Dear Steve and fellow Lexicon workers,

I just wanted to say that I felt it was rather low of you and your website to try and reproduce JK Rowling’s work as your own. Your site seemed good, though I never visited until now. JK Rowling even gave you an award and this is how you repay her, by stealing her work she spent 17 years creating and preempting her manuscript idea! You seemed to be a good site, especially for those fact checkers who like to be sure while reading, and even for Rowling herself. What you did in disrespecting the author and Harry himself in attempting to publish, by your name without consent from JK Rowling or profits going to her, from your website the facts of the book and whatever else you intended is what I would expect Lord Voldemort himself to be capable of, not Harry Potter fans. JK Rowling has said numerous times that she would not write any further after book seven (with all her fans, myself included, crying over this fact) but that she would write a manuscript for the series including the multitude of facts that never made it into the Harry Potter books (fans now rejoiced at this with the pain of Harry’s passing – in the book’s ending – slightly lessening). If JK Rowling decides not to write the manuscript, which was to include things she has never let fans know before, and she said because of your unworthy act she felt less inclined to write it, I will never forgive you. In attempting to write a timeline, which I myself have 60 page notes from her books so I could check the facts (though I will never sell them or even show or let anyone else use them as they are still JK Rowling’s property -her brain child and not yours!), you helped fans follow closely and remember facts. But in trying to publish it as your own you thereby stole JK Rowling’s work and should be sued (I hope JK wins!). I will never purchase your book and will tell all I know what you have tried. My heart is truly saddened by this pathetic attempt to steal the great JK Rowling’s work. Other fan sites have done books, but those books have been the website creator’s opinions, not JK Rowling’s writings and facts. Please, save your respect, say sorry to JK Rowling, and never print your book. You should be ashamed!!!!!!!

“Blind following”, I don’t know about that, but I do know that saying Ms. Rowling, is beening influenced on HER decision of HER creation “Harry Potter”, is funny. Iam sure she feels just as PASSIONATE about HER creation as YOU,or ANYONE, would be. When something is a fact, it is a fact. There is nothing “BLIND”, about that. If someone COMMENTS on something, THAT’S DIFFERENT from taking whole statements from the author and claiming it as THEIR OWN. I’am someone like the author of this article: a huge fan of Harry Potter who has read all the books. Sound familiar?

Melvin, there was no need to shout. I am not in any way implying that Rowling doesn’t have the right to protect her copyright. Quite the contrary. All I said is that it didn’t have to descend into a lawsuit. And yes, I do think she is being influenced by the Warner Brothers Machine to a large degree. I also stand by my statements elsewhere that we the fans should perhaps stay out of it and let the judge decide and let Rowling and Vander Ark sort out their issues. There are far too many of us and just one of him. And with the sort of remarks I have seen on some fan sites, the death threats, etc. I think this has long passed outside the realm of the humane. Rowling might liken her fictional characters to her children, but I personally would not place such a high value on Harry and co (I think she was misguided in making this statement in her public speeches during the trial). Steve Vander Ark has made a mistake, but at the end of the day, he is still a man. A human being just like you and me. Where is our compassion, I ask. No, that’s not the same as saying “just let him off the hook.” Just let us tone the language down, modify the lynch-mob type behaviour and let justice run its course.

I’m not a Potter fan, the books have great characters but break most (if not all) literary rules. However, I do see that the issue now comes down to money. If money can be made then the author will be there.

The intelligent thing to do would have been to recognize while the content WAS free to the reader, that it would not always be so. That giving even an implied endorsement would be seen (by a fan) as encouragement and to have stopped the train there. It would have been easy to do, insist that the content be more essay and less direct quotation would have done it.

What I’d like to know is what person spent the time to go through and count that 90% of the content was hers? Do we really have that much useless time on our hands? Did we count by letter and character or by total word? How much was a “,” worth?

Seriously, I think we’re feeding a machine that resolution either way is going to hurt the end reader. Maybe if we gave it less attention they’d stop driving us nuts with this.