COPYRIGHT FOR THE 7th BOOK

[SEAMUS]

J K R is thinking of making the 7th book of Harry Potter in to a Copyright, so no one can follow on book.

[choki]

Huh? I told her books are already copyrighted... same goes with any authors' books

[Cougie]

I think this means no one else can write more Harry Potter books.

Well that's really called 'patenting Harry Potter novels.'

[Scellanis]

books are automatically copyrighted to the author for a certain period of years, the difficulty comes when the copyright runs out as it has done for people like Tolkien who wrote their books years ago.

The thing she mentioned was not copyright but the idea of killing off the main characters so that a sequel can never be written because the characters are all dead. Its the only way to guarantee a sequel cannot be written.

[choki]

But would anyone buy a copy of The Harry Potter Sequel to read/keep as collection???
I mean it is written by another person... and surely, the way the story flows and such will be entirely different.
It will be akin to reading fanfics...

[Scellanis]

Probably, by the time the copyright runs out it will be a new generation of readers who may not care who wrote the original books.

[Snow_Crystal]

I always assumed that the publishers owned the copyright to the Harry Potter Books. If they own the copyright then they could theoretically employ someone else to continue the series should JKR refuse.

JKR has probably signed a contract to supply 7 books to complete the series and if there are other books which are kind of related to HP (e.g Magical Creatures) then she might sign additional contracts to supply those.

If it is the Publishers that own the copyright then who can blame her for wanting to kill off Harry?

[Scellanis]

I doubt it, copywright belongs to the original artist/writer unless they are stupid enough to sign it over completely...publishers get the right to publish it...once the writer signs the agreement they can't then go and let another publisher also produce it but the stuff being pulished (characters, places, etc) still belongs to the writer untill copywright runs out.

[Snow_Crystal]

Yeah you're probably right actually. They probably just have the publishing rights. JKR was desperate to get it published at the beginning but I don't think she would have signed over the copyright too.

[Snow_Crystal]

Sorry for the double-post but I checked last night. In HBP it says that JKR has the copyright and Bloomsbury have the Trademark.

Also on copyrights I found this "The Berne Convention establishes a general and minimum period that lasts the life of the author and fifty years after his (or her) death."

The Trademark is literally a badge of origin that links in this case the words of "Harry Potter" to Bloomsbury. They probably registered the TM so that it was recognisable as a Bloomsbury Product.

[Paul]

Copyright and trademarks are confusing animals.

There are 3 ways of protecting work, marks and ideas. These are Copyright, Trademark and Patents.

Copyright relates to an actual created work (think of the actual 7 books of Harry Potter). Also photographs and works of art, as well as films and TV programs for example can't be reproduced without authorisation from the copyright holder. Copyright does not need to be registered - copyright is automatically created when any new work of writing, artistry, photography etc is created.

You're possibly right about the copyright expiring 50 years after death in some countries, Snow. In general here in the UK, copyright remains for 70 years after the author's death, but there are different rules for different circumstances and in different parts of the world. More good details on UK copyright are at http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html

Trademark relates to a mark or name. In the UK (and possibly other countries), as far as I understand, trademark often (maybe always?- I'm not certain) relates to a type (or types) of thing. Think of Mars relating to foods, for example. A company using the name Mars to sell crisps would be in breach of whoever owns the Mars Bars foods trademark. However, Someone using the name Mars to sell digital cameras (buy Mars digital cameras for an out of this world pixel resolution) would unlikely be in breach because digital cameras are not a food. Whether anyone owns the Mars trademark for such types of electronic or photographical goods would need to be investigated though.

The name Harry Potter relating to a book character (and other names used by JKR too) would therefore be protected by trademark. This is actually part of how Broomsticks and Owls got its name.... I didn't want to call it Harrypottersomething, otherwise the site would have always been at risk of being closed down for breaching the HP trademark. Actually, thinking out loud, I wonder if that's why another quite popular forum which actually did have the HP name in its site name has recently closed down.

Trademark doesn't always need to be registered - first use of the Mark is importantly considered. Registration is helpful and probably advisable though.

The third type of protection, Patents, applies to ideas, designs and formulas etc, for example the formulas for new pharmaceuticals, or an idea to make a new type of hexagonal computer which hovers on a cushion of air and uses ants in its central processing unit. I'm not absolutely certain but I think Patents need to be registered.

[Phoenix in the Ashes]

Or an idea to make a new type of hexagonal computer which hovers on a cushion of air and uses ants in its central processing unit.

Sounds eerily similar to the Discworld series' Hex!

[GodrictheGriffon]

There really is something like that?!

[Scellanis]

Discworld is a fantasy series written by Terry Pratchett who must actually be rather clever because he seems to come up with alot of discworld items and theories and stuff that would almost but not quite work in the real world.

[FawkesthePhoenix]

i've never heard of it.