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Comment by unalone | Hacker News Reader

So that means Rowling has no control over her fantasy universe, even when it's just reflecting what she wrote?

I think that people should have some rights in terms of expanding on what she wrote, for instance. But that encyclopedia was just reiterating what had been written in the seven novels. It wasn't adding anything new.

(As for character control: Rowling spent years building her universe before writing a single word. I think it would be pretty awful if she didn't get some sort of recompense for the people who use those years of planning and make a quick buck off of it. But I'll admit that I don't know whether or not copyright law protects something as conceptual as a character design.)

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Perhaps, but the people who created that encyclopedia did not have access to her universe-building notes. They read her novel and then put in their own work collating all the information within and compiling their encyclopedia. I don't know how extensive that encyclopedia was, but if it's at all comprehensive, probably a fair amount of work went into it. Hence, "quick buck" might be an unfair characterization of that work. And since they did not have access to Rowling's notes, why should they have to pay her anything for the work they put in? As a matter of fact, I'm sure they've already paid her some dues in the form of buying her novels.

Let's take an analogy and assume JQuery does not have documentation. I download a copy of JQuery and write an API documentation for it. Should JQuery have the right to stop me from selling that documentation?

"So that means Rowling has no control over her fantasy universe, even when it's just reflecting what she wrote?"

That is right, and it's by design, as long as you're talking about the concepts and ideas of her universe and not their specific expressions. But again, as I said, it's not clear where the line between idea and expression lies with particular parts of a work of fiction.

The free exchange of ideas is essential to the working of a free society. I can't imagine that much good would come of making the distribution of all ideas subject to the will of the people that came up with them.

I guess it depends what you mean by "concepts and ideas", then. For me, the encyclopedia would cross a line, because it's talking about the plot and the characters using excerpts directly from the series, but "The Bible According To Harry Potter" is an original creative piece that Rowling shouldn't have veto power over.

That's wrong. Fictional facts are considered expressions, not ideas (See the James Bond and Seinfield cases).

JK can control any fictional facts from her work, like Hogwarts, or the characters. She can't control the underlying ideas, such as a wizard school, or an orphan boy hero.

"Fictional facts are considered expressions, not ideas"

My understanding is that fictional facts must stand the tests of originality and specificity. Neither unoriginal ideas, nor vague characters/settings have copyright protection. I believe that exactly when a character or setting becomes original and specific enough for protection has been interpreted in different ways by different courts.

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