JK Rowling Sucks

Well, my point is, how can you sue someone for making a copy of Oxford university when you dont own Oxford university?
How can you own the word "olympics" ? Unless you are Greek and 2000 yrs old, then it aint yours.

She sucketh verily.
Does this mean she is going to sue the makers of dungeons and Dragons for stealing her ideas from the future and then using them in the past, before she had them?
 
a woman recently walked into the greyhound rescue centre near here. she adopted a retired racer to give it a good home so it would not be put down. she was asked to make a small donation to cover the centre's expenses. she wrote them a cheque for £1000.00 (US$2000). signed it J. K. Rowling. and yes it WAS her.

as above, if you do not protect yourself against the small thieves, the big ones think you are fair game. the full sized indian castle was complete with signs, simulated moving stairway and other depictions of things in her books, was not just a generic or public domain building copy. if they had asked, she may have said yes, but they didn't. the scenes in the films of actual buildings were done with permission, they just didn't arrive & start shooting. and i do not remember any parkour in them.
 
Steely_Gunz said:
... but how many Harry Potters do you know?:confused:
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Col. Harry Potter of MASH?

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She is suing them because she has to protect her rights. Does the story say what she will accept as an acknowledgement of her rights? Maybe they'll have to pay a token cost of litigation, or a public apology. These actions are very much pro forma.
 
well, all a moot point now, the indian courts have rejected the claim while upholding the copyright on a one-time basis. here is a copy of the article. sets out a bit more detail - the supposedly non-profit organization was selling stalls at the event & it was warner bros. doing the suing tho with JK's knowledge of the commercial use of her stuff.

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Warner Brothers 'pleased' with Potter judgement
Saturday, 13 October , 2007, 16:50
London: Entertainment giant Warner Brothers on Saturday said it was "pleased" that the Delhi High Court, while throwing out a case brought by Warner against the organisers of a Kolkata Durga puja, had recognised the importance of protecting the Harry Potter copyright.

The Delhi High Court on Friday rejected the Warner's copyright infringement case against a Kolkata puja themed around the Potter series, but warned that this was only a one-time permission and that the author's permission would be needed from the next year onwards.

Warner, which controls the rights to the Harry Potter series in India, slapped the copyright infringement case after the Salt Lake Puja committee was found using Harry Potter-look-alike idols and a pandal designed like Hogwarts Castle.

Reacting to the judgement, Warner Brothers said the action "brought by Warner Bros, with the support of Ms Rowling and her publishers," sought to protect fans.

"...The injunction was made in our favour, but the court decided that there was insufficient time for the Harry Potter elements of this particular event to be amended or withdrawn. We are pleased that the court has recognised that such events cannot proceed without Warner Bros' permission which should have been obtained."

About Justice Sanjay Kaul's rejection of Warner Brother's claim for compensation - on the grounds that a claim could not be made on a public purpose such as a puja - the statement issued in London said: "Court requirements in India meant that minimum damages initially had to be claimed, but we expressly waived these in the court hearing."

There appeared to have been a degree of confusion surrounding the court case brought against the Kolkata puja organisers.

When contacted Harry Potter publishers Bloomsbury, it was directed to Rowling's literary agents Christopher Little. But Christopher Little in turn came back to say it had forwarded the IANS query to Warner Brothers, "As the matter was primarily brought about by Warner Bros".

Warner is thought to have been informed by its legal advisers in India that this was a commercially organised event which was selling 40 to 50 stalls at a cost of $600 each and banner advertisements at a cost of $250 each to local and internationally recognised companies.

Warner has guidelines specifically to help non-profit and charitable organisations to run Harry Potter themed events, but it does not believe it is right for commercial organisations to profit from the use of Harry Potter brands.

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another case of open mouth , insert foot; or look before you leap, or get all the facts before you cast the stones.....
 
I quite agree, JKR is within her rights to sue... but the question remains: having pocketed $zillions, why does she even care anymore? Isn't the whole point of copyrighting to ensure that authors can profit from their work? If I were in her place, and my lawyers made pests of themselves over the matter, I'd put the stuff in the public domain just to be shed of the nuisance. Heck, getting rid of $1B is probably more work than JKR did making it.
 
wato, she is no longer a private person. She did not make all that money by herself. Her writing was the basis of an industry of publishing, movie-making, and associated products. Her business partners have every right to expect her support as they protect their investments, too.
 
I think she's definitely entitled to protect what is hers.

Having said that, I can't help but expect that she'd sue if "The Secret of platform 13", The Troll, Rah and the Muggles, the Worst Witch, Larry Potter, etc --- which were all published before Harry Potter --- were published for the first time today.

I think she (actually WB) would crush them out.

Edit to add: Esav is dead on. I doubt JK is spending her days looking for infringements.
 
her books are good. but theres no need to sue her fans. lol

i was watching 'twenty most richest women in the world'

and she was 2nd, behind Oprah.
 
Please, next you'll be telling me George Lucas ripped off a whole bunch of contemporary filmmakers and authors with Star Wars and then jealously defended his own work. Come on! Then you'll be telling me a long history of books had blatantly similar stories to Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code, and then he went to court and proved his ideas were different enough to be different.

