Letters to the Editor
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Get some better analogies...
Leaving aside for the moment that I disagreed anyway with other posters that "you wouldn't like it either, Manjoo!" was in any way a germaine counter-argument... as others have pointed out here, your Google analogy is... lacking.
The relationship of Google to the Machinist in your example is more or less the same thing as the relationship between the HPL website and JKR's books. And, as everyone has noted, JKR *doesn't* have a problem with the existence of the HPL website (as long as it, like Google, is not charging for access beyond making visitors view ads).
For the Google analogy to fit this *actual* situation, it would have to be a case of Google coming in, grabbing all of the text of every article ever published in the Machinist blog, AND a large number of the letters written by commenters; excerpting substantial quotations, sometimes entire passages or articles; rearranging all of the material according to some other indexing scheme; and then proposing to take that material OFFLINE, selling it as a book via the usual outlets (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.) and keeping the profit for Google.
Do you still honestly think that Google would have a right to do *THAT*? Please.
Such an analogy (if it is to relate to the SVA/RDR vs. JKR/WB case) would have to include: Google asking you if it was okay for them to publish the book, and you saying no, you had a book deal in the works with another publisher to publish the content of the Machinist yourself; Google going ahead with their "Machinist Index" anyway; Google refusing to provide you (or Salon, whoever is the rightsholder to the material from the Machinist) with a review copy of the proposed manuscript so that you could check to see whether the amount of text excerpted fell within the bounds allowed by fair use; and of course, Google failing to obtain any permissions from the writers of any of the comment letters they might decide to use.
(This analogy would have to suppose that each of the letter writers to Salon retains rights over the re-publication of their letters in their entirety. Actually, I've no idea who owns the rights to the contents of letters left on the Salon site. *shrug* But in the case of the HPL, it is not true that SVA or the site clearly owns the rights to all material posted on the site. The other fans who have contributed to it would expect to retain their rights to their own contributions.)
For fun, it would *also* have to include Google comparing your defense of your rights to your own words and your taking out an injunction against their publishing at least until you could review the manuscript as being comparable to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... And Google admitting that it doesn't retain an IP lawyer, but now that the shit's hit the fan, it's going to ask its cousin, who's a lawyer, to read up on this stuff... Not to mention, Google changing its story repeatedly ("we don't have a manuscript to show you!"; "just use your print button to print out the website, and you'll know what's in the manuscript!"; "no no, not everything on the website is in the manuscript, I don't know how much has been included"; etc.)
So, really -- could you stop setting up strawmen to knock down, and actually engage with some of the good points that commenters have brought up? Or with the actual facts of the case, beyond the superficial and misleading picture you initially drew of it?
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Flawed analogy
Others have pointed out flaws in this analogy, but I'd like to also point out that Google directs viewers TO you, increasing your revenue. I can't imagine there is anyone on Earth who would buy this lexicon book that doesn't already have all the JKR Potter books. This is for hardcore HP nerds, only, period. So there's almost zero chance that any sale of this book would increase revenue for Rowling, and it could reduce sales of her own official encyclopedia in the future.
I'm normally pretty anti-IP as the game is currently played. There's a place for patents and copyrights [see: the Constitution of The United States, Article 1], but the current system of perpetual Mickey Mouse copyrights and patents for anything is clearly broken. That said, I'm with Rowling on this one. It's just someone lacking creativity of their own stealing her work. And I say that as someone who finds the whole Harry Potter thing to be really, really stupid.
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Heaping amounts of scorn are truly shocking
The heaping amounts of scorn hurled at the author of this article, Farhad Manjoo, are truly shocking to me. No surprise, however, that most of the worst invective is cloaked under the name Anonymous.
I was so stunned by an anonymously posted comment titled "Two Additional Points" that I just had to speak out.
Most of the posts have already done a very credible job of eviscerating the central thesis of the article[...]
In point of fact, most of the comments that have been left here are not very credible attacks on Mr. Manjoo's articles, either the first or this follow-up article. They are, however, shocking attacks on Mr. Manjoo himself.
That is such a blindingly obvious point that I am astounded that Mr. Manjoo even considered advancing it as a serious argument in favor of suspending copyright law.
This, boys and girls, is what is called a logical fallacy. This particular type of fallacy is called a straw man argument. This is because Mr. Manjoo never once argued in favor of suspending copyright law. In fact, Mr. Manjoo is arguing that the Harry Potter Lexicon (hereafter referred to as the HPL) is an example of fair use, and is consistent with existing copyright law, at least as it exists in the United States. (There is no "fair use" in the copyright law of the UK, which is in my opinion a deficit of UK law. There are moves afoot to change this.)
Neither parent nor child is going to know or care about whether this is an authorized work.
And especially in the US, nobody should care whether a book is "authorized" or not. In fact, most of the best scholarly indexes and compendia out there are not authorized. (Then again, many of the indexes and compendia out there pertain to works written by people who are long dead.)
The HP Lexicon will impact sales of Rowling's own work. This is a practical certainty.
Based on the context of this sentence, it's clear that you're making the assumption that the impact will be negative. However, I believe the opposite is likely -- that is, I am convinced the impact on sales of Rowling's fiction will be positive.
That alone should be reason enough for her to stop its publication, even if the precepts of the Berne Convention did not exist.
It's interesting how you cite a law that was influenced by a French concept of "rights of the author" as opposed to copyright, which is a more Anglo-Saxon legal concept which focuses on the economic part of the equation. The Berne convention seeks to harmonize copyright laws among member countries, so that copyright in one country is respected in another. It's no secret that there are portions of US copyright law that aren't in alignment with the Berne Convention. But not all member nations have accepted all aspects of the convention, so that's not a unique situation for the US. The Berne convention establishes minimum copyright durations, though it allows member states to set longer ones. But it's not clear to me in the context of this discussion why you specifically mention the Berne Convention, or what precepts are supposedly being ignored.
That he feels comfortable sneering at an author whose success far surpasses his for exercising her own intellectual property rights is unseemly at best, pathetic at worst.
Who's sneering here? This is, dare I say it, hewing dangerously close to libel against Farhad Manjoo. The tone of both Salon articles was in all ways respectful and thoughtful, not condemnatory, and certainly not sneering. Perhaps a dictionary or thesaurus would help you pick a better word?
Finally, I find that the article has a resentful tone suffused with ad hominem. A woman creates a work that is so beloved, the sales make her wealthy. Because she is rich, Mr. Manjoo appears to feel that she is no longer entitled to the protections of copyright law. He libels her as greedy and immoral.
Oddly enough, I'd say that the only ad hominem attacks I've seen are the comments left anonymously by people like you. You mischaracterize copyright law, and you yourself libel Mr. Manjoo. I should also point out that nowhere does he use the word "immoral." He does accuse her of being greedy, and I think Rowling's behavior might be viewed that way by other reasonable people. One commenter claims that Rowling is going to donate proceeds from her own Potter encyclopedia to charity; maybe that's true, maybe that's not. The cynic in me wonders if this revelation came before or after the dispute over the HPL.
[To be continued...]