Your Harry Potter Love Affair is over because...
In September 2011 Versha Sharma, speaking of her Harry Potter Love Affair, explained how much she loves Harry Potter.
Within one week from the launch of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (that is, 12 years ago) she had bought and finished all the first four books of the series. Immediately after, she joined all sorts of online fansites, spending “countless nights” to read fan fiction. That, until September 2011 when, she writes:
“Like millions of other fans suffering from post-Potter depression, I’m sad it’s over – sad we have no new material (except Pottermore), sad it won’t dominate pop culture the same way, but confident it will endure.”
Now, here’s an explanation to Mrs Sharma, and all the millions Harry Potter fans worldwide in the same situation: your Harry Potter love affair is over only because of the absurd length of its copyright, which will expire only very long after the great majority of its first generation fans are dead. A copyright expiring many decades after the death of the author is the only reason why:
- there cannot be any more Harry Potter stories, not in the open and with the same reach (and earnings) as the first ones anyway, at least
- Pottermore is enable to carry, as Wired puts it, one inexplicable vestige of the old print-publisher-to-retail business: Language and regional restrictions, which make certain editions of books available only in particular countries
Harry Potter appeared in 1997. If copyright had a sensible duration (say 10/15 years, certainly not more than 20) by now Rowling would equally be a billionaire, but everybody else could write and publish Harry Potter stories without fear of retaliation now or in just a few years, giving Mrs Sharma and all other Potter fans worldwide more stuff to read and buy.
So, dear fans, if Harry Potter is “over” and you’ll only have new material IF and when Rowling and Pottermore give you permission, it’s only because of the ridiculous length of copyright (not necessarily its existence). Just so you know. Because, while it may not be a problem with books that is not mandatory to have, didiculous copyright duration is also the same reasons why many students can’t afford textbooks.
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