J.K. Rowling and the Unauthorized Lexicon

J.K. Rowling already has all the galleons she could want—she just doesn't want anybody else wrongfully raking in Harry Potter-fueled profits.

The über-selling author and Warner Bros. Entertainment have filed a federal lawsuit against a Michigan publisher to block the release of a book compiled from the info found on the Harry Potter Lexicon Website, an encyclopedic guide to the billion-dollar-grossing wizarding world created by Rowling over the past decade.

According to the suit filed Wednesday in Manhattan, the proposed 400-page Harry Potter Lexicon would infringe on Rowling's intellectual property rights. She is also planning to pen a comprehensive guide to the seven-book (and eventually seven-film) series that will delve further into Potter lore, as well as serve as a Tolkien-style reference for all things Hogwarts and beyond.

Rowling has in the past praised Harry Potter Lexicon's effectiveness as a one-stop shop for Potter knowledge, even presenting it with a Fan Site Award in 2004; but now, per her complaint, she feels RDR Books' project is getting in the way of her own right to provide fans with the definitive guide.

"I cannot, therefore, approve of 'companion books' or 'encyclopedias' that seek to preempt my definitive Potter reference book for their authors' own personal gain," the England-born author, who wrote Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in an Edinburgh cafe while living on government assistance and is now one of the richest people in Great Britain, said in a statement released by Warner Bros.

RDR Books' publisher, Roger Rapoport, said Wednesday he's not going to let the litigation get in the way of his outfit's plans to release the "critical reference work" that is The Harry Potter Lexicon.

Harry Potter Lexicon Internet editor, Steve Vander Ark, started the site in 2000 and watched it grow to award-winning proportions. The former middle school librarian, who previously had been asked to partake in Warner Bros' marketing campaigns for the Potter films, said he is now confused as to why Rowling has ceased to support him.

The site, www.hp-lexicon.org, is a compendium of plot summaries, news, essays, message boards, character and object listings and myriad other fodder for rabid—or casual—Potter fans, including a section entitled "Accio Quote!" containing lists of remarks made over the years by Rowling during various appearances and interviews, all categorized by book, character, place, date, organizations, etc.

While Rowling's latest bombshell about Professor Albus Dumbledore isn't listed among her quotations directly pertaining to the Hogwarts headmaster, her revelation that Dumbledore is gay can found be found in the timeline of notable Rowling comments from 2007.

The author is not seeking damages or looking to shut down Vander Ark's Website, but the suit does criticize the online Harry Potter Lexicon for recycling her "original creative expression with minimal additional commentary."

Meanwhile, Rowling is already moving slightly on from her Potter glory days, completing her first book that does not revolve around the world of the boy wizard—though it's not far removed.

Just seven copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, an illustrated collection of magical fairy stories mentioned in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as a tome gifted from Dumbledore to Hermione, have been produced, with one of the books going up for auction at Sotheby's on Dec. 13 at a starting price of $62,000.

"The Tales of Beedle the Bard is really a distillation of the themes found in the Harry Potter books, and writing it has been the most wonderful way to say goodbye to a world I have loved and lived in for 17 years," Rowling said.

The book, each copy of which Rowling handwrote and self-illustrated, is bound in brown morocco leather and features mounted silver and semiprecious stones. Proceeds from the auctioned-off copy will benefit the European children's charity Children's Voice. Rowling gave the other half-dozen to friends.