Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Can't let this one pass

An emotional J.K. Rowling said on Monday she had stopped working on a new novel because her creativity was stifled by a fan's bid to print an unofficial encyclopedic companion to her Harry Potter series.

The 42-year-old British author and Warner Bros. are suing independent U.S. publisher RDR Books, which plans to publish "The Harry Potter Lexicon," a 400-page reference book written by Steve Vander Ark and based on his popular fan Web site (www.hp-lexicon.org).

Rowling told a New York court on Monday that the demands of the case had caused her to halt work on a new novel. The author, who wrote seven novels about the boy wizard, said the stress has "decimated my creative work over the past month."

Boo. Fucking. Hoo. And this lawsuit is overkill. But British courts being how they are, we'll start saying goodbye to fair use in no time.

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