joegratz.net

J.K. Rowling’s agent denied a request by a bunch of 3-year-olds to perform their original Harry Potter ballet at a benefit for a children’s hospital.

All right, it sounds bad. Really bad. But Rowling’s agent didn’t have any choice; Rowling sold the dramatic rights to Warner Brothers, and you can’t grant rights you don’t have. The agent’s quotes in the article have a definite tinge of “This is going to make us look like real blackguards, and we’d really, really like to say yes, but if we did Warner Brothers would quickly eviscerate us, so no,” which is nice to see.

Here’s the interesting sidelight: the ballet was to be presented for the benefit of the Great Ormond Street Hospital, which is trying to use copyright law to stop publication of a new book by Emily Somma which uses the Peter Pan characters, who are in the public domain. The hospital does important work and deserves generous funding, but it seems like some sort of cosmic justice that while the lawsuit over Somma’s book is ongoing, they’re losing the revenue from this ballet benefit because of similar actions by another copyright holder.