NEW YORK -- Now that the petty wrangling, emotional outbursts and mind-numbing duels over Latin words roots have ended, the federal judge in this week's Harry Potter trial faces a daunting task: How do you balance an author's right to protect her copyrighted novels with a publisher's right to produce a new book that borrows heavily from these bestselling texts?
Based on his comments during the trial, U.S. Judge Robert S. Patterson Jr. would rather not be deciding the case at all, which pits J.K. Rowling, author of the seven Harry Potter novels, against RDR Books, a Michigan firm hoping to publish "The Harry Potter Lexicon," an unauthorized encyclopedia. Indeed, the judge seemed at times to long for a wand -- perhaps to conjure one of Hogwarts' magical spells like "Silencio," causing people to fall silent.
"Litigation isn't always the best way to solve things," Patterson told Rowling, who sat quietly at a desk facing the bench, and attorneys for both sides. "Can it be resolved another way? I feel that this case could be settled and should be settled."
In fact, cases like this are often settled by a licensing agreement, in which the publisher pays an agreed-upon fee to the creator of a book, according to intellectual property attorneys. But neither side has shown any sign of backing down in the Harry Potter clash, which blends elements of digital, new-age technology with old-school publishing, and highlights the fierce competition to profit from Rowling's spectacularly successful literary and movie franchise.
Attorneys will file final papers May 9 and the judge, who is deciding the case without a jury, speculated it could spend years in appellate court and the Supreme Court after that.
During the frequently acrimonious proceedings, lead witnesses on both sides either fought back tears or sobbed on the stand. Spectators got a crash course in Harry Potter arcana, and a handful of courtroom autograph seekers tried to get Rowling to sign copies of her novels.
The author opened the door to compromise Wednesday, saying she might accept a version of the "Lexicon" that used less of her language. But she also stuck to her guns in a post-trial statement: "Authors have a right to protect their works from misuse. If this book is published it will open the floodgates for anyone to lift an author's work and present it as their own."
