USLegal Reporter

Popular children’s author J.K.Rowling testified in a New York Court today to block the publication of soon to be released dictionary called the Harry Potter Lexicon based on her book series.

Rowling says the Lexicon book by author Steven Vander Ark amounts to copyright infringement and that she has planned to publish her own Harry Potter dictionary and give the proceeds to charity.

Vander Ark defends that his work amounts to ”fair use” of Rowlings books as allowed by federal law for research, criticism, and commentary.

The case is Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. v. RDR Books, 07-cv-09667, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=aR2uXKyRcjAQ&refer=uk

J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. filed a federal lawsuit in Manhattan today claiming a soon to be released book about Happy Potter amounts to copyright infringement. “Harry Potter” is the popular children’s book series chronicling the adventures of a young wizard.

Author Rowling has taken issue with a soon to be released companion book called ”The Harry Potter Lexicon.” It is scheduled to be released by Michican based publishers RDR Books on November 28th.

Rowling says she has her own plans to write the “definitive” companion book to the series and that she plans to donate proceeds to charity.

Her lawsuit seeks damages for copyright infringement and for any profits gained from the book.

Source: http://investing.reuters.co.uk/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=allBreakingNews&storyID=2007-10-31T195657Z_01_N31339724_RTRIDST_0_HARRYPOTTER-LAWSUIT.XML 

An attorney for Jammie Thomas said today that his client will appeal a jury’s decision in a file sharing lawsuit brought by the Recording Industry Association of America. Thomas, a single mother of two children, was found guilty of illegally downloading 24 copyrighted songs to her computer.

A jury ruled last Friday that she be required to pay $220,000 to six record companies as restitution for her actions.

This is the first RIAA civil lawsuit to go trial. 

Sources: http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202300917

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/IBD-0001-20069151.htm

The Recording Industry of America today filed lawsuits against students and personnel at Vanderbilt University claiming the individuals engaged in copyright infringement violations. The students and personnel were not named, rather 18 “John Doe” lawsuits were issued against those who are accused of illegal music file trafficking via the Internet.

RIAA says it will continue to take necessary steps to crack down on online music theft at college campuses across the country.

Source: http://www.ashlandcitytimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070501/NEWS04/70501035 

Media giant Viacom has filed a copyright infringement law suit against the popular online video file-sharing site, YouTube and its parent owner, Google. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court of New York on Tuesday.

 Viacom claims YouTube has carried more than 100,000 unauthorized clips on its site. Last month, Viacom demanded that YouTube remove the video clips that had been uploaded by its users. Viacom is seeking more than one billion dollars in damages asserting that YouTube has shown “brazen disregard for intellectual property laws.”

Meanwhile, Google said in a statement that it respects the copyrights at issue and that it “will not let this suit become a distraction to the continuing growth and strong performance of YouTube.”

Source: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1173776611964