Judge urges settlement in J.K. Rowling case

April 16, 2008 J.K. Rowling and a publisher who wants to release an unauthorized lexicon to her Harry Potter novels should try to settle the copyright dispute out of court, a judge said Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Robert Patterson Jr. said the copyright infringement case was a legal close call, involving unresolved areas of American law, and was almost certain to end in years of appeals. Lawyers for Rowling and Warner Bros., which holds intellectual property rights to the Potter books and films, rested their case Wednesday morning, saying they believed they had proven that "The Harry Potter Lexicon" took too much copyrighted material from Rowling's work.

Subscribe to the Hollywood Reporter and see the entertainment industry from its best angle: the inside looking out. Complete access to real-time news and exclusive analysis that goes behind the scenes from film to television, home video to digital media.

   Subscribe now.