Once upon a time...

Seriously. I don't even care that much about Harry Potter, though I have enjoyed the series. Vander Ark has every right to publish an encyclopedia/book of analytical discourse. If he was publishing fanfiction, that would be something entirely different, but it's a reference book! There are already tons of unofficial HP reference books on the market. Where is her outrage over those? Is she so fearful of Vander Ark's ability to produce a work superior to hers? That might be so according to her statements in court about using the lexicon as a reference when she herself could not remember what she wrote. I resent the fact that people say they are embarrassed by Vander Ark. Why? What has he done? He had been praised by Rowling for his efforts and there was a time when she thought publishing his work would be a good idea, and he was told he was not and is not breaking copyright laws. What's there to be embarrassed about?
I was appalled by this statement from her : "This book constitutes wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work." (from this article on MSN.com).
HOW?! Do Shakespearean encyclopedias negate all of his work? Do encyclopedias on Mark Twain and J.R.R. Tolkien and Frank L. Baum and Jane Austen negate their creativity and effort? A resounding NO is my answer. I've read some of the essays on the Lexicon and 99.9% are in positive praise of her work and if anything should make her feel legitimized as an author for creating audience that is not only capable of intelligent discussion of her works but capable of doing so in a wholly scholastic manner. And in so far as analytical discussion, why doesn't she and every other author still holding a copyright sue SparkNotes for providing summaries and analysis and little mini-encyclopedias of quotes, characters, places, and motifs and symbology? Oh, that's right, it's a reference source not actual works by the authors! It's also not totally for free. You can get the free guides online but now you can buy them from Barnes and Noble. And behold! All her books with exact quotes and characters directly from her books. You can print it off for free or buy it. Go sue them, Rowling.
The testimony the article has quoted her as saying makes her sound like a spoilt child stamping her foot that someone else may be able to make a small profit off of her work. If she were a budding author just starting out, perhaps I could find sympathy for her (I would still disagree with the idea that an encyclopedia violates copyright but then I could still sympathize). She says that she had to stop working on a new novel because of this? Wait a minute, wasn't she working on her own encyclopedia? That seems like a grand and fanciful undertaking at once- new book plus seven books worth of reference material to combine into one? Maybe we should just take away her money, halt her movies and all the merchandise she makes millions off of, and drop her back to living out of her car, and then maybe she'd be able to write. She'll get no sympathy from me.