JK Rowling All Narky About Other Harry Potter Books

Harry Potter has made JK Rowling richer than her wildest dreams - but if you try to make money out of Harry Potter, JK Rowling will crush you in her mighty fist.

Harry Potter fan Steven Vander Ark is slowly coming to realise this, because he's trying to publish a third-party Harry Potter reference book, Harry Potter Lexicon, and JK Rowling is doing her best to sue his balls off about it.

It just goes to show that JK Rowling won't allow any unauthorised Harry Potter merchandise to hit the shops. But, hey, that doesn't mean you have to tell her about that container of shoddy Far-Eastern lead-painted Dobby The House Elf choking aids that we've just had shipped into the country, OK?

You'd have thought that JK Rowling would have had enough of Harry Potter by now. Yes, admittedly the Harry Potter series has bought her global fame, an impossible level of wealth and the adoration of every literate child on the planet.

But, still, having to pretend to be grateful every time a waddling brat hands you a scrap of paper with a shitty crayon drawing of Ron Weasley when all you want to do is pick them up by their hair and throw them down the nearest well must be exhausting.

However, JK Rowling refuses to leave Harry Potter alone. Although the series of Harry Potter books may be over, JK Rowling still has the money from the next two - or maybe three - Harry Potter movies to come, plus whatever pennies she can wring out of the still rubbish-sounding Harry Potter theme park and the hopeless-sounding Harry Potter musical.

And yet, JK Rowling still plans to coin it in some more by cobbling together a Harry Potter encyclopedia that she can flog to the millions of kids who'd buy a dirty AIDS needle if it had the words 'Harry Potter' stamped on them.

Trouble is, it looks like another writer might beat JK Rowling to the punch. And JK Rowling is fuming about it, as the Associated Press reports:

In papers filed for a lawsuit in Manhattan, J.K. Rowling says she feels betrayed by a fan, Steven Vander Ark, for his role in trying to publish an unauthorized reference work, "Harry Potter Lexicon." Ark is editor of a Web site containing a fan-created collection of essays and encyclopedic material on the Potter universe, including lists of spells and potions found in the books, a catalog of magical creatures and a who's who in the wizarding world… "I am deeply troubled by the portrayal of my efforts to protect and preserve the copyrights I have been granted in the Harry Potter books," she wrote in court papers filed Wednesday in a lawsuit.

That's the main problem. In the past JK Rowling has been hugely supportive of the various Harry Potter fan-sites - and often uses them to communicate with her fans - but as soon as one of them tries to collate anything into something that stops JK Rowling from squeezing every last penny she can out of the speccy little wizard, she throws a shit-fit.

So who's right and who's wrong here? Is JK Rowling right to see Harry Potter Lexicon as a shameless cash-in designed to deflate her own pre-announced ideas? Or is Steven Vander Ark right to think that JK Rowling's being a terrible control freak who can't stand seeing other people happy? Or are we right to want to take every Happy Potter book, DVD or piece of merchandise ever made, throw it on a big fire and skip around it sort of like the Nazis did but this is OK because it's about Harry Potter?

Oh, we're right? There's a surprise.

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JK Rowling Bashes 'Harry Potter Lexicon' - Associated Press