Hairy Plopper.

Lately, I've been following with great interest a lawsuit that is finally heading to court this week - Warner Bros. vs. RDR Books (a tiny publishing house in Michigan), which is a copyright case. I've long been interested in copyright, especially over the past few years, in which the explosion of online materials and user-generated content has probably frazzled the nerves of many a copyright-holder.

The issue of copyright often comes up on Disney fansite forums, since many Disney fansite webmasters are ostensibly taking copyrighted or trademarked materials and using them in various forms, most of which we (the webmasters) consider to be legally defined as "fair use." The RDR Books case very specifically deals with copyright and whether or not a website is using Warner Brothers' materials lawfully, according to "fair use."

I personally published a short book about Disney's Haunted Mansion, and I used a few photos in there, without special permission, which were taken by Disney for use with press releases and promotional purposes. I've often wondered if my using those photos in the setting of a book would be considered "fair use." I think I've sold close to 1,500 copies, which isn't a lot, but it's enough to have me curious about these things.

In the RDR Books case, Warner Bros. is representing author J.K. Rowling and their vast trademarked Harry Potter empire, while RDR Books is representing webmaster Steve Vander Ark, a one-time school librarian who created a fansite called the "Harry Potter Lexicon," which purports to spell out (no pun intended) each and every wizard, witch, spell, creature, character, location, etc. found in the Harry Potter universe. The Lexicon, as its fans refer to it, is vast. While the site could use a smarter user interface, there's no denying the fact that Vander Ark (and a group of aides) have spent countless hours poring over each of the Rowling books, cataloging every bit of flotsam and jetsam they could possibly discern. And Rowling herself (along with Warner Bros. Studios) has admitted to using the Lexicon from time to time to fact check, do research, etc.

The Lexicon was enjoying a good amount of success online, and Vander Ark decided to accept a solicitation from RDR Books to convert much of the content of the Lexicon to printed book form - and when Warner Bros. caught wind of the situation, all hell broke loose.

Anyway - the legal briefs and evidence presented to the court to date (in advance of the case, which is scheduled to begin this week) are fascinating, to me. I've learned a lot about fair use and copyright - although the real lesson will come in seeing how the judge decides to interpret the copyright laws in this case. Much of the debate comes down around the fact that Warner Bros. accuses RDR of merely repackaging Rowling's work without adding value to it; while RDR claims that their work is "transformative," meaning it uses copyrighted material to create something new and different - in this case, an encyclopedic ordering of the minutia found throughout all of Rowling's books.

I'm kinda intrigued because there seem to be decent arguments on both sides of this case, and in a minor way, I've put myself in a similar situation as Vander Ark. I also have a website based on a huge corporation's trademarked material, and I've written a book (though mine is simply self-published, and not a mass-market product.) Nevertheless, I'm very curious to see what comes of this. Like Vander Ark used to, I feel somewhat protected by the fact that so many Disney employees and divisions have used DoomBuggies for research, etc., and all have praised the site universally. But even Jo Rowling herself praised Vander Ark's site in web form, while she's the chief witness against his book in the RDR Books case.

Anyway - I guess this was just a note about something that's been grabbing my attention lately. And one other thing - while I've never met Vander Ark, he happens to be the brother of one of our closest family friends. That just makes the story weirder.