JK Rowling Wins Copyright Claim Over Harry Potter Lexicon

US judge rules that publication of unauthorized guide would cause author irreparable harm

JK Rowling has won her claim that a fan violated her copyright with plans to publish an A to Z of Harry Potter. A US judge ruled today that the unauthorized guide would cause her irreparable harm as a writer.

Rowling filed a lawsuit against RDR Books, a Michigan-based company, last year over the Harry Potter Lexicon on the grounds that it lifted huge portions of her stories without adding any original thought or interpretation. She called the project "wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work".

The author, Steve Vander Ark, who also runs the popular Harry Potter Lexicon website, wanted to publish the lexicon as a Harry Potter guide to be priced at about $24.95 (?12.50).

In a district court in Manhattan today, Judge Robert Patterson found that RDR Books had "failed to establish an affirmative defence of fair use", and ruled that publication of the lexicon should be halted.

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