Harry Potter case illustrates muddled Web copyright laws

NEW YORK -- For a time, Harry Potter superfan Steven Vander Ark seemed to be living a geeky dream.

His website — an obsessive catalog of spells, characters and creatures in J.K. Rowling's novels — was a hit among fellow fanatics. He spoke at conventions. Journalists sought him out for interviews. He was a guest on NBC's Today show.

Better still, Rowling knew who he was. She gave his site, The Harry Potter Lexicon, an award and confessed that she occasionally used its online encyclopedia as a reference. Warner Bros. invited him onto the set of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. He even made it on to the DVD, appearing in a documentary included as a special feature.

But all that changed after a little-known publishing company, RDR Books of Muskegon, Mich., announced it would release a print version of the lexicon. The author and Warner Bros. sued, asking a judge to block publication on the grounds that it violated copyright law, and the case went to trial this week.

The dispute has thrust Vander Ark, a former Byron Center, Mich., Christian school librarian, into the middle of a closely watched case that illustrates the muddled state of copyright law enforcement when it comes to the Web.

Computers have given just about everyone the ability to copy sections of books, movies or songs and whip them into something new that they can post on the Internet.

The Web is awash with fan-produced material that could be the subject of a copyright fight, from remixed pop songs, to new fiction based on existing characters from books and TV shows, to countless tribute videos cut together with clips from TV shows or films.

"There is almost a parallel universe," said Alan Behr, an intellectual property lawyer in New York. "On the Internet, people basically do things you would never do in print."

And, for the most part, Behr said, the big media companies that own the material being mashed up and manipulated let it slide. There are simply too many offenders to chase, he said.