JK Rowling Bashes 'Fan-Created' Harry Potter Encyclopedia

by Jarrett Martineau | February 29, 2008 at 09:21 am

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Proprietary much? Shouldn't as successful an author as JK Rowling feel gratified that fans are spending their own time and energy to produced their own compendia of spells, essays, facts, figures, and words inspired by the world of Harry Potter? Apparently not.

As the creator of the Harry Potter books sees it, her kindness to fans might come back to haunt her.

In papers filed for a lawsuit in Manhattan, J.K. Rowling says she feels betrayed by a fan, Steven Vander Ark, for his role in trying to publish an unauthorized reference work, "Harry Potter Lexicon."

Ark is editor of a Web site containing a fan-created collection of essays and encyclopedic material on the Potter universe, including lists of spells and potions found in the books, a catalog of magical creatures and a who's who in the wizarding world.

Rowling said she was especially irked that the site's owner and the lexicon's would-be publisher, RDR Books, continued to insist that her acceptance of free, fan-based Web sites justified the efforts.

"I am deeply troubled by the portrayal of my efforts to protect and preserve the copyrights I have been granted in the Harry Potter books," she wrote in court papers filed Wednesday in a lawsuit she brought against the small Muskegon, Mich., publisher.

She said she intends to publish her own definitive Harry Potter encyclopedia.