The Harry Potter Lexicon is a fan-created online encyclopedia of the Harry Potter series.
The Harry Potter Lexicon is a fan-created online encyclopedia of the Harry Potter series.
The site was created by school librarian Steve Vander Ark. It contains detailed information for all seven published Harry Potter books. The Lexicon lists characters, places, creatures, spells, potions and magical devices, as well as analyzing magical theory and other details of the series. The Lexicon is credited as creating one of the first timelines of all events occurring in the Harry Potter universe. A similar timeline of events was adopted by Warner Bros. for inclusion with their Harry Potter film DVDs, and was accepted by author J. K. Rowling as conforming to her works.
The Lexicon is a winner of J. K. Rowling's Fan Site Award. Rowling said: [1]
This is such a great site that I have been known to sneak into an internet café while out writing and check a fact rather than go into a bookshop and buy a copy of Harry Potter (which is embarrassing). A website for the dangerously obsessive; my natural home.
On October 31, 2007, J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers filed a lawsuit against RDR Books over the publication of Vander Ark's Lexicon in book form. [2] [3] [4] The lawsuit was heard in a New York court on April 14, 2008. [5] Whilst some sources refer to Vander Ark being sued, the lawsuit actually names only RDR Books. [6]
The lawsuit states:
The infringing book is particularly troubling as it is in direct contravention to Ms. Rowling's repeatedly stated intention to publish her own companion books to the series. [7]
The result of the lawsuit was that the book could be published, but not in its present form. A modified version of the book was published in 2009. This case went to bench trial in the New York Federal District Court of Judge Robert Patterson on April 14, 2008. RDR Books’ defense team, which includes solo San Francisco practitioner, Lizbeth Hasse of the Creative Industry Law Group, solo New York practitioner David Hammer, and the Fair Use Project at Stanford University Law School, has replied to the suit, arguing:
In support of her position Ms Rowling appears to claim a monopoly on the right to publish literary reference guides, and other non-academic research, relating to her own fiction. This is a right no court has ever recognized. It has little to recommend it. If accepted, it would dramatically extend the reach of copyright protection, and eliminate an entire genre of literary supplements: third party reference guides to fiction, which for centuries have helped readers better access, understand and enjoy literary works. [8]
Rowling stated that her efforts to halt the publishing of the Lexicon have been crushing her creativity, and said that she was not sure if she has "the will or the heart" to now publish her own encyclopedia. [9]
On 8 September 2008, Rowling won her copyright case against RDR Books. [10] Lexicon publisher RDR Books said:
We are encouraged by the fact the court recognized that as a general matter authors do not have the right to stop the publication of reference guides and companion books about literary works. As for the Lexicon, we are obviously disappointed with the result, and RDR is considering all of its options.
In December, 2008, a modified (and shorter) version of Vander Ark's Lexicon was approved for publication and was released January 16, 2009 as The Lexicon: An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter Fiction. [11]
Joanne Rowling, best known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She wrote Harry Potter, a seven-volume children's fantasy series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has sold over 600 million copies, been translated into 84 languages, and spawned a global media franchise including films and video games. The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her first novel for adults. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias Robert Galbraith.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The first novel in the Harry Potter series and Rowling's debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage on his eleventh birthday, when he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry makes close friends and a few enemies during his first year at the school and with the help of his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, he faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the second novel in the Harry Potter series. The plot follows Harry's second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, during which a series of messages on the walls of the school's corridors warn that the "Chamber of Secrets" has been opened and that the "heir of Slytherin" would kill all pupils who do not come from all-magical families. These threats are found after attacks that leave residents of the school petrified. Throughout the year, Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione investigate the attacks.
Tanya Grotter is the protagonist of a Russian fantasy novel series by Dmitri Yemets. Tanya Grotter is an orphan with intentional resemblances to J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter. Despite its reputation in Russia and the many books it has spawned, the series is not available in English translation, because of the first book having been judged a breach of copyright.
Quidditch Through the Ages is a 2001 book written by British author J. K. Rowling using the pseudonym of Kennilworthy Whisp about Quidditch in the Harry Potter universe. It purports to be the Hogwarts library's copy of the non-fiction book of the same name mentioned in several novels of the Harry Potter series.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the seventh and final novel in the Harry Potter series. It was released on 21 July 2007 in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury Publishing, in the United States by Scholastic, and in Canada by Raincoast Books. The novel chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005) and the final confrontation between the wizards Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort.
