MetaMetaMeta on the TableTableTable

Just to get a jump on wikipedia or whatnot, and to help elfwreck in her awesomesauce plans to spreadsheet organize the case docs, I thought we might start a list of (a) media coverage. Also helpful, the (b) dramatis personae, as some folks have already gotten some of the names confused. The following are mainly sites and sources I've been reading, but hardly the only ones. In addition, many newspapers around the globe this week have run the AP stories with variations and, often, additions. Some particular versions have more interesting bits than others.

Please link other helpful sources, news and blogs and what have you - and oh yes, more on the people! -in the comments, and we'll get it run into this post. TIA!

Elfwreck's going to take a whack at the big task of compiling a list of what all those legal documents *are* ezzackly, what each covers, and where the sugarplums are tucked in. Some of the topics that this case revolves around that are of interest to fandom:

1. the concepts and applications of copyright, fair use, etc., in play;
2. how this case uses, critiques, and/or extends concepts of authorship in literary theory and culture;
3. logic, illogic, and fallacies in arguments in and around the case;
4. implications (real and feared) for fandom - which thankfully, has not been the usual butt of jokes from the mainstream this time around (nobody laughs when a billionaire is in the courtroom!);
5. discourse analysis - who's using language in interesting, powerful, colorful or political ways? and on the fine-grained end, how do we define lexicon, index, dictionary, encyclopedia, guidebook, etc.?
6. people! cool clothes! bad hair! and all that other stuff that makes the *story*. Becuz, it's always about the story!

( Meta starter here. Just add links. )

Q: When is a billion dollars not enough?
A: When someone else might make a couple thousand creating the "patch" for your plotholes.

Maybe it's the fact that Steve Vander Ark, a teacher and librarian, actually had the nerve to locate those plotholes by putting together the HP Lexicon, an index to the objects and characters in HP. Maybe it's just seeing anyone else play in the Harry Potter sandbox.

The New York Times posted this AP story on JKR's testimony in the Lexicon suit. She sounds weepy, indignant, and threatening by turns... like EWE Ginny at her worst. (Or is that canon Ginny? You tell me.)

Story in blue. Running reaction by me, in black. X-posted from my IJ for open discussion here.

And before anyone starts: Yes, I like HP. Yes, I think the books show JKR's enormous creativity and rare, admirable persistence. And yes, I'm all for women making hay off a system set up by and for men. But I can and do enjoy her work and applaud her gutsiness, and also question her understanding of ethical democracy and tolerance as revealed in her books and interviews. And disagree profoundly with her claims about authorial rights, as here. In short, this is meta mainly on the meta level, not about the world inside the text, or the creator's intention, but rather some thoughts on how authors view their work, their role, and the activity of fans, within the broader culture -- in this case a courtroom, which will have reach its own views on them all.

ETA: If you prefer wank, go here.
To simply hurl insults, here's the place.
For gossip, he-said she-said, and other unsubstantiated hyperbole, go here.

Harry Potter Author Testifies in Lawsuit

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 14, 2008

Filed at 12:11 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- J.K. Rowling said Monday that her efforts to halt a publisher's ''Harry Potter'' lexicon have been crushing her creativity.

Rowling said she has stopped work on a new novel because the lawsuit in federal court has ''decimated my creative work over the last month.''

Well, that's a novel excuse. ( Read more... )