Newsgroup: it.arti.cinema
Titolo: Harry Potter and the International Order of Copyright


If you're a serious Harry Potter fan, you finished The
Order of the Phoenix over the weekend and are already
impatient for the sixth book. While you wait (and wait) for
it, how about trying some of the international versions of
Potter? In China last year, it was easy to buy the unusual
Potter sequel Harry Potter and Leopard- Walk-Up-to-Dragon,
in which Harry encountered sweet and sour rain, became a
hairy troll, and joined Gandalf to re-enact scenes from The
Hobbit. The book, while credited to J.K. Rowling, wasn't
authorized or written by her, but that didn't prevent it
from selling like butterbeer.
Meanwhile, in Russia, you can still meet Harry's Slavic
twin: "Tanya Grotter," star of Tanya Grotter and the Magic
Double Bass. Tanya rides a double bass, sports a mole
instead of a bolt of lightning, and attends the Tibidokhs
School of Magic. In an interview with journalist Steve
Gutterman, author Dmitry Yemets called her "a sort of
Russian answer to Harry Potter," and described his books as
"cultural competition" for the original. Grotter is a hit:
Yemets has already sold more than 1 million copies. And
next door in Belarus you'll find Porri Gatter and the Stone
Philosopher. In something of a departure, Harry's
Belarussian clone wields a grenade launcher and re-fights
the White Russian wars.
You're unlikely to be able to get your hands on any of
these works, since J.K. Rowling and her publisher have
launched an aggressive worldwide legal campaign against the
unauthorized Potter takeoffs. It began last year when
Rowling and Time-Warner threatened the publishers of
Chinese Potter, who agreed to stop publication. On April 4
of this year, Rowling persuaded a Dutch court to block the
import of Tanya Grotter to Holland. Harry Potter in
Calcutta, in which Harry meets up with various characters
from Bengali literature, was recently pulled by its Indian
publisher under threat. Potter takeoffs have become
international contraband.
Rowling's ability to stop the Potter pretenders is largely
a function of the new regime of international copyright.
Until recently, countries varied considerably in how they
protected literary works, especially works from abroad. The
United States, for instance, has a long history of
providing less protection than the Europeans. Benjamin
Franklin was a kind of pirate: He did good business as a
printer of unlicensed English writing. In the 19th century,
the United States generally refused to recognize foreign
copyrights, allowing American readers to get the latest
Dickens and Doyle cheaply. And the borrowing of characters
itself has a longer tradition. For example, the princess we
know as Cinderella originally hails from China, where she
goes by the name Yeh-Shen and relies for help on a magic
fish who gives her golden slippers.
Today, nations still maintain and enforce their own
copyright laws, but for members of the World Trade
Organization (that is, nearly everyone that matters), those
statutes must meet extensive minimum standards. Under the
Trade Related International Property treaty, original
authors "enjoy the exclusive right of authorizing
adaptations, arrangements and other alterations of their
works." In other words, there is little scope for secondary
authors to write local adaptations of the Potter-clone
variety, since their country must abide by the
international norms guaranteeing Rowling's monopoly
everywhere. The result: Rowling can use the courts in WTO-
compliant countries to club her Potter rivals.
You might think it a good thing that Rowling can stop the
Potter cloning industry, whether it is in Brighton,
Bangalore, or Bratislava. Who wants to see Harry turned
into a hairy troll or forced to gallivant with foreign
literary figures? But on closer examination the argument
for letting Potter crush his international competition is
quite weak.
The case for preventing literal copying-in which a foreign
publisher simply reprints a work without permission-is
strong. But Potter follow-ons are different from the
American Dickens piracy of the 19th century and DVD piracy
of today. Literal copies are what come out when you use a
photocopier. Potter's takeoffs are different: They either
borrow characters and put them in a new, foreign context
(Potter in Calcutta) or just use the themes and ideas of
Potter (as in Tanya Grotter's case) as inspiration for a
different kind of story. They aren't a direct replacement
for a Potter book, the way a literal copy is, but rather a
supplement or an adaptation.
One of the main justifications for a unified and strong
global copyright system is that it is supposed to
facilitate international trade. That's why it's a part of
the WTO system. But as trade economists will tell you,
trade often works when countries imitate and improve the
inventions of others. America invents the hi-fi, Sony turns
it into the Walkman, and then Chinese companies make still
cheaper imitations.
This is basically what's going on in the world of Harry
Potter. The English original is clearly the best. The
imitators aren't as good but are cheaper and come out much
more frequently (there are already three Tanya Grotter
books). There is, in short, a secondary Potter market.
Isn't this the international trading system at its best?
Moreover, the writers of secondary Potters are probably
better at creating versions of Potter suited to local
conditions. According to Reuters, at least some Russian
children prefer Tanya Grotter to Harry, some on account of
her Russian name. Local writers do things to Harry that
Rowling can't, like introducing him to local literary
figures and putting him in local wars. It may be good and
it may be bad, but it's a market failure to prevent it.
Potter's publishers, in defense of strong global copyright,
would say that works like Tanya Grotter are theft, and such
theft destroys the incentive to write in the first place.
But the incentives argument is surprisingly unpersuasive in
the international setting. To say Rowling will stop writing
for fear of international parody is a difficult case to
make. Only the most famous and lucrative works are parodied
overseas. If an international adaptation is a sign you've
made it rich, how can it be a serious financial deterrent
for new writers?
The truer complaint is that Potter's overseas competitors
may mean slightly less profit for Rowling and her
publishers. It is also true that Burger King means slightly
less profit for McDonald's. You could say that Burger King
and Wendy's stole the idea of a fun, plastic burger joint
from McDonald's and are unfairly profiting from their evil
deed. But when it comes to burger joints, we accept that
the consequence of a competitive market is less profit for
the first mover (McDonald's). Copyright should be no
different. So long as it provides Rowling sufficient
incentive to write, it should strive to maintain as much
competition and facilitate as much international trade as
possible.
It is also true that these rip-off works make authors angry
and may tarnish the reputation of the character. But what
makes authors angry is precisely what they are least likely
to write, and therefore often what copyright needs to
permit. For example, in 1989 the rap group 2 Live Crew
recorded an obscene version of Roy Orbison's song "Pretty
Woman." Orbison's "Pretty Woman" became, successively, "big
hairy woman," "bald woman," and eventually, "two-timin'
woman." There was little question that it made Orbison's
estate angry, tarred the reputation of the original, and
was a commercial competitor that threatened Orbison's
profits. But the U.S. Supreme Court found it a parody: a
non-infringing fair use. The faux Potter books are not
quite parodies, but they're similar. Just as refusing 2
Live Crew permission to parody would have destroyed the
market for parodies (since authors rarely parody their own
works), so Rowling's campaign destroys the market for
international follow-ons, since Rowling could never write a
Potter book that could capture the Russian spirit the way
Grotter does. Rowling is using the cudgel of international
copyright not to destroy something she could have created,
but to destroy something she could never create.
In the end, few people are likely to mistake Tanya Grotter
for Harry Potter; it is akin to mistaking Burger King for
McDonald's. The international copyright system is justified
in preventing the most basic forms of piracy. But it
doesn't need to stop works like Tanya Grotter. The original
Harry Potter is good enough to compete with its foreign
cousins. So let a hundred Harrys bloom and let a hundred
schools of magic contend.

