Potter court ruling gets Berkman Center's attention
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University said today that its Citizen Media Law Project will "work closely" with a new nonprofit that launched on the heels of a judge's copyright ruling involving the Harry Potter books.
A federal judge in New York ruled that author Steve Vander Ark's Harry Potter Lexicon infringed the copyright of J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series of books. To read some recent coverage of that case, please click here.
The nonprofit that the Berkman Center's Citizen Media Law Project, or CMLP, will work with is the Right to Write Fund, an educational repository and clearinghouse for freedom of expression and “fair use” issues that writers, filmmakers, professors, recording artists, and publishers encounter when moving among the worlds of print, Internet, film, the fine arts, and new media, the Berkman Center said.
The center said in a press release: "CMLP Director David Ardia will sit on the Right to Write Fund’s board of directors, and CMLP will assist the fledgling nonprofit by providing access to its database of legal threats, which contains lawsuits, cease-and-desist letters, subpoenas, and other legal threats directed at those who engage in online speech."
“We are seeing far too many important works being scuttled because of baseless legal threats directed at creative artists by copyright holders who object to the use or criticism of their work,” Ardia said in statement. “The Right to Write Fund in conjunction with the Citizen Media Law Project will give creative artists a place to go for legal guidance and support.
Besides the Berkman Center, the Citizen Media Law Project is affiliated with the Center for Citizen Media, an initiative, according to its website, to enhance and expand grassroots media.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)
