What is the meaning of intellectual property in a world of rapidly evolving media forms? How do owners protect their intellectual property? In sharing it, how do they preserve their rights? What constitutes “fair Use” of the fruits of someone else’s genius? What allowances should be made to ensure the free flow of information to citizens and scholars? In Robert S. Want’s remarkable and wonderfully named new book, “Harry Potter and the Order of The Court,” the reader can explore all these intriguing issues in a unique and fascinating context: a recent litigation that Harry Potter series author J. K. Rowling initiated against RDR Books to prevent them from marketing or selling a planned book: “The Harry Potter Lexicon,” a sort of Potter encyclopedia assembled by Steven Vander Ark.

The case was complicated by a variety of factors, including the fact that RDR alleged the Lexicon was a print version of “The Harry Potter Lexicon” website, one of the many sites on the internet that Potter fans can currently access for free. Then there was the fact that J. K. Rowling had encouraged such websites—and in fact had been quoted positively in reference to this particular site. Nevertheless, Rowling and her co-plaintiff Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. argued that there was a world of difference between creating a free website for fans, and creating a “for profit” print volume that depended heavily on verbatim (or in some cases near verbatim) borrowings from the original texts—thus violating the “Fair Use” conditions of the U.S. Copyright Law.

In fact, Mr. Want’s fascinating account of this complex litigation; which brought literary fantasy, legal reality, and the contending interests of creative ownership and scholarly privilege into the courtroom; focuses its attention on the central issue of “Fair Use.” “Fair Use” is a legal term in U.S. Copyright law which describes in general and sometimes ambiguous terms what constitutes a legal borrowing of someone else’s intellectual property or creative work. In general terms, “Fair Use” is a reproduction of some copyrighted material for a limited and “transformational” purpose. Examples might include quoting a sentence from a book or a line from a song in a review, engaging in a parody, or summarizing and quoting from an article in a news story. As far as the courts are concerned, scholarship is allowed some leeway, as well as the reproduction of materials for educational purposes. If commercial gain is involved, however—that’s seen as a negative factor in a “Fair Use” claim.

In this case an able defense was mounted for RDR Books and Steven Vander Ark by the Stanford Fair Use Project, an organization that endorses a freer public access to information on the internet and other media forms. In the opening statement for the defense, Project lawyer Anthony Falzone accused J. K. Rowling of exercising a bit of the black arts herself, by attempting to make the Lexicon “disappear from our world.” In spite of a spirited defense of RDR by the Project however, the court ultimately decided for J.K. Rowling; arguing basically that author/assembler Steven Vander Ark had copied too much and “transformed” too little. Ironically, Vander Ark (who purportedly looks a little like the legendary Harry Potter) included language attached to the text of the Lexicon that clearly indicated he expected that HIS work would be protected under the same “fair use” rules he was accused of violating.

Interestingly, the author of “Harry Potter and The Order of the Court,” Mr. Want, has gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid any “fair use” violations of J. K. Rowling’s work in HIS book, carefully crediting all his sources and focusing on the legal, ethical and intellectual property issues related to Rowling’s work, rather than focusing on or drawing heavily on the works themselves.

The adventures of Harry Potter may be at an end, but the struggle to define the “Fair Use” fair doctrine as it applies to many kinds of intellectual property ( music, literature, software, web pages, etc.) is likely to continue unabated as media forms continue evolve faster than the law can corral and police their use. Future cases will be decided one at a time, as courts review the “Fair Use” principles and case law already established, but also apply the subjective judgments and moral instincts that may be appropriate to a given case.

All of this will be messy and difficult, but Robert Want’s terrific book, through its thorough examination of the R.K. Rowling case, provides the reader with a lively and fascinating look at the battles that lie ahead for those that create intellectual property and those that use it.