Wanker of the Day: J.K. Rowling

Yes, the author of the Harry Potter series is suing a small publisher over their publishing a Harry Potter encyclopedia.

It appears that Rowling , "feels like her words were stolen".

Tough. Copyright is not ownership, and it was never intended to be ownership. It is a limited time exclusive license, and people are allowed to do things like create encyclopedias.

In fact, this was the sort of activity that was specifically intended under copyright.

Under your view of copyright, Shakespeare's folios, from which the plays were published, would have been suppressed, which would make all of us poorer in a most profound way.

She "loves" the Harry Potter Lexicon Web site, but had to "draw the line" at his publishing a book based on this material.

Frankly, you have no right to do this. Literally, unless the person has fully appropriated large blocks of your text.

Names, relationships, a plot chart of the story line (assuming that author Steven Vander Ark developed himself), they aren't your property.

Copyright was created to promote the useful sciences and arts, at least in the USA, the fact that someone is diagramming the finer points of your tale is none of your damn business, though I'm sure you can probably bankrupt the publisher.