Things That Bang

When it comes to greed the sky is the limit. J.K Rolwing and Warner Bros filed against the publishing of the book- Potter lexicon. Back in October they had sued a Bengali community for building a papier mache Hogswarts for their Durga Puja.
The case was thrown out of the court (being India and all where they have better cases to try) but this time round 'the richer than the Queen' Rowling just may have her way:

In 2000, Steve Vander Ark, a middle-aged, middle-school librarian and ardent "Harry Potter" fan, created one of the brightest sites in the constellation of online Potter arcana, the Harry Potter Lexicon. The HPL, as it's known, is a comprehensive reference work covering all that happens in J.K. Rowling's series -- to quote its Wikipedia entry (everything related to Potter is on WP)

The Lexicon lists "characters, places, creatures, spells, potions and magical devices," and it introduced one of the first timelines of all events that occur in the Harry Potter universe.

In the past, Rowling has offered high praise for the HPL. "This is such a great site that I have been known to sneak into an Internet cafe while out writing and check a fact rather than go into a bookshop and buy a copy of Harry Potter (which is embarrassing)," she says on her site. She calls the HPL "a website for the dangerously obsessive; my natural home."

As it happens the author, Steve Vander Ark landed up with publishing rights and his book was going to be published during fall and got slapped by the Rolwing and her powerful stooges.

Her attorneys claim that Vander Ark's book will compete with Rowling's own planned Potter encyclopedia; the lexicon, they say, is thus nothing more than an attempt to "make millions of dollars off the back of Ms. Rowling's creativity."

Rowling futher went on to say that she was the sole owner of the Potter world and no one had the right to re-arrange her characters, plot lines ...blah blah blah

"It is not reasonable, or legal, for anybody, fan or otherwise, to take an author's hard work, re-organize their characters and plots, and sell them for their own commercial gain. However much an individual claims to love somebody else's work, it does not become theirs to sell."

Somehow my respect for J.K has dipped even more- not only is she a coward for saying that Dumbledore was gay after all the happily ever afters but now she has turned out to be a Scrooge.