Bellatrix Lestrange

Regular readers know that I'm a big Harry Potter fan, and consequently Jo Rowling fan as well. I'm not a fan of her lawsuit against Steven van der Ark's Encyclopedia, though. She testified yesterday, and her testimony seemed both incoherent and dishonest. More importantly, if she wins it will be a huge victory for corporate oligopoly against independent commentary and critique.

Her central contentions don't look very good to me: that it would hurt sales of her encyclopedia - vastly improbable, and that it was poorly written - irrelevant. Her contention that the author frequently used her own words directly sounds more substantial, but of course I haven't read the book.

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