It's the females of America, who were expected to flock in droves to the country's first female news anchor and a bunch of dumbed-down, human-interest-lite 'news' made just to please them. No wonder everyone watches "The Daily Show" instead.

I think the speculation that Katie Couric was bribed to hurt the Today Show's ratings, rather than to prop up the aging ghost of the CBS Evening News, is correct.

The answers as best as I have them:

1) I believe there was a permissions issue involved with the criticism and essays (Steve didn't ask for any).

2) There was ad revenue, not sure about donations. Normally on fansites it's pretty informal-- a 'help keep this site afloat!' message. And people could easily AdBlock or ignore ads; buying a print copy of something is different.

3) I knew you weren't making greed charges, I just wanted to put it in because I'm tired of hearing it from others, sorry!

I do think she got the idea for the book she intends to release from the people who've already done the work and who's work she's already admitted to using.

But an encyclopedia of a large finished work is hardly a unique idea-- see the original post for plenty of examples. Same for organization and format-- no one holds copyright on the alphabet or the concept of a dictionary.

4) Would the simple addition of the word "Unauthorized" really make a difference? It would still compete with hers, though I think others are correct here in stating that this won't stop her fans from buying hers.

I do think it would. If you look at other 'unauthorized' Potter books (and there are some out there), they work very hard to identify themselves as such. In comparison, the proposed UK cover of the book (never saw the US cover) is almost identical to the format and font of the UK Harry Potter books. A committed adult Harry Potter fan would know the difference; a younger fan might be less savvy, and a well-meaning aunt or grandfather who just knew their family member liked "those Harry Potter books" could well be confused. People aren't allowed to sell knock-off Barbie dolls as "Barbies" for a reason.

1. Most of the criticism/essays were submitted by fans who were not Steve Van DerArk. Apparently he didn't want to get into any issues with compensating a third party. (Just pissing off J.K. Rowling. The wisdom of this strategy I'll leave up for debate!)

4. RDR Books has not behaved particularly rationally through any of this. In court yesterday the publisher admitted to trying to sell international rights after being served with a cease and desist order and to telling the prosecution lawyers that they couldn't produce a manuscript when the book's manuscript was being shipped off to those international publishers. I'm really not sure what they did expect.

There's some interesting trial coverage from a Harry Potter fansite at my signature, including the cross-examination of the publisher.

Therefore, I shall now ignore her reviews.

And yet you're here and you can't seem to shut up. Lovely.

The movie looks great, which is so nice to see-- even with Iron Man, a character I never particularly liked in comics.

But the push for self-help books? Oy.

The letters here remind me of my friend who refused to list anyone who referenced The DaVinci Code as their favorite book. She was limiting herself, and yes, it was on the basis of a book. But...who'd want to screw a guy who listed The DaVinci Code as their favorite book?

That Donna Brazile, who out and out said we need to add to the coalition, is getting as much criticism in this piece as Hillary Clinton is for saying that black people are a 'given' in the election. The fetishization of the white working-class voter is really, really disturbing, and I say that as someone who knows and loves many white working-class voters.

Is right up there in the caption to the picture. Mach 6? Blasphemy.

So is Racer X Rex Racer in the movie, or not? Or is this one of those 'you'll have to wait for the sequel' things?

It's his skin tone that is making so many vote for him, in spite of his absolute lack of qualifications.

That's right! He's following in the footsteps of all those other black elected officials who skated by on their skin tone. Like...

Well...

Huh.

Oh, that's right, there's the governor of New York, the fourth in the history of the nation, who was fairly elected-- oh, wait, that was due to a sex scandal.

Never mind the facts! This nation has a clear history of electing unqualified black people that must stop now!

God, it's like Margaret Mitchell is on the Salon boards.

Forget this hogwash about eating right, if you have a disease we got scientific studies proving that you need drugs! Your kid has ADD? Drugs! Depression? Drugs! High cholesterol? Drugs! High blood pressure? Drugs! Type 2 Diabetes? Drugs! And soon we will have the latest studies showing that the best thing for Alzheimer's is......drugs!

So what's different about Dr. Amen's insistence on "natural supplements?" Not much, as far as I can tell. There's good reason to be skeptical of the medical community, but that's no reason to swallow whatever snake oil is peddled to us by "alternate medicine."

You want to make Jews wear stars of David on their lapels? You fascist Nazi anti-semite!"

Ah, but not all the neocons are Jews. (Though, as we've learned, any criticism of them is labeled anti-semitism, so I guess that counts).

No nation is above criticism. Thanks for pointing out this latest absurdity, Glenn.