Search-e person sends these two articles from the Timesonline.co.uk/ and the Sunday Herald>
A Harry Potter lookalikes comic published by the US Army is being investigated by representatives of the author JK Rowling. A collection of characters – with striking similarities to the actors who portray Rowling’s creations in the film adaptations of her books – have graced the pages of Preventative Maintenance (or PS) Monthly, a free guide to keeping military equipment in working order distributed to 80,000 army personnel in the US.
The magazine includes a cartoon character called Topper, a boy wizard, who attends Mogmarts school of magic. Harry Potter, Rowling’s boy wizard creation, attends the Hogwarts school of magic.
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Riiiiight
This is blatent copying and I hope her publishers get a nice big lawsuit together.
Looking at the picture in this article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/424 3145.stm) the children are obviously direct copies of the actors.
And why go for names so closely related to Rowlings?
Maybe the problem will be what damage has actually been done, not used for financial gain for one thing.
parody
It depends. If it’s determined to be parody it comes under fair use in U.S. law. I’m not sure how international IP law feels about parody.
Re:parody
While bad technical writing can be quite amusing (if only unintentionally) at times, I don’t think that it will count as parody by any sort of reasonable measure.
Re:parody
I was not aware that the army had been equipped with a sense of humor, such that they would be physically capable of creating a parody
Re:parody
Well, there’s also the question of
“physically capable of” vs
“physically embodying”.