JKR vs SVA

[lady_karelia]

I dunno. It might help for the fandom to stand united in this case and condemn Steve Vander Ark and show support for JKR. It was all dandy when he was just generating advertising revenue from the lexicon site, and I just cannot imagine that that only paid for keeping up the site. However, putting "his" lexicon into a book format, excluding the essays on the site to boot, reeks of greed. And plagiarism.

I am boycotting the lexicon.

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Comments

[lady-rhian.livejournal.com]

Love 'em.

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

*grins* Seen the homepage of TPP (http://www.thepetulantpoetess.com/index.php) lately?

[lady-rhian.livejournal.com]

Beautiful. *grins*

I understand why people are sympathetic to SVA, but all the sympathy is just so annoying! The fact that he signed that damn contract AND put the lawsuit clause in makes him just as guilty and not nearly as innocent as he portends to be. A true fan, or someone truly familiar with the law (or someone who, y'know, took the time to get a second opinion), would never have signed that contract. Someone who respects JKR, knowing she planned to write an encyclopedia full of facts no one knows, would not publish such an encyclopedia.

So, anyway... much love to TPP for that lovely little message after the logo. :-)

[ariadne1.livejournal.com]

It's interesting. From what I've read, VDA was approached by a small (very) publishing house with an offer to publish the lexicon in book form, and said "I can't do that because of copyright" and they - the experts, one would suppose - said "Oh, sure you can - your work is scholarly" (moment of professional opinion: it's not, at least not how that's usually defined). I think he was skeptical - skeptical enough that he insisted on a clause in the contract saying "If there's a lawsuit it's on your heads and you pay for all legal fees" and they said, "Okay" by signing it.

It seems that upon signing a contract with them (probably because he trusted their legal department) he may have also signed away his rights to stop the publication should JKR object.

If there's an evil here, and again this is only based on what I've read and a bit of experience with how publishing houses work, I think it's the publishing company. I think they were opportunistic and self-serving in how they defined "scholarly," and I think it's in horrifyingly poor taste (and with really bad judgment) that upon receipt of the information that JKR objected they did not immediately drop the project with an apology.

I don't think VDA should have trusted them as far as he did - but it may be that his worst error was simply in trusting a publishing house to know what they could and couldn't publish.

Anyway. My $.02.

[lady-karelia.livejournal.com]

I agree. It's not scholarly. And if it's accepted as such then I really don't want to know what the world is coming to. A copy and paste job in alphabetical order isn't scholarly work.

Uhuh. He was skeptical to include that clause, which in my eyes makes him greedy. Why agree to do it in the first place???

Yes, I agree on the publishing house being the evil one. However, SVA agreeing to work with them puts him in a very similar boat.

I hope the publishing house loses because otherwise, I can really see any popular author putting much more stringent conditions on the various fandoms, and many may take the Anne Rice route of not allowing fanfiction at all...

[ariadne1.livejournal.com]

Hm. I'll agree the publishing house is greedy; they approached him, however. SVA seems more opportunistic in my eyes... It's ethically grey; I've had to fight tooth and nail and become something of a copyright geek to argue down flinchy press editors to let me quote earlier drafts of Hemingway's sentences. (I've literally counted the # of words that were changed between versions and the number of "new" words total included in entire essays when arguing with various presses.) I try to imagine what I'd think if I were approached by a publishing house saying "We'd like to publish that thing you have on the web; it counts as scholarly and thus doesn't violate copyright" "You sure?" "Yep, our legal team is so sure of that we'll put that 'we pay fees' in your contract" - especially if I didn't have any experience in scholarly publishing. I don't know. I might trust them.

Which would be stupid of me.

And I'd be hoping to make money on the project, so I suppose that'd be greedy of me.

That said - it also seems that JKR is doing her level best to be absolutely clear what her objections are here. I can't see her silencing writers because of a slimeball publishing house trying to print a lexicon. She likes her fan writers. She's argued with Warner Bros. about that. "Let them write - it's creative."

So I'm being optimistic.

I'm also pretty sure the publishing house will lose. If press editors are so flinchy they don't want me quoting the omitted words "There must be some actual world" to compare it with the published words "They were all waiting reasonably" in the service of a scholarly argument, copyright law is strongly in favor of protecting the "original author" and not the "upstart scholar" - so I have faith.

Re: the Anne Rice route: *shudders* I think she's a loon.

All hail JKR.

I just can't unilaterally condemn SVA because it's too easy for me to see how easily he was probably convinced - by supposed experts - that his work doesn't violate copyright at all.

It'll be interesting to see how it unfolds.

[kimberly-elf.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Awesome.

::points to icon:: gacked that one from elseinane

[elfarren.livejournal.com]

I saw something about this in passing on the news, but I had no idea that's what was going on! I've used the Lexicon many a time while researching for one of my stories, but I've never had the audacity to try and claim JKR's world for my own and try to make money off it! Shame on him, and I hope JKR puts him in his place!!

[apythia.livejournal.com]

Hear! Hear!