Legal Disputes Over The Harry Potter Series - Other Accusations of Infringement

Other Accusations of Infringement

See also: Warner Bros and JK Rowling vs RDR Books

In 2000, in the lead-up to the release of the first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone; Warner Bros., the film's distributor, sent a series of letters to owners of Harry Potter fansites, demanding that, to protect their copyright, they hand over their domain names. The action resulted in negative publicity for the company when Claire Field, the then 15-year-old webmaster of the British fansite harrypotterguide.co.uk, was reduced to tears by what were described by her father as unnecessary bully tactics. Eventually the corporation backed down in the face of media opposition and declared that, as the site was non-commercial, it did not violate the trademark.

In their May 2004 issue, the US Army publication The Preventive Maintenance Monthly, which instructs soldiers on how to maintain their equipment, featured a spoof comic based on Harry Potter, featuring a character named Topper who resided at Mogmarts School under Professor Rumbledore. The publication received notice from Rowling's lawyers that the comics breached copyright, though the magazine's editor, Ken Crunk, claimed that no violation had taken place, as "he drawings do not look like any of the characters from Harry Potter". After a discussion with Rowling's representatives, the magazine agreed not to use the characters again.

In 2004, Rowling and Time Warner launched legal actions against bazee.com, now the Indian branch of the online auction site eBay. The site had hosted illegally-created e-books of Harry Potter, which Rowling had never agreed to be published. In 2005, Rowling warned her fans on her website that various "signed" Harry Potter memorabilia appearing for sale on eBay did not in fact use her signature. She urged her fans to protest eBay to prevent other children from being swindled. In 2007, Rowling launched lawsuits against a number of users of the site, obtaining a series of stay orders preventing them from selling her work. However eBay claimed that in her dealings with the media, Rowling had falsely claimed that her injunctions had been against eBay itself. In June 2007, eBay filed papers with the Delhi High Court, alleging that Rowling had caused them "immense humiliation and harassment". The High Court circumvented the application, claiming that it could not make such a judgment until the case went to trial.

In October 2007, Warner Bros. sued a group constructing a façade during a Hindu religious festival in the Indian city of Kolkata for 2 million (US$36,000), claiming that they had erected a giant replica of Harry Potter's school, Hogwarts, without their permission. Initial reports stated that, as the effort was not for profit, it did not violate Rowling's copyright. The Associated Press claimed that the High Court of Delhi, where the petition was filed, allowed the organisers to carry on with the temporary construction with an order that the structure had to be dismantled after the festival was over and that the court refused to impose any compensation on the basis that the organisers were involved in a "non-profit making enterprise". However, these statements were later retracted: the court had in fact ruled in favour of Warner Bros., but no fine had been ordered, and Warner Bros. claimed that they had only requested a fine because such action was necessary under Indian law. In November 2007, Rowling discussed the case on her website, listing the rumours that she had targeted a non-profit organisation as "Toxic" and saying, "The defendants were not religious charities, and theirs was not a religious celebration. On the contrary, it was a large-scale, commercial, sponsored event involving corporations that included a major Indian high street bank. The event was, however, set up while a Hindu festival was going on ... The court ruled that Warner Bros. rights had indeed been infringed, and that events such as the one in question would need Warner Bros.' permission in the future. The court also restrained all the defendants from any future events infringing Warner Bros. rights."

On 31 October 2007, Warner Bros. and Rowling sued Michigan-based publishing firm RDR Books to block the publication of a 400-page book version of the Harry Potter Lexicon, an online reference guide to her work. Rowling, who previously had a good relationship with Lexicon owner Steve Vander Ark, reiterated on her website that she plans to write a Harry Potter encyclopedia, and that the publication of a similar book before her own would hurt the proceeds of the official encyclopaedia, which she plans to give to charity. A judge later barred publication of the book in any form until the case was resolved. In their suit, Rowling's lawyers also asserted that, as the book describes itself as a print facsimile of the Harry Potter Lexicon website, it would publish excerpts from the novels and stills from the films without offering sufficient "transformative" material to be considered a separate work. The trial concluded on 17 April 2008. On 8 September 2008, the judge ruled in her favour, claiming that the book would violate the terms of fair use. In December, 2008, a modified (and shorter) version of Vander Ark's Lexicon was approved for publication and was released 16 January 2009 as The Lexicon: An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter Fiction.

In November 2007, The Scotsman reported that Rowling had threatened legal action against American computer programmer G. Norman Lippert for allegedly violating her intellectual property rights by producing and publishing the online novel, James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing, an unofficial and unauthorised continuation of the Harry Potter series. Written as a fan fiction project for Lippert's wife and sons, the novel is set eighteen years after the end of the last official installment in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and describes the adventures of Harry Potter's son, James Potter, during his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A specialist in intellectual property law at Strathclyde University commented that, "If an insubstantial character from a novel is taken and built up by another author in a new story, that can be a defence against copyright infringements." However, after Lippert offered Rowling an advance copy of the novel, Rowling dismissed her threat and said she supported the novel and any others like it. Lippert subsequently produced a sequel, James Potter and the Curse of the Gatekeeper. After the novel first appeared online in early November 2007, some Harry Potter fans on the Internet initially speculated that the site might be part of an elaborate viral marketing campaign for an official continuation or spinoff of Harry Potter, one either written or at least approved by Rowling herself. On 9 November 2007, Rowling's agent Neil Blair denied that Rowling was in any way involved with the purported project, and Warner Bros., the studio which owns the rights to the Harry Potter film series, denied that the novel was in any way connected to the official Harry Potter franchise.