Courtroom Drama For J.K. Rowling

Posted on April 15, 2008

The trial over the fan who wants to publish a Harry Potter lexicon, which J.K. Rowling says is an outright theft of her hard work, continues in New York. It's been quite dramatic. Yesterday, J.K. Rowling nearly came to tears as she described how much Harry Potter and the books meant to her. Today the fan testified and he broke down in tears.

Vander Ark wiped away tears when he was asked to reflect on what the case has done to his relationship with the community of Harry Potter fans. The former middle school librarian, who fell in love with the books in the late 90s and has devoted years to studying them and indexing their content online, could barely speak. "It's been ... it's been," he stammered, choking on his words. "It's been difficult because there has been a lot of criticism, obviously, and that was never the intention. ... This has been an important part of my life for the last nine years or so."

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During his testimony Tuesday, Vander Ark acknowledged that he, too, had substantial concerns all along about whether publishing an encyclopedia based on Rowling's Potter universe would constitute copyright infringement. He said he was talked into doing it by the publishing company.

Aha! So he admits that he was worried whether publishing the book would be copyright infringement. So much drama in the courtroom: first Jo nearly cries then the fan cries. But did the judge cry? Because that might be an indication of which way the wind is blowing here.

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