Quote: I ... think that legal systems (such as copyright) can be and are increasingly used to limit, contain, rationalize and commercialize kids' culture. And this happens in a variety of ways - through the elimination of opportunities to generate content, or by placing restrictions on what and how that content is generated (limiting freedom of expression and undermining children's agency); through corporate claims of IP ownership over child-generated content and submissions; and by teaching kids from a very young age a corporate reinterpretation of copyright law...ignoring fair use and obscuring the principles upon which copyright was based in the first place.

Quote: The application of these rewards and punishments, however, is quite arbitrary. Teachers have enormous discretion in giving punishments and rewards. In the criminal realm, the Minister of Magic can follow or bend the law depending on how he relates to specific people. The use of magic is punished depending on who the person is that commits a particular illegal act.

*snort*

aredwitch

Another British import was being read at the next table – a Harry Potter book. At least, an Americanized edition of Harry Potter. I could tell by the title: it read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone – not Philosopher's Stone. Evidently, the American publisher felt that US children would have some difficulty with the notion of a philosopher.

If you compare the British and American editions, you find over two hundred substitutions. The children eat crumpets and crisps in the UK; they eat English muffins and chips in the US – potato chips, that is. A dustbin becomes a trashcan, a cooker becomes a stove, Sellotape becomes Scotch tape. It is a mini-dictionary of transatlantic differences: candy-boxes for sweet-boxes, jell-O for jelly, mommy for mummy, sweater for jumper.

Kevin Smith writes in the Duke University Copyright Blog:

Imagining Fair Use

The judge has rejected a request by the Yoko Ono for a preliminary injunction that would prevent the distribution of the film. Ono claimed that the use of this short clip without her permission was copyright infringement. Given the vastly different political perspectives involved, it is unlikely permission would have been forthcoming. But the judge ruled that it was also unlikely that permission was necessary, since there was a strong claim that the use was fair use. Since one of the criteria for getting a preliminary injunction is “likelihood of success on the merits,” Ono’s request was denied because the judge felt it was unlikely she would succeed on the underlaying claim that using the clip was infringement.

. . . Nor does the film Expelled compete in any way with the market for the recordings of John Lennon. And in a traditional transformative use case, the owner of the original may not have much desire to license the use if asked, since the proposed new use often subjects the original to criticism or ridicule (as in this case). Transformative uses are often those uses where there is a strong possibility that the copyright owner in the original work would use his or her rights to suppress the new speech; fair use is the remedy that prevents this censorship by copyright.

For me, this role of fair use in preserving copyright as the “engine of free expression” is especially clear in this case (for an explanation and discussion of this quote from Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, see this report from The Free Expression Project). Free speech is always hardest to accept, and most important to remember, when one disagrees violently with what is being said. In this case, I personally have little use for the claims being made in the movie “Expelled;” they strike me as inflammatory and hard to defend with real logic or facts. Nevertheless, the right of the movie producers to make those claims is inviolate, in my opinion, and it is important that they have the tools to make their case in the best way the can. Fair use is an important tool to support creative expression, whether I agree with the content of that expression or not. The arguments being made in the movie may fail, but the judge got this decision exactly right when he ruled that the producers could use the tools they did (including a small part of another’s copyrighted expression) to make those arguments." 

( Read More Opinions of the Verdict Here )

First of all, since some of you are sick of Fandom, I've got a video first for a change. You can watch it and then walk away if you like. This is for all my friends, old and new, but especially my friend

corvus_coronis

*Now 100% Complete with extra Boring stuff in Blue* so Anonymous people won't think I'm leaving out important facts 
(I didn't listen beyond the end of this, nor am I ever going to, thanks.) 

New Blog Post on Madam Pince's Potter Pages by Lisa Bunker, one of the co-writers of the Lexicon Book:

Who Are We? Where Are We Going? 

I agree with her that It is getting harder to articulate just what is going on, and what is going "wrong."  And Fandom is difficult to explain to someone who isn't involved in it.

However, I disagree that Fandom was ever a totally innocent place.  Maybe in the very early days, but I missed those times.  I joined Fandom in August 2003 right after Order of the Phoenix was released. I never saw Fandom as a "safe" place where everyone was nice.  By then, alot of ideas about the books were "fixed" in people's minds.  The Marauders = Cool/Brilliant/Fun.  Snape=Ugly/Jerk/DeathEater.  People were already indoctrinated in some ways by Fandom, and that's what the Shipping Wars were about.  The books were not as important as the swirling fantasies, and it was difficult sometimes to get people to go back to the pages of the books.

My first theory on a forum was about the HP books compared to Alice in Wonderland.  People lined up to ridicule my theories as crap, and I almost didn't make it through a week without quitting.  But eventually, I learned out to debate and argue, to make friends, and avoid nasty people. I learned to bite my own tongue to get along. We've all had days when someone wrote something to make us feel shunned, avoided, outcast, depressed, and court-martialed. Almost anyone in Fandom will know what I'm talking about.  

About the only advice I can give anyone about Fandom is: If you love the books, keep on keeping on with it.  If you are still interested, there will always be something to talk about.  But it's not going to be a fun every day. Lately, it's taken the wrong Floo to Nocturn' Alley.  You just have to stay calm and not let the Death Eaters scare you while you find your way back out of there.

