Harry Potter and the Intellectual Property Conundrum

I found this story about the band “Harry and the Potters” to be fascinating on many levels.

Brothers Paul and Joe DeGeorge each portray Harry, the former as Harry in his Seventh Year, the latter as Harry in his Fourth Year.

They now have a total of three garage-pop/indie rock full-length CDs out — a self-titled one from 2003, 2004’s Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock, and this year’s Harry Potter and the Power of Love. And yes, all of their songs are about Harry Potter; indeed, they are written as if by the young Gryffindor seeker. (Sample titles: “Cornelius Fudge Is an Ass,” “In Which Draco Malfoy Cries Like a Baby,” “My Teacher Is a Werewolf”.)

I confess, I’m a little amazed that in this day of extra zealous guardianship of intellectual property that such a thing as “Harry and the Potters” can exist. I mean, what do you think the life expectancy of a “Buzz and the Lightyears” would be? Maybe they’ve been sufficiently below the radar these past three years, but still.

Having said that, I think this exactly the sort of thing where a property owner is reasonably well served by a little benign neglect. I see this band as basically a fan fiction habit that got out of control. They’re not hurting JK Rowling’s brand, and they’re not adversely affecting her bottom line – if anything, they’re likely to help it by converting a few non-fans into fans and some casual fans into rabid ones. If and when this group comes to her attention and her attorneys get involved, I hope some sort of very low cost licensing deal can be worked out.

Oh, and from the interview with the brothers who comprise “Harry and the Potters”, I found this highly amusing:

HP: I see that you’re on the road with Draco and the Malfoys. What’s it like touring with your archnemesis?

PD: There’s been sort of a surge in Harry Potter-related bands…With the Malfoys, they’re from Rhode Island and they saw us on the Internet and they invited us to come play at a house party. So we went down there and everybody had a good time, and then they wanted to have us back to do a Harry Potter-themed show, so they put together that band pretty much as a one-off, it was like “We’ll be Draco and the Malfoys and we’ll make fun of Harry and the Potters.” And their set was riddled with curse words and stuff, ’cause it was a house party. But we thought it was hilarious, so we got them to clean up a few of their words and started having them play with us around Boston. And one of them is a fantastic drummer, so he sits in with us after the Malfoys set.

HP: Do you all interact in character?

PD: Yeah, we do. We boo them while they play, and if something goes wrong with their drum machine or something, we’ll say things like, “Who you got drumming for you? Some squibb?”

That’s just too funny. I wonder what some of the other Harry Potter-related bands are like.

Anyway. I linked to this partly so I could also link to Lance Mannion’s analysis of who is and isn’t likely to die at the end of the seventh book. Check it out.

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4 Responses to Harry Potter and the Intellectual Property Conundrum

  1. Sue says:

    I’ve listened to a couple of the songs by Harry and the Potters. The songs are a lot of fun and I was, I have to say, rather disappointed when I found out we were missing them by one day when we were in Pennsylvania on vacation earlier this year.

    I don’t see anything particularly wrong with groups like this. I think that I would be rather flattered to see fanfic about something I wrote. Kind of like having Weird Al Yankovic cover one of your songs. It’s a sign you’ve made it.

  2. Robert Nagle says:

    Titles of works can’t be copyrighted, but they can be trademarked. If they became even moderately successful, you can be sure Time Warner would be on their case.

    The key is flying under the radar and preventing corporations from demanding a share of your profits.

    I have lots of problems with current IP law, but I think one response is willfully ignoring media properties like Harry Potter. If they want exclusive rights over a creative idea, then we should respect that respect and provide them (in our blogs or public life) absolutely no attention whatsoever.

    Other countercultural artists like Kembrew McLeod have suggested intentionally baiting megamedia companies precisely to invite their suppressive action.

  3. Michael says:

    Laws regarding copyright get extra-funky when you change media (songs vs. writings), but this is old IP ground. More traditional F&SF have had a ‘filksong’ industry for decades, which generates more-or-less professionally produced music that is performed, recorded, and sold.

  4. Jeff N. says:

    Charles, my teenaged daughter scored a couple of autographed t-shirts at the concert Friday night. She said it was a great time.

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