THE POTTERWAR CAMPAIGN
This campaign is no longer active.

What Happened

It all started late last year, when British teenager Claire Field received a letter from Neil Blair, Warner Bros director of Legal and Business Affairs. The letter, dated 1st December 2000, stated that Claire's Harry Potter site "The Boy Who Lived" at harrypotterguide.co.uk was "likely to cause consumer confusion or dilution of intellectual property rights" and demanded she transfer ownership of the domain to Warner Bros. The letter was ended with "If we do not hear from you by 15 December 2000 we shall put this matter into the hands of our solicitors."

Claire and her father Les Field took the story to the media and within a few days, reports of the incident had circulated and an article in The Hollywood Reporter stated that Warner Bros. spokesperson Barbara Brogliatti claimed the studio had merely asked Claire to "clarify the intent of her site." Claire and Les employed Prettys Solicitors to negotiate with Theodore Goddard, WB's UK solicitors, but in a press release in mid-February they stated that those negotiations had "broken down."

The case received national attention and the outcry led to the creation of PotterWar. Founded by Alastair Alexander (a veteran of the etoy/eToys domain dispute struggle), the organisation (based at www.PotterWar.org.uk) led a campaign to put a stop to WB's actions. PotterWar was soon contacted by other teenagers who had received cease and desist letters. Sung Yoo (twelve years old) had received a letter about his site at HarryPotterFAQ.com, whilst thirteen year olds Ross McCaw and Peter Walker received a letter regarding HarryPotter-world.com and Tom Morris (also thirteen) received a letter about Hogwartsonline.net

Catherine Chang (a fifteen year old from Singapore) had already relinquished all rights to the domain name www.thehpn.com Warner Bros. claimed they had been misunderstood and that the letters were "an act of miscommunication." In the US, Heather Lawver, of Harry Potter site The Daily Prophet (www.dprophet.com), formed Defense Against the Dark Arts (DADA), another organisation dedicated to protesting