This was published in the Evening Standard on Thursday, slightly edited:
The Harry Potter series is one of the most derivative works of fiction ever devised, from its boarding school setting (The Four Marys, Billy Bunter), magical theme (too many to mention) and even its plot (drawing from the same well as Star Wars and even The Matrix). He isn’t even the first fictional English boy wizard with spectacles and a pet owl, as fans of Neil Gaiman’s Books of Magic will testify.
None of this is to deride J.K. Rowling’s genius for taking hoary cliché and making something new out of it, but perhaps one would have thought it would have given her a more enlightened view regarding intellectual property law. The Harry Potter Lexicon is clearly a blatant cash in but one which will only promote her original books. If she wants to produce her own, more authoritative encyclopedia, no one is stopping her.
In any case, existing copyright laws mean that while the strikingly original and iconic Alice in Wonderland books became public property 50 years after Lewis Carroll’s death aged 65, Harry Potter will be owned by Rowling’s estate for 70 years after her death. The state of modern medicine and her millions mean that she is likely to survive well into her 90s. I don’t begrudge her money, but I do have an issue with her great grandchildren continuing to rake it in during the 2120s.
James Graham
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I like Neil Gaiman’s take on this.
Why should something she wrote become public property instead of being owned by her family?
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
I’m not saying it should become public property straight away – I’d be happy with, say, 10 years after her death or 50 years after publication for instance. But for those of us who believe in free trade and oppose monopolies, the idea of a family being able to hand an asset like that down the generations is anathema. The question is not why we should oppose monopolistic economic practice, but why not.