schools of magic contend.
LOL!
Ciao
Nicola
...il magnifico net.kook duplex "gileZ" non-brizzolato, pluri-incidentato e pluricitato in giudizio di it.arti.cinema
-- 
"Chi va piano va sano e viene tamponato poco lontano". 
Marcello Marchesi

 Perfetto, no?
Beh, in Cina fanno *esattamente* cosi' (oddio, sull'ukulele non saprei :-)
-- 
"Credi che i soldi siano tutto nella vita??"
"Da piccolo lo credevo... ora ne sono certo"

 benefici economici? Non mi sembra poi così giusto.
Dici tipo la Disney col cartone animato quello del pesce copiato da Myazaki?

Dici tipo la Disney col cartone animato quello del pesce copiato da Myazaki?
Eh?


 ha scritto nel messaggio
news:bdpnci$util5$1...@ID-180709.news.dfncis.de...

Era un leone ed era Tezuka e ai tempi ci fu un contenzioso riguardo la
faccenda, e tutti si scagliarono contro la Disney copiona.
Ora le parti sono invertite e stranamente invece adesso ha ragione chi copia
(e molto piu' spudoratmente della Disney)?
Ebbhe' la potente Disney ispira antipatia tanto quanto la miliardaria
Rowling e quindi uno si adegua come una banderuola...
Beh, almeno ora so' come fare davvero i soldi, domani mi metto a scrivere un
bel del giovane maghetto mariuolo coi baffi  e mandolino magico che ripete
il primo anno alla scuola statale di magia.

 (e molto piu' spudoratmente della Disney)?
No, leggi l'articolo.
La banderuola qui e' il Nicola, lui si scaglia contro la copia ma accetta la
Disney.

 Disney.
????
E dove sarebbe il punto in cui Nicola parla della Disney??