J.K. Rowling Pulls a Muggle’s Move with Punitive Lawsuit

Okay, we’re not fans of the Harry Potter books here at Easy Witchcraft. Never mind that the series, which has enjoyed unprecedented marketing and therefore sales, is little more than rehashed old fantasy standbys peppered with embarrassingly awkward proper nouns. We’ll also set aside the disturbingly elitist premise of inherited “magical-ness.’

At Easy Witchcraft, we firmly believe everyone is born with the capacity for magic.

Nevertheless, the popularity of the books are hard to deny, despite the well-worn plots and primitive delineation of good and evil. These features have always sold better than original writing expressing subtle worldviews.

But with all the hype and multi-billion dollar success of her lowest-common-denominator pulp fantasy, J.K. Rowling can’t stand the thought of a single penny slipping from her fingers. This time, she’s pointing her crone’s wand at her own fandom.

The controversy stems from a Harry Potter fact site on which J.K. Rowling herself has often heaped praise in the past. According to this article, Steven Vander Ark is being sued for copyright infringement over the release of Vander Ark’s independently researched lexicology about J.K. Rowling’s books.

Rowling, who once admitted to using Vander Ark’s website to check facts about her own books (!) now can’t bear to have him in the courtroom when she testifies against him. She has had her attorneys secure extra privileges for the celebrity witness to insulate her from her fans.

What makes this move particularly noxious is that it is quite common, especially in the fantasy genre, for fans to produce guides to the complex worlds of their favorite authors.

Fantasy aside, this litigation begs a larger question of copyright, and threatens the very practice of literary criticism itself. What right does an author have to bar annotation of their work? Citation and analysis is an integral part of the academic process. Will Rowling’s next action be against a PhD candidate producing a thesis on her work?

While Rowling and her expensive legal muscle may well be able to rewrite common law to suit her purposes, several hundred years of literary tradition do not support the right to suppress annotation.

Yet another reason for Harry Potter to wake up and try some of the more advanced flavors of magical fiction. You’ll be surprised at how good some of it is once you get your head out of the Hog’s Warts. See some of our favorites below.