The Harry Potter fandom is the community of fans of the Harry Potter books and films who participate in entertainment activities that revolve around the series, such as reading and writing fan fiction, creating and soliciting fan art, engaging in role-playing games, socialising on Harry Potter-based forums, and more. The fandom interacts online as well as offline through activities such as fan conventions, participating in cosplay, tours of iconic landmarks relevant to the books and production of the films, and parties held for the midnight release of each book and film.
MuggleNet is the Internet's oldest and largest Harry Potter and Wizarding World fansite. MuggleNet was founded in 1999. It has expanded over the years to include a handful of partner podcasts, a separate book blog, over half a dozen published works and live events. At one point, it also ran its own forums, social network and separate fan fiction website. Originally owned by founder Emerson Spartz, MuggleNet became an independently-owned and operated brand in early 2020.
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The main story arc concerns Harry's conflict with Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard who intends to become immortal, overthrow the wizard governing body known as the Ministry of Magic and subjugate all wizards and Muggles.
The Leaky Cauldron, also called Leaky, TLC, or Leaky News, is a Harry Potter fansite and blog. The site features news, image and video galleries, downloadable widgets, a chat room and discussion forum, and an essay project called Scribbulus, among other offerings. Since 2005, the Leaky Cauldron has also hosted an official podcast, called PotterCast.
The Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator, or HPANA, as it is better known, is a non-official website created in 2002.
PotterCast is the official podcast of the Harry Potter fansite The Leaky Cauldron. Its episodes are posted once per month and are typically about an hour long. In every episode, the hosts discuss particular passages, themes, and questions from the Harry Potter books and films, and they go over the Potter-related news stories reported during the previous week by The Leaky Cauldron. The podcast often includes input from everyday Potter fans, but it has also featured numerous interviews with professionals involved in making the Potter books, films, and video games. PotterCast frequently hosts contests, and it has presented a variety of themed shows, including a special wizard rock video edition and an episode for Banned Books Week 2005, in which staff interviewed representatives from the American Library Association. It also covers breaking news, such as the press conference hosted by Warner Brothers before the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Fanfiction has encountered problems with intellectual property law due to usage of copyrighted characters without the original creator or copyright owner's consent.
Writer J. K. Rowling cites several writers as influences in her creation of her bestselling Harry Potter series. Writers, journalists and critics have noted that the books also have a number of analogues; a wide range of literature, both classical and modern, which Rowling has not openly cited as influences.
Harry Potter is a series of fantasy novels by J. K. Rowling.
Since first coming to wide notice in the late 1990s, the Harry Potter book series by J. K. Rowling has been the subject of a number of legal disputes. Rowling, her various publishers and Time Warner, the owner of the rights to the Harry Potter films, have taken numerous legal actions to protect their copyrights, and also have fielded accusations of copyright theft themselves. The worldwide popularity of the Harry Potter series has led to the appearance of a number of locally-produced, unauthorised sequels and other derivative works, leading to efforts to ban or contain them. While these legal proceedings have countered a number of cases of outright piracy, other attempts have targeted not-for-profit endeavours and have been criticised.
Religious debates over the Harry Potter series of books by J. K. Rowling are based on claims that the novels contain occult or Satanic subtexts. A number of Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Christians have argued against the series, as have some Muslims. Supporters of the series have said that the magic in Harry Potter bears little resemblance to occultism, being more in the vein of fairy tales such as Cinderella and Snow White, or to the works of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, both of whom are known for writing fantasy novels with Christian subtexts. Far from promoting a particular religion, some argue, the Harry Potter novels go out of their way to avoid discussing religion at all. However, the author of the series, J. K. Rowling, describes herself as a Christian, and many have noted the Christian references which she includes in the final novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Fan fiction or fanfiction is fictional writing written in an amateur capacity by fans, unauthorized by, but based on an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual properties from the original creator(s) as a basis for their writing. Fan fiction ranges from a couple of sentences to an entire novel, and fans can retain the creator's characters and settings and/or add their own. It is a form of fan labor. Fan fiction can be based on any fictional subject. Common bases for fan fiction include novels, movies, comics, musical groups, cartoons, anime, manga, and video games.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. and J. K. Rowling v. RDR Books, 575 F.Supp.2d 513 was a copyright lawsuit brought on 31 October 2007 by the media company Warner Bros. and Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling against RDR Books, an independent publishing company based in Muskegon, Michigan. Lawyers for Rowling and Time Warner argued that RDR's attempt to publish for profit a print facsimile of The Harry Potter Lexicon, a free online guide to the Harry Potter fictional universe, constituted an infringement of their copyright and was not protected by the affirmative defense of fair use. The trial was held from 14–17 April 2008 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. In September 2008, the court ruled in Rowling's favor, and publication of the book was blocked. In 2009, RDR Books released an edited volume, eliminating the problematic long quotes found to be infringing.
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