[WikiEN-l] Plot Element Copyright

[Philip Sandifer]

On Sep 20, 2008, at 3:07 PM, Gwern Branwen wrote:

> On 2008.09.20 14:27:29 -0400, WJhonson at aol.com scribbled 0.6K  
> characters:
>> Phil (and others).  Wasn't there a case recently where a guy made an
>> "Encyclopedia" of the Harry Potter universe ?
>> And then Rowling sued him?  Or something like that.  I vaguely   
>> remember it.
>> Will
>
> Yes, the case recently ended. I read the judge's decision. It was  
> interesting, but more or less irrelevant to Wikipedia: Vanderark was  
> fined the statutory minimum, and he only got that much because he  
> quoted quite a bit from Rowling, and didn't even quote a lot of his  
> quoting. Further, the judge was less than impressed by how much  
> context and analysis he did. Further aggravating factors were the  
> commercial nature of the encyclopedia, missteps in promotion of it,  
> and less than good-est faith on their part.
>
> So if anyone is seriously worried that we, or the Harry Potter  
> Wikia, might be next - that's just copyright paranoia. Neither meet  
> the judge's points in multiple ways.

Though this is one of the major reasons we need to deal with fictional  
works primarily from an out-of-universe perspective, yes, this just  
about sums it up.

Honestly, the main reason a lot of our plot summaries need trimming is  
that they're too detailed to follow easily, not that they're copyright  
problems.

-Phil