So there’s this Harry Potter Lexicon website that basically collates all the information from the seven-volume series—people, places, spells, rules for quidditch—written by fans and edited by a librarian named Steve Vander Ark. And J.K. Rowling liked the site, she really did. She even gave it an “award” a few years back. But when Vander Ark and RDR Books decided to put out a print edition of the lexicon, Rowling stopped feeling the love, and the AP’s David B. Caruso reports that she and Warner Bros., which also has a substantial stake in Potter intellectual property, are getting all Avada Kedavra on everybody’s ass, a term of art meaning they’re planning to throw money at lawyers who will drag the little guys through one proceeding after another until they give in.
Why? Because Rowling believes she can squeeze at least one more book out of the franchise, a “definitive” encyclopedia with “new material” that wasn’t in the books, which no doubt means more of her personal interpretations of the storyline like last month’s revelation that she knew Dumbledore was gay, even if you didn’t. “I cannot, therefore, approve of ‘companion books’ or ‘encyclopedias’ that seek to preempt my definitive Potter reference book for their authors’ own personal gain,” she said in the Warner press release announcing the suit. Oh, and the website she liked so much when it was helping to solidify her fan base? Now it “regurgitate[s] Ms. Rowling’s original creative expression with minimal additional commentary.”
RDR’s publisher told the AP he has no plans to halt the release of its “critical reference work” at the end of the month.