Lexicon Update

Via Lisnews, I find out the Lexicon is all set to go and be published this January!

Why, pray tell?

"On Thursday, RDR Books officially withdrew its appeal of U.S. District Judge Robert P. Patterson's decision, and Rowling's public relations agency issued a statement favorable to the release of the rewritten lexicon." The news source is none other than Roger Rapaport of RDR publishing and Lexicon editor/author Steve Vander Ark, in Rapaport's local paper, the Muskegon Chronicle.

What does this mean? Have I reconsidered what I said earlier about the appeal not being about the book?

It means the parties to a litigation still have a say in what goes forward in their name, even when lawyers and law centers get involved. I really wish I'd been a fly on the wall for the discussions between Stanford Law Center and RDR about the appeal. I also wonder if SVA had anything to do with this. No, he's not a party. But he's taken a huge beating in fandom over the lawsuit, and the combo of withdrawing the lawsuit and rewriting the Lexicon will, I believe, help his standing in HP fandom.

Note to self: set Google alert for the Stanford Law Center to see what copyright issue and case they get involved with next. For them, it's not about the book; it's about the principles of copyright. So yes, we will be seeing them again!

Second note: Weirdly, the newspaper reporting this buried the money quote, above, deep in the article itself. Like they didn't realize it was the most important part of the story!

Edited to add: the Leaky Cauldron's news release on this from yesterday.

Edited to add again: Will I buy the new book? I'm not sure; I'm on a pretty tight budget at the moment. But I do want to read it!