We have read a lot about the legal issues which burden J.K. Rowling in the wake of her successful Harry Potter series. Striphas emphasizes two major market behaviors threatening Rowling’s copyright: first, he discusses the pre-releasing of Potter books internationally before moving to the international knockoffs such as Tanya Grotter. All this reading of Harry Potter calls to mind another possible copyright influenced work on the famous wizard.

The fanfiction Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is, if my friends are any indication, an incredibly popular text. I believe that fanfictions rarely stand out, this one being a remarkable exception for its pleasing storytelling, interesting premise, and wonderful use of popular literary devices. A disclaimer on the fan-fiction’s original site reads “J. K. Rowling owns Harry Potter, and no one owns the methods of rationality*.” Interestingly enough, though the author credits Rowling, he does not credit himself. This fascinating political ploy epitomizes the divide between fanfiction and knockoffs. Though knockoffs seek to exploit the popularity of a work for profit, fanfiction only borrows a text’s popularity in order to create an interesting adaptation. In fact, “borrow” might not cut it here. A person who writes fanfiction deliberately plays on the popularity of a work for a purpose higher than profit or their own popularity.

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*Although in the following sentence I take the phrase “methods of rationality” in the disclaimer to mean the title of the fan-fiction, I have discovered a second meaning. Yudkowsky probably also refers to the general methods of rationality, the process of rationalization, which are owned by no one since they are innate in all people. Thus, he is commenting on that higher purpose which closes my blog entry by promoting his own philosophy epitomized in the blog Less Wrong.