Rowling Puts the Hex on Hindu Harry Potter

Nonsensical litigation strikes yet again. Even worse than your average Joe or Jane suing to profit from their own stupidity is when it’s an obvious act of greed by someone whose net worth exceeds that of a small nation. This time, it’s author JK Rowling who's filed a lawsuit against the Calcutta organizers of the annual Hindu festival, Durga Puja, according to BBC’s website. They built a model of Hogwarts as part of the festivities and committed the ultimate sin regardless of your religion: Organizers failed to ask permission from the outlandishly pompous author of the boy wizard series who acts as if we should all bow down and kiss her feet simply because she created the almighty Harry Potter. Maybe she’s just pissed the festival isn’t dedicated to honor her rather than the goddess Durga. For how Rowling comes across in any interview I’ve ever seen, you’d swear she sorted out the formula for world peace rather than penned a few rather popular books. At first I thought perhaps Rowling had a point. Maybe this festival generated huge profits. In that case, I could be convinced they owed her a share of it. Were they charging admission fees? If the Harry Potter theme was the big draw and increased ticket sales, then I could understand the oh-so-personable Rowling having a reason to scowl other than the fact that’s the face she was born with. After all, she’s hurting for money especially after release of that last book that sold a mere 10 copies worldwide. What a flop that was!

I did a bit of research into the festival as I’m not Hindu and as per Wikipedia’s entry, I discovered that NO admission is charged to festival visitors. Along with corporate sponsorship, community donations are collected to fund the organization of the festival. Any remaining funds are then donated to a chosen charity. Admission to all is FREE. Technically it sounds like a non-profit event to me. No one appears to be getting rich from the Durga Puja and surely not nearly as rich as JK Rowling was after only one book.

JK’s lawyers claim there is a clause that allows for such usage by small-scale, non-commercial events without permission so that everyone could enjoy Harry Potter in the spirit in which it was created. However, this grand scale event exceeds those parameters. Hence: lawsuit. I’m simply shocked to learn that Harry Potter books and movies weren’t created in the spirit of making gobs of money. How silly of me!

Because the event is non-profit, festival organizers have said they couldn’t afford to pay a fine if the court imposes one and even funnier is Rowling’s request the fine be donated to charity if awarded. So JK why not just consider this event a charity event and leave them alone? I wonder if there’s a department that determines what is and what isn’t acceptable. A fire company carnival in Milwaukee may be able to sell tickets to a game based on Harry Potter, for instance, but a free Hindu festival is violating copyright protection. What's the fear? If you let one free Hindu festival get away with using Harry Potter in this way, it could very well lead to Rowling’s bankruptcy? Can’t risk that.

If anything, you’d think she'd welcome the exposure of more kids to Harry Potter. It'd probably spark sales of her books, etc after kids saw the Hogwarts model and were either introduced to Harry for the first time or reminded to bug their parents to buy them more Harry Potter stuff if already fans. If anything, you’d think JK’s people would embrace it as free advertising but then again, JK doesn’t need advertising as she seems to think she’s more magical than all of Hogwarts’ wizards combined. She has, after all, cured cancer and worked out the logistics to end hunger and poverty.

Let’s face it: JK Rowling’s net worth, not to mention future potential earnings, most likely exceed the GNP of India and bordering nations yet it’s still not enough. How much is enough JK? The only thing more obnoxiously exorbitant than your wealth is your ego. Too bad you can’t buy a much-needed personality with a portion of your protected proceeds.

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