If the Harry Potter Film franchise is all about bringing magic and joy to muggles across the globe, what may not be so well publicized is the fact that this was not always so.
Having garnered several copyrights and licensing rights to "all things Harry Potter" Warner Brothers moved with uncommon aggressiveness to guard its new found kingdom. So ferocious and intense was Warner Brothers' defense campaign, ultimately it backfired on them.
Biting The Hand That Feeds You
In its bid to ensure that it lost none of the spoils to be got from the Harry Potter franchise, Warner Brothers early on in the game started ( with its usual heavy-handedness) smacking down on the very people who were filling its coffers with gold...The Harry Potter fans.
With a ferociousness that would have made a hungry, full-grown leopard downright envious, Warner Bros. launched a stealthy multi-pronged attack on countless Harry Potter fan websites, ultimately causing most to be shut down. Their war campaign was unbeatable (well almost)--using legal issues as the large shield with which to forge their offense, Warner Brothers were able to back up the campaign with an even more formidable weapon...extremely deep pockets!
The following is a brief synopsis of what is now known as The Potter Wars.
In December of 2000, a 15-year old English schoolgirl, Claire Field was threatened with legal action unless she surrender her site "The Boy Who Lived" at harrypotterguide.co.uk. Warner Brothers' justification or argument was that Claire Field's website "was likely to cause consumer confusion or dilution of intellectual property rights." The rather cold missive continued in an even frostier tone "If we do not hear from you by 15 December 2000 we shall put this matter into the hands of our solicitors." With that the war was on!
Warner Brothers flush with the scent of blood pushed their campaign further, mowing down more victims on the way. Some of them included:
Catherine Chang, a 15-yr old from Singapore who ultimately relinquished all rights to the domain name www.thehpn.com;
Sung Yoo (twelve yrs old) was threatened with legal action about his site at HarryPotterFAQ.com
Ross McCaw and Peter Walker (both 13 year olds) were broached about their nefarious activities at HarryPotter-world.com
There're countless other kids who were also threatened and harrassed for no other reason, than trying to express their appreciation of something magical...something that added a little more magic to the grind of everyday life. And adding a little more magic to everyday life, incidentally, was probably what Rowling had in mind when she wrote the Harry Potter series.
Finally something had to give and that's when the small became the mighty and the little worm finally turned.Warner Brothers' insidious campaign gained nationwide notoriety and Harry Potter fans the world over united and took up the call to arms (i.e., boycott Harry Potter merchandise etc.)
PotterWar (based at www.potterWar.org.uk), founded by veteran etoy/eToys domain dispute vanquisher Alastair Alexander, launched an all-out offensive to stop Warner Brothers in its tracks. He was not alone. Others dived into the fray. Heather Lawver (16 yrs old) of Harry Potter site The Daily Prophet (www.dprophet.com) formed Defense Against the Dark Arts (DADA) another organisation dedicated to protesting the Warner Brothers witch-hunt campaign. National dailies alsocovered the stories of affected, distraught kids.
There were several other groups and individuals who also helped bring pressure to bear on Warner Brothers such as The Register, The BBC, Independent.
Finally after a stream of (at best erroneous, at worst confabulated) press releases it dawned on Warner Brothers that alienating your food source is not the best survival tactic.
In March of 2001 Warner Brothers with little fanfare officially wound down its McCarthy style witch hunt against Harry Potter fans.
The Moral of this tale? GREED was, is and always will be one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
In all fairness it should be added that Warner Brother did attempt to make amends for its dastardly behaviour. They issued a statement promising that "no legal action to take over or shut down sites has been or will be taken against webmasters who are determined to be enthusiatic fans who simply want to pay homage to Harry Potter". They also went as far as to wax eloquent and lyrical about Claire Field's site, and that they might give her a free licence to become an official Harry Potter site!