I don't blame Rowling for defending her interests. You know a few years from now someone else is going to come out with a story of a magic or otherwise fantastically-endowed (not like that) teenager and people of the Harry Potter Generation will undoubtedly say, "OMFG!!!! ______ is teh suXXorZ!!!11one WTF!?!?!"
 
JCaswell said:
...I doubt JK is spending her days looking for infringements.
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right on, having adopted two greyhounds myself, i'm sure she's spending more time potty training hers than worrying about something Warner Bros. is handling in her behalf. she can of course fill the rest of her day with her charity works.

how quick we are to condemn those who are better off than we are, especially if they are from humble backgrounds, bring themselves up with their own efforts and do not assume the airs of the nuevo riche in their rise from obscurity. JK is no spoiled paris hilton. she is of course, having been poor once, careful not to allow anyone to steal from her as she does not want to go back to that economic state.

personally i am not a 'fan', have never read any of her books, and only saw one movie which was on TV one day when i had nothing better to do, but having read the facts, which may be more available over here, i find her innocent of the charges.

move on, there are better tyrants and scoundrels to focus on.
 
Well, a couple of things.
First, I think it's alright for them to sue, since the display was used for commercial purposes, I.E. to make money. If it was a free walk-through/show/whatever, then i would have strongly opposed it. Also, if that had been the case, I doubt WB would have sued.

Second JKR owns the rights to the intellectual property of the books, WB owns the rights tot he movies. WB could have (and may have) sued without her knowledge or consent. Even if she did know, I still support it because people were making money off of someone else's idea.
 
if i were noah webster i'd sue her along with all the rest of you for using words out of my dictionary., or at least i would have if the copyright hadn't expired already. damn lawyers, just because i've been dead for over 70 years they won't take the case.
==============================================================

Copyright law covers only the form or manner in which ideas or information have been manifested, the "form of material expression". It is not designed or intended to cover the actual idea, concepts, facts, styles, or techniques which may be embodied in or represented by the copyright work. For example, the copyright which subsists in relation to a Mickey Mouse cartoon prohibits unauthorized parties from distributing copies of the cartoon or creating derivative works which copy or mimic Disney's particular anthropomorphic mouse, but does not prohibit the creation of artistic works about anthropomorphic mice in general, so long as they are sufficiently different to not be deemed imitative of the original. In some jurisdictions, copyright law provides scope for satirical or interpretive works which themselves may be copyrighted. Other laws may impose legal restrictions on reproduction or use where copyright does not - such as trademarks and patents.

Copyright laws are standardized through international conventions such as the Berne Convention in some countries and are required by international organizations such as European Union or World Trade Organization from their member states.

Several exclusive rights typically attach to the holder of a copyright:

* to produce copies or reproductions of the work and to sell those copies (including, typically, electronic copies)
* to import or export the work
* to create derivative works (works that adapt the original work)
* to perform or display the work publicly
* to sell or assign these rights to others
* to transmit or display by means of digital audio transmission (XM Satellite Radio, Sirius)

The phrase "exclusive right" means that only the copyright holder is free to exercise the attendant rights, and others are prohibited using the work without the consent of the copyright holder.
 
Once a franchise makes it big, the naming rights are often sold or leased to a third party company who markets products cashing in on the theme. They are the ones who will police and defend the exclusive use of the name. JK may have already made her money and not care but there are a lot of other people still making their money off of Harry Potter and they do care.
 
DannyinJapan said:
That's my point. EVERYTHING in the harry potter books was stolen from somebody else's intellectual property.
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Stolen in actually plaigarised, or in uses the same concepts and storyline (serious question, I haven't read any of the Potter books or seen the movies, nor read the stuff you listed earlier).

If it's in fact stolen and the older stuff isn't considered public domain now, then, IMO they have the right to sue her. "They" being whoever holds the rights to the older stuff.

But as I stated earlier, I bet it's more WB suing than JK Rowling suing.
 
C.S. Graves said:
Ain't read any Harry Potter myself, and I don't intend to start, though childhood literacy is a good (albeit somewhat declining) phenomenon. Did Rowling steal half her ideas? Not sure, but she sure did get them marketed more effectively!

But you crack down on things like this festival in India, and you may as well crack down on fan conventions and the like too. Imagine if Gene Roddenberry's estate sued every geek that ever wore pointed ears!
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I'd have expected you to give it a try before writing it off. Are you scared?


Stolen or not, it was a great read, great stories, and stands alone among the great works of fiction. Like it or not.

Since the initial concern in this post was erroneous (ie, warner bros sued not JK) I'd guess this thread is nothing more than sour grapes.

Read the books. They're fun boyhood stories, they've an intricate plot, that will captivate you and she's great with characters too.
 
I've had to watch each movie a dozen times. We use them as treats in English class sometimes. (I am an English teacher in Japan)
All those gross candies are straight out of Monty Python.
Heck, they even had John Cleese appear in the movies. (Maybe that was part of the deal - he gets to be in the movie for the rights to the chocolate frog idea.)
 
Haha Danny, I was about to mention the Monty Python candy ('Cockroach Clusters' is a straight-up steal) but you beat me to it.
 
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