When I was in New York recently, I happened to read in the newspaper there about a court case involving multi-millionaire J. K. Rowling and some hapless fan of hers. I won't go into the details because they are too boring, but following another blog trail when I was bored because there's no footie on, I came across this, which I can't resist linking to...
Rowling's hypocrisy is so thick I can hardly breathe: Prior to the publication of each novel, there were books about them that were no more intrusive than Lexicon. I contributed to one of them, and there was no complaint about it from Rowling or her publishers because they knew perfectly well that these fan/scholar ancillary publications were great publicity and actually boosted sales.
[From J.K. Rowling, Lexicon and Oz]
As far as I know, this case is still awaiting judgement, but I had an idea for a settlement: since Harry Potter fan fiction and the like must have resulted in more books being sold and more movie tickets being sold, she could just give say 10% of her take to the fans who create and maintain these sites. Turn them into co-productions. Or, alternatively, just go away and leave them alone.
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