You know this guy?

http://failblog.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/militia-fail/

Provided that the quoted amounts are not disproportionate and are attributed properly, there ought not be a breach of copyright in an encyclopedia or other explanatory document. There is no copyright in a single word eg. “muggle”. Ms Rowling synthesized a good idea, expressed it well and received the recognition she deserved for her works. If people are simply outraged because someone else is “free riding” off her creative coat-tails, then consider that her work is largely derivative and does not attribute the foundational works from which her creative spark was inspired.

I am, by the way, a practicing counsel and intellectual property professor. Ms Rowling would be better off commencing an action to the effect that the other author has infringed her trademarks. Either way, her legal team will probably render the object of her wrath insolvent regardless as to merit, so the matter is not likely to proceed very far.

BTW - imagine the disturbing amount of slash fiction, fanfic and “Barry Trotter” esque parody out there. Such things are “original” and not “copies” for the purposes of a breach of copyright.

just as it’s not illegal to download jpop songs, it is also not illegal to base your lexicon on the wide pantheon of gods, goddesses, bodhisattvas and buddhas from Japanese mythology.

plus, if you can pull off a good manga read and produce a great anime film, kids will be ready for the trading cards and merchandise.

however, it helps to know about japanese culture.

I mean, Rowling bases her works on a British lens on Hollywood magick with perhaps something from Tolkien and ripoffs of the Arthurian lengend.

plus she even had to invent code talk for youngsters, and bend reality a bit i.e. the concept of a world where most youngsters and adults speak RP in its many variations and have never really escaped the legendary magick purported to be of the European past.

and she does a bad job of it too.

that the kids lap it up only shows how gullible the child’s mind is, to believe in magick, in order to escape the boredom of everyday life in suburbia.