Putting aside the legal and economic conundrums, is an author really the best person to be writing an encyclopedic sister text to their work? If Rowling wants to release books that add to her made-up universe, great. But, really, what's the big deal with a guy releasing what amounts to a companion book from a scholarly perspective which sorts out rather than adds to Rowling's text? If anything a little competition might get Rowling to release a more comprehensive encyclopedia rounding out the rough geographical and historical edges of Potterland. Or I suppose it'd at least get her to dole out even more tabloidesque details concerning the personal lives of her characters.

And is anyone else more incensed by how quickly Rowling allowed her work to be strip-mined for any possible marketing potential? Heaven forbid someone puts effort into a Harry Potter related product.

"How is Farhad Manjoo ignorant of fandom? Why is that even relevant to the discussion of copyright law?"

The fact that you DON'T KNOW how ignorance of fandom is relevant to THIS discussion of copyright law proves that you, too, are fairly ignorant of fandom. That's okay -- you're just a letter writer; you're not a journalist writing an article.

But, FM's original article decided to comment about JKR's relationship to her fandom and the way that this court case might impact the fandom, in addition to the parts about copyright law. That's why it's relevant. He went on to make other assertions in his article that he would not make if he were at all familiar with the mechanisms of fandom (for example, his absurd claim that he could not imagine how SVA might provide printed copies of the HPL website material to fans who requested it *without* entering into a probably-illegal publishing contract to produce a book to sell for profit -- well, all right, perhaps it's true that *he* could not imagine how to produce a nonprofit print fanzine; but, had he consulted any fans, he might have learned that fans have been doing that for each other for decades).

Aside from that, though -- at the heart of this case are basic issues about how a fandom relates to the rightsholder of the property around which the fandom has grown; what the fans can expect, what they hope, and what they fear. FM made some assumptions about those things -- and he got them exactly wrong. And that's why his knowledge of fandom is being criticized: don't speak on behalf of fans and what they expect and what they fear, if you don't know what you're talking about.

Fans are intensely aware of the fact that copyright and trademark hangs over their heads. For every property (book, tv show, movie) for which there is a fandom, there is also a unique relationship between the creator and/or rightsholder and the fans. Sometimes that relationship is antagonistic (Anne Rice famously demands that there be *NO* fan works created for her books.) Sometimes that relationship is very cozy (and I would submit that JKR has a fairly warm relationship with her fandom, even though they are also often the first to excoriate her). Copyright and trademark has been the bludgeon wielded by rightsholders and their lawyers for years. Sometimes it's employed in a carrot/stick way -- "I don't have to authorize this but I'm being nice, so you fans should play the way I want you to"; and sometimes, it's just the stick, as when a fan creator of a website, or of commissioned artwork, is served with a C&D order by lawyers.

For 40 years, fandom has operated under the *assumption* (not the known fact) that what they do is essentially a violation of copyright or trademark, but that if they do it in "fun", and never profit from it, they are "safe" to operate in this grey area, to have their fun and sometimes receive the praise of the rightsholders whom they admire. This assumption on fandom's part has been exploited by rightsholders, who use it to keep fandom in line, or shut it down if they desire, with threats of legal action.

But the fact is that for decades there were no legal test cases establishing case law. Fans who received C&Ds, not having money to fight in court, invariably C&Ded and/or went into hiding with their activities. The subject of copyright, fair use, the legality of transformative works -- fandom has discussed and theorized and hotly debated those topics for years. But nobody KNOWS what may happen if test cases go to court. All anyone knows is that what happens will probably depend a great deal on the nature of the test case; and that depending on what that case is, it may impact only one area of fannish experience.

As far as most fans can tell from reading the background of the SVA/RDR vs. JKR/WB case -- this is absolutely the worst test case many fans can imagine. And it is not a clear-cut assumption that fans would like SVA/RDR to win, or that their winning would be "good" for fandom.

But, whether SVA/RDR wins or loses, it will only impact fandom in certain ways, and those ways aren't actually very important to fandom. As hard as it may be for outsiders to understand, most fans aren't actually itching to profit from the work/fun they do for fandom. (Whether or not they "ought" to be is a separate question for another time.) Most fans want to continue to have their fun and share it with others of like mind, in the free-for-everyone gift-economy that fandom has been for years. They don't want a court to come out and say for sure that writing fanfiction and posting it on the internet is illegal. Most fans already assume, though, that what SVA is trying to do (publish fan work for profit) is illegal.

If Farhad Manjoo, or anyone else, wants to tackle that as a fundamental misassumption that fans are making to their own detriment -- great, examine it! But using the SVA/RDR test case as the basis for making that assertion seems to be shaky ground, because underneath the simplistic picture of the case that FM paints in his original article lies a lot of really problematic specifics, that at worst negate the arguments in their favor, and at best may be revealed as less problematic when more information comes to light.

Until we all find out what the HPL manuscript is like, we can't know whether JKR's objection to its publication is either reasonable, or legally sound. Yet, FM seems comfortable passing that judgement based on the incomplete picture that he sees. That's what I object to, along with the other inaccuracies and incomplete information in his articles.