9:31AM Jess McGuire | We were quite shocked when we read
this article yesterday.
A Harry Potter fan who wants to publish an encyclopedic guide to the wildly popular fantasy novels broke down and cried on the witness stand as he faced off in federal court against his idol JK Rowling.
The British author sued Steven Vander Ark’s publisher RDR Books last year, claiming that their Harry Potter Lexicon – based on Vander Ark’s fan website – infringed on her copyright.
Vander Ark wiped away tears when he was asked to reflect on what the case has done to his relationship with the community of Harry Potter fans. The former middle school librarian, who fell in love with the books in the late 1990s and has devoted years to studying them and indexing their content online, could barely speak.
“It’s been … it’s been,” he stammered, choking on his words. “It’s been difficult because there has been a lot of criticism, obviously, and that was never the intention. … This has been an important part of my life for the last nine years or so.”
Let us clarify – we weren’t shocked that someone would attempt to jump on the Harry Potter money juggernaut, good intentions or not, but rather by the photo and caption accompanying the story.
Wow, an adult Harry Potter fanatic who cries like Prince Frederik after the birth of an heir managed to land himself an “unidentified woman”? Good for you, sir! May all your children find themselves in Gryffindor, or something!
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