This stunt by Warner Brothers is not the first time that they have tried to keep their legal department busy. Back in 1941 they released the movie Casablanca, a few years later the Marx brothers started to make a film titled A Night in Casablanca. The studio promptly sent a letter threatening legal action if the Marx brothers did not change the name to their film, as it was too similar to their own movie. The Marx brothers replied with an entertaining letter and after more correspondence the case was dropped.
In 2000 JK Rowling signed a contract with Warner Brothers giving them the rights to make all of the Harry Potter movies and rights to create and sell all merchandising. Fairly soon after this happened Warner Brothers started to send threatening letters to people who held domain names on the internet that they claimed infringed on their trademark. These letters stated that the sites had to be handed over to Warner Brothers or legal action would be taken.
Warner Brothers failed to take into account that the fandom might be young, but they were passionate about Harry Potter. A 15 year old from England named Claire Field took the big guns on and won. She took the case to the media and drummed up huge support eventually causing Warner Brothers to back down and she was able to keep her site http://www.harrypotterguide.co.uk paving the way for other proprietors to fight for their rights.
However I think that it is important to point out that Warner Brothers do openly support some websites, namely the biggest within the fandom. http://www.mugglenet.com and http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/
To me this is a real sense of hypocrisy, Warner brothers have learned from what happened in 2000 that they need the fans, because ultimately they just want to make money. By supporting these two websites with exclusive pictures, trailers etc they are able to achieve such things as the biggest mid-week opening ever with Order of the Phoenix. Yet why do they think that they can pull the legal arm of the law down of small sites because it is infringing on their trademark.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Ownership and the Internet
“From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork.”
-Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
The area of online publication is extremely grey as it is a new area of interest; In contrast Copyright laws have been around for centuries. Recently lawyers for JK Rowlings, famous series Harry Potter have come out saying that they will cut down the amount of slash/porn that exists in the fan fiction world. A spokesman for AOL Time Warner, the company that holds the film and merchandising rights has said that it is their “moral obligation” and continued to state, “This is especially true in the case of indecent infringement of any icon whose target audience is children.”
This begs the question do they have the right to do this? And if so could it hurt them in the long run.
This is not the first time that Warner Brothers has sent “cease and desist orders”. Further blogs will go into greater detail about previous situations and the outcomes. However I must begin by stating that the Harry Potter series is under both copyright and trademark. Therefore most fan fiction is illegal, and the simple dis-claimers that appear on most stories do not change the fact of legality. Regardless of the fact that the story was written in England, most developed countries are members of the Universal Copyright Convention or the Berne Convention, which protect the rights of the originators of work.
Having stated the legality of the issue I would argue that with a wider fandom, within the Internet it is to JK Rowlings and Warner Brothers benefit that these sites and stories exist. It is these very sites that ‘fuel the flames’ between the releases of books and movies. JK Rowling is in the business of getting her story out to the world, Warner Brothers in the business of making money and the Internet aids both these purposes.
-Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
The area of online publication is extremely grey as it is a new area of interest; In contrast Copyright laws have been around for centuries. Recently lawyers for JK Rowlings, famous series Harry Potter have come out saying that they will cut down the amount of slash/porn that exists in the fan fiction world. A spokesman for AOL Time Warner, the company that holds the film and merchandising rights has said that it is their “moral obligation” and continued to state, “This is especially true in the case of indecent infringement of any icon whose target audience is children.”
This begs the question do they have the right to do this? And if so could it hurt them in the long run.
This is not the first time that Warner Brothers has sent “cease and desist orders”. Further blogs will go into greater detail about previous situations and the outcomes. However I must begin by stating that the Harry Potter series is under both copyright and trademark. Therefore most fan fiction is illegal, and the simple dis-claimers that appear on most stories do not change the fact of legality. Regardless of the fact that the story was written in England, most developed countries are members of the Universal Copyright Convention or the Berne Convention, which protect the rights of the originators of work.
Having stated the legality of the issue I would argue that with a wider fandom, within the Internet it is to JK Rowlings and Warner Brothers benefit that these sites and stories exist. It is these very sites that ‘fuel the flames’ between the releases of books and movies. JK Rowling is in the business of getting her story out to the world, Warner Brothers in the business of making money and the Internet aids both these purposes.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
In the beginning...
Well here it goes,my first attempt at setting up a blog. I don't really know what i am doing, and i don't know where i am going with this. I am excited to hear from anyone and everyone, and if you have something to say please do. From the words of Yeats:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats 'He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven'
So I hope to hear from you soon.
Rachel
XOX
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