETTER to do with your life besides leaching off the popularity if Harry Potter. geeze. your book already was labeled plagiarism, it's not like that's going to change because of an APPEAL! give it a BREAK!!!

Wow. I'd say we should boycott Lexicon but Rpers live off of it.

I honestly don't see a judge overturning a decision that was perfectly right in the first place. What a great way to waste money.

Boooo! RDR, you suck! Give it up, already!

Bloody Half-wits if you ask me.

What part of " no encyclopedia" don't they understand? Can Steve just walk away and say " no appeal? " Now, I feel bad for him. This is way too much. Steve, let it go. You have a new book. Forget the encylopedia.

GOOD.

Sadly, however, RDR books has just filed a notice of appeal. - lolbias. Seriously, though, he shouldn't appeal. I support SVA on this case, but since crazyinsane people like the ones above are going to start throwing bricks at his windows. Seriously guys, calm down. JKR is not a god AT ALL. She's actually a very money hungry person who wrote a horrible book called Deathly Hallows.

And ugh, reading the comments make me want to quit the Harry Potter fandom forever. In fact, I think I shall. Harry Potter is getting overated anyway, the last book made me sick of JKR, and the movies are getting worse. See ya.

Well AnnaSmee don't let the door hit you on the way out. I'm sure none of us will really miss you, bye.

Ooo I'm one of the few that's happy about this. I still support RDA and SVA

The judge predicted this, plus an endless sequence of appeals. However, I would be interested to know who is bankrolling the action. Poor old Jo. They just can't leave it alone, can they?

Give it a rest, RDR! I guess I'm not surprised, though. They obviously don't care at all about Jo or her rights. She's going to win, though. Again and again if necessary. Hang in there, Jo. We're still here for you!

Hahah, I was going to reply, but you stole my words, lily.

Wow, I can't see why people like Anna Smee, and others who come on to mugglenet to post "I hate harry potter" remarks actually waste their time with hateful comments. Obviously we love HP, and mugglenet is like home to us (or homepage, haha), if you don't like HP, then why bother visiting the site continually? It's like walking into a lions den, announcing that you hate lions, and insulting them. What a silly thing to do, and a waste of time. Oh, Ciaran posted a comment! I love it when staff members read the comments. :)

Harry Potter and the Dark Lord of Appeals by JKR...summer 2009

RDR give it a rest already! Don't make us go through all of this law nonsense again.

Feathery_Golden_Snidget - If that comment was directed at me, I love HP, but I support RDA and SVA

Any amount of sympathy I had for the incident just went up in flames. Shame on you RDR. Shame on you.

THET IS SOO FRECKINNNNN RIDiCULOUS... maan when are they giving upp?!

annasmee: you can leave but we never will. i think everyone here at Mugglenet knows each other in this special unique way to us, it doesnt matter where you're from, what gender you are, or what religion you support. Harry Potter will always bring us together and nobody, not even the snobbiest person alive will ever bring us down from HP... and the appeal? just give it up RDR, just give it up

Steve Vander Ark is a loser who needs a real job instead of stealing other peoples work.

I don't think Steve completely backs RDR in this. I don't know how he feels about it, and I don't think that it's fair for us to assume that he's all for it. He is completely wrong, and I don't agree with any of the actions that have taken place, but I think that it's mainly RDR that's behind this. We knew they'd appeal, but it's still a blow. They should have just quit it, and not made bigger fools of themselves. And I'm with Ciaran, Lily13 stole the words right off my keyboard. Why are you even here if you don't like JKR and Harry Potter?

Dude...can anyone say "Laura Mallory"? This is stupid and very tiring. Give up and admit defeat already..to quote our webmaster: "Delusional!"

Hopefully the court will come to its senses and put an end to JKR's greedines.

tapi, I think they're actually *trying* to beat Laura Mallory's record...anyone out there keeping count now? 2 down, about, eh, 3 or 4 to go (I think) XD

tapi is Steve Vander Arks groupie.

This is getting old fast, and i'm not even paying close attention to this. I mean, everytime i log onto mugglenet.com, theres always seems to be a news thing about the case. I'm not saying that I think either party is being greedy, but the court did rule for JKR because the book was pretty much 'copy-pasted'. I dont see how an appeal could change that...

they just wont give up will they?

Did Steve ever go to college? Or high school? Or middle school? I'm starting to doubt it. If he had, he would know that PLAGIARISM IS WRONG. Simple.

Did Steve ever go to college? Or high school? Or middle school? I'm starting to doubt it. If he had, he would know that PLAGIARISM IS WRONG. Simple.

What does this mean? I don't understand court lingo. I think it should be Jo's responsibility to write an encyclopedia.

I don't have any comment besides "mmmpppppppphhhhhhhhfffff fffftttttt!" *roll eyes*, which is what I actually said out loud when I read this news post, lol.

potterfan3, my comment wasn't directed at you! It was directed at AnnaSmee, as I said. (and that lunatic that came onto mugglenet other month and said HP was a stupid series...) I understand you disagree but I respect you for not insulting anyone.

Honestly, I feel somewhat conflicted about this. Being a writer who has self-published a book of my own, I can understand JKR's feelings on the situation, as I would probably feel the same way she does about this mess. However I don't think Steve Vander Ark meant any harm in wanting to publish the Lexicon. From all I saw of the transcripts, I would say this is a fairly accurate assumption. The man is a fan of the series and wanted to publish an encyclopedia for it based on his website. Having never actually seen the actual manuscript beyond the snippets which were read in the transcript of the trial, I feel I'm a bit biased in saying that I actually supported Vander Ark simply because if the biggest problem was that Warner Brothers and JKR thought was that it 'copy and pasted' Mrs. Rowlings' work so much, I think a more reasonable request would have been to make contact with RDR and Steve and see if there was a way to resolve the matter in a way where JKR would not feel her work was being facelifted wholesale, and Vander Ark could have still published the encyclopedia. And a large part of this I feel is dependant on the term 'encyclopedia'. What Vander Ark was trying to do, I think, was just that. An encyclopedia, which would explain things in the books and show where to find them. This is -not- a new concept. Many books on the Potter septology (If I used the wrong word for a seven part series, someone feel free to correct me) make use of elements of the actual books, right down to excerpts and even direct quotes. Including in Mugglenet's own book 'What will happen in Harry Potter Seven' (I enjoyed it immensely, by the way.), and the flipsided book 'The Case for Snape's Guilt/The Case for Snape's Innocence'. By comparison, JKR's own 'encyclopedia' doesn't strike me as actually being an encyclopedia. From all I've heard on the Mugglecast episodes, JKR was planning to introduce material to fans that never made it into the series. (Continued next post)

As an example, the Mugglecast crew mentioned that JKR had mentioned wanting to introduce readers to information about a subplot that involved Seamus Finnigan that simply never made it into the actual series. This does not strike me as an 'encyclopedia' so much as it does a -compendium-, which is something that shows not only information on the actual series, but wholly new information about it which is considered official. A good example, if a bit unusual, is the Official Godzilla Compendium, which was released some years ago, by Random House books, and was co-written by the guy who ran the G-Fan magazine. That's where the difference lies. JKR calls her book an encyclopedia, but if it's giving us -new- information she's never shown that has nothing to do with being encyclopedic, then it's -NOT- an encyclopedia. What Vander Ark was doing was an actual Encyclopedia, since it was supposed to be an a-z reference. The problem appears to be in the way he went about it. Presumably the manuscript differed in it's execution of the encyclopdia concept from the way the website did it. On the other hand, I can also see where Vander Ark and RDR were coming from. A few websites have successfully been turned into books, or published books of their own. Mugglenet is an example of this, as is a website called Wrestlecrap: The Very Worst of Professional Wrestling, which is a site which is dedicated to wrestling, and in showcasing some of the silliest or most unbelievably bad storylines done in wrestling. Wrestlecrap has produced no less than three books and one DVD. Despite taking humourous and serious shots at just about every wrestler in the industry in the last fifteen years, nobody in the industry has sued them over this trio of books. In fact, many in the business cited Wrestlecrap as a favorite website, much as JKR did at one point for the web based Lexicon. From the standpoint of RDR, it seemed like JKR and Warner were just trying to prevent this book from being put out

because they could, and because they were trying to prevent anyone else from doing anything that would deal with the series post-DH until JKR came up with something. In fact, one of the stories on the website during the trial was the spokesman/president/whate ver of RDR books saying that Warner Bros. had never even attempted to work with them in coming up with an amicable solution to the problem and instead was pretty much just going, 'Stop the book. Will you stop the book? We want you to stop the book because we want you not to do the book.' So in this regard, of course RDR is going to stand it's ground if it percieved a giant multimedia conglomerate acting like a bully on a playground picking on a smaller corporation that isn't as powerful. One of JKR's statements during the trial- and again, the Mugglecasters even pointed this out- really seemed like she was threatening the entire HP fandom by saying 'if this book is allowed to be published, I'm not going to do mine'. Again, this really did resemble someone more powerful threatening someone less powerful, though this time trying to do so in a way that makes the quote, 'bully', unqoute, seem sympathetic. Again, this is the way I think RDR is looking at it, but I can sort of see where they were coming from. Again, Vander Ark was doing an actual encyclopedia, whereas from all I've heard, JKR's "encyclopedia" is actually a compendium. And there were much easier means to resolve the situation. Wraner Bros. could have easily worked with Vander Ark and RDR to make sure the book would satisfy everyone. In fact, Vander Ark could have made the Lexicon a compendium himself. He certainly had a large amount of original content on the site he could have used. His information in -either- case would not necessarily have been right, since he would be producing information in his encyclopedia that might not be what JKR was going to be using in her book and not even necessarily the correct information behind why JKR used this wor...

word or that concept, so in the long run, RDR and Vander Ark were providing an encyclopedia based on both what was in the book, and the etemology (spelling check, please?) of words that Vander Ark himself looked up. Whether or not, for example, as the prosecutors and JKR claims, these etemologies were 'something a seven year old could find on the internet' (Or words to that effect) is immaterial. If these definitions of words and so forth turns out to be wrong, then they are, by definition not plagarism so much as they are defintions done based on what Steve himself found. This actually makes the definitions he provides a borderline original work, since it might not be what JKR was using as the basis, and may have had entirely different intentions for this word or that concept. If Vander Ark was trying to provide information that may not have been accurate to what JKR has locked away in her head and has not revealed to us the fans, then yes, he -has- provided original material and possibly even added to the work because he has come at this definition or that explanation of a concept from a FAN perspective and not the perspective of JKR. As I said, I can see where both sides were coming from, and I think that if RDR has in fact considered some of what I've just said on here, they may have grounds for an appeal.