The Harry Potter Lexicon

The Harry Potter Lexicon is a fan-created online encyclopedia of the Harry Potter series.

The site was created by school librarian Steve Vander Ark. It contains detailed information for all seven published Harry Potter books. The Lexicon lists characters, places, creatures, spells, potions and magical devices, as well as analyzing magical theory and other details of the series. The Lexicon is credited as creating one of the first timelines of all events occurring in the Harry Potter universe. A similar timeline of events was adopted by Warner Bros. for inclusion with their Harry Potter film DVDs, and was accepted by author J. K. Rowling as conforming to her works.

The Lexicon is a winner of J. K. Rowling's Fan Site Award. Rowling said:

This is such a great site that I have been known to sneak into an internet café while out writing and check a fact rather than go into a bookshop and buy a copy of Harry Potter (which is embarrassing). A website for the dangerously obsessive; my natural home.

On October 31, 2007, J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers filed a lawsuit against RDR Books over the publication of Vander Ark's Lexicon in book form. The lawsuit was heard in a New York court on April 14, 2008. Whilst some sources refer to Vander Ark being sued, the lawsuit actually names only RDR Books.

The lawsuit states,

The infringing book is particularly troubling as it is in direct contravention to Ms. Rowling's repeatedly stated intention to publish her own companion books to the series.

The result of the lawsuit was that the book could be published, but not in its present form. A modified version of the book was published in 2009. This case went to bench trial in the New York Federal District Court of Judge Robert Patterson on April 14, 2008. RDR Books defense team, which includes solo San Francisco practitioner, Lizbeth Hasse of the Creative Industry Law Group, solo New York practitioner David Hammer, and the Fair Use Project at Stanford University Law School, has replied to the suit arguing:

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