Small Michigan Publisher Waits for the Word on J.K. Rowling's Lawsuit

Fri, 05/09/2008 - 10:01 — birdie

They're just wild about Harry...the Harry Potter Lexicon that is.

Publisher Roger Rapoport, of RDR Books, is waiting to set the presses a-printing on the book by author and former Grand Rapids school librarian Steven VanderArk. The decision -- possibly to be made today -- is whether RDR Books can publish a 400-page lexicon/reference book about Harry Potter; J. K. Rowling is suing to stop the work from being published.

"It's very rare to stop the press. I honestly don't know what's going to happen," Rapoport says. "My goal is to publish the (lexicon) the best way possible."

But "no matter what else happens," Rapoport has reached beyond the boundaries of his own case to help other writers, publishers, documentary producers, Internet users "and so on" who might be faced with the same kind of litigation. Rapoport says he still has accumulated a "six-figure" legal bill despite receiving aid from Stanford University Law School's Fair Use Project. Report from Michigan Live.