Rowling wins lawsuit over Potter book

A judge ruled Monday in favor of “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling in her copyright infringement lawsuit against a fan and website operator who was set to publish a Potter encyclopedia.

U.S. District Judge Robert P. Patterson said Rowling had proven that Steven Vander Ark’s “Harry Potter Lexicon” would cause her irreparable harm as a writer.

“I took no pleasure at all in bringing legal action and am delighted that this issue has been resolved favorably,” said Rowling. “I went to court to uphold the right of authors everywhere to protect their own original work. The court has upheld that right.

“The proposed book took an enormous amount of my work and added virtually no original commentary of its own. Now the court has ordered that it must not be published. . . . Many books have been published which offer original insights into the world of Harry Potter. The ‘Lexicon’ just is not one of them.”