World-famous author J.K. Rowling has a court date in Manhattan this week (beginning April 14th) in order to defend her works. She claims that her copyright is being violated by Steven Vander Ark, who is the creator of www.hp-lexicon.org and plans to release his book “The Harry Potter Lexicon”. The book and website are intended as reference items to J.K. Rowling’s works. Such pages as “A Wizard’s Atlas”, “Encyclopedia of Potions”, and “Magic and Magical Theory” appear on the index of Vander Ark’s webpage.

Rowling is a visitor of Vander Ark’s webpage and even says that she enjoys its commentary. However, she said that the new book, the 400-page lexicon, isn’t an original work and is a “rip-off” of her works.

In court she has been tearful and devoted to stopping this book from being published, saying that she feels “very frustrated that a former fan has tried to co-opt my work for financial gain”, and “I feel intensely protective, firstly, of the literary world I spent so long creating, and secondly, of the fans who bought my books in such large numbers.” Warner Brothers has said that the book “fails to include any of the commentary and discussion that enrich the Web site and instead is nothing more than a rearrangement of J.K. Rowling’s own written material.”

On the other side of the argument, RDR Books, the company planning to publish “The Harry Potter Lexicon” said that Rowling “appears to claim a monopoly on the right to publish literary reference guides, and other nonacademic research, relating to her own fiction.”

This case is important because it may change the precedents and standards for publishing literary references. Rowling says that she planned to publish her own Harry Potter Encyclopedia and donate the proceeds to charity.

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