The other day, I posted a comment from the writer Karen Brown, author of Prejudice in Harry Potter. I had originally seen the comment on Kristin Devoe's Daily Prophet blog, and I posted it Here in a discussion of Tim Wu's New Yorker Article.

I did not know Ms. Brown, but I wrote an e-mail to her inviting her to comment further, which she did. I never meant to drag her into a huge controversy or cause problems for her in any way, and I am so sorry. I have quoted dozens of bloggers in the past few months to show different views, and several of them have decided to comment here with no drama.  

I was just trying to give a balanced view of the case, since I have been criticized for my own bias. I felt that Ms. Brown had a refreshing view, since she is a fan and supporter of J. K. Rowling, but was wishing that fandom would tone down their criticism of Steve Vander Ark and let the legal system decide the fate of his book.

But due to unfortunate things that have been said in the past few days, Ms. Brown has been drawn into some accusations and threats, both public and private. She feels her statement is being misconstrued and her views distorted. This has caused her a great deal of distress, and she decided to state her own view in a public setting.  Therefore Karen has put out a Press Release:

Caught on the Wrong Side of Harry Potter Fandom 

lunas_ceiling

( Calling a Spade a Spade )

Tonight an interesting encounter on Leaky in which Melissa accused the poster kbnthomas of being Karen Brown, and demanded a retraction of the comment posted above.  About the deletions - many people who support Steve Vander Ark have been deleted on Leaky.  I don't see how we can "prove" that now, since the posts are, by definiton, gone.  If Melissa wants to open up her logs for a day and let us see the names of the people deleted in the past three months, that might convince me, so I would urge her to "prove" that we haven't been deleted.

"...when Rapoport received a series of threatening letters last fall from lawyers . . . he didn't flinch.

'The intimidation factor was zero,' Rapoport said with quiet pugnacity."
~~~~~~~

Rowling seemed willing to compromise on the witness stand, saying, "I never ever once wanted to stop Mr. Vander Ark from doing his own guide, never ever. Do your book, but, please, change it so it does not take as much of my work."

. . . "That opportunity was never presented to us," he (Rappoport) said, his eyes flashing with anger. "The only thing they said [in the lawyer letters and pretrial discussions] was: 'Will you stop the book?' "
~~~~~~~

. . . the publisher said he has never been worried about the ultimate outcome. His lawyers, he said, have told him that "no court has ever ruled that the writer of a fictional work is the only person who can write about that book."
~~~~~~~ 

"I fully expect that the outcome of this lawsuit will be:

1. Publication of Lexicon will go on without any problem or prejudice, because it clearly falls within the copyright law's provision for scholarly work, commentary and review.

2. Rowling will be forced to pay Steven Vander Ark's legal fees, since her suit was utterly without merit from the start.

3. People who hear about this suit will have a sour taste in their mouth about Rowling from now on. Her Cinderella story once charmed us. Her greedy evil-witch behavior now disgusts us. And her next book will be perceived as the work of that evil witch. "

( Follow the Yellow Brick Road to more Entries )

A. I think that it is sloppy, I think there is very little
4 research, and I don't think that it -- I don't think it
5 constitutes an original work.
6 Q. You mentioned that the Lexicon occasionally -- earlier that
7 the Lexicon occasionally contained etymologies.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. I believe you also mentioned that the some of those
10 etymologies were wrong?
11 A. Hmm-hmm.
12 Q. Could you give the Court an example.
13 A. I could give several. But Mr. Vander Ark gives an
14 etymology for alohomora, which is an incantation used within
15 the Harry Potter books to open a locked door by magic. And he
16 asserts that this word was derived from the Hawaiian aloha
17 meaning good-bye. Which is errant nonsense. Alohomora is a
18 Sidiki word from West Africa, and it is a term used in
19 geomancy. It is a figure -- the figure alohomora means in
20 Sidiki "favorable to thieves." Which is obviously a very
21 appropriate meaning for a spell that enables you to unlock a
22 locked door by magic.

UPDATE: Ding Ding and Ta Da!!!  We have a winner!  An anonymous, but very lucky researcher discovered the source for Alohomora! And her name is "Marielle."  Also thanks to sander123 and sciencegeek for following soon after.

Whoo-Hoo! So here's the Magic Link: http://www.serenapowers.com/sikidy.html

And another, which says "See Aloha" - *lol* : http://www.mysteryarts.com/magic/words/Ed.3/?p=115

As you see, you have to spell it "Sikidy" instead of "Sidiky."  That is probably a court transcription error.  Sikidy is not a dialect but a type of divination used on the Island of Madagascar. I had seen some links leading to that yesterday while researching Geomancy, but dismissed them because . . . that is East Africa, not West Africa. So even with the supposed location of the name origin, this was a challenge to unravel just from what the author said.  I don't know why "alohomora" doesn't show up on Search Engines from that website - it's odd, but I just searched for it again, and got nothing except references to the HP books. Anyway, this has been alot of fun and thanks to all who did the research!

( See the Map of East - Not West - Africa Here )

( Read all the Pithy Comments Here )

Trial Transcripts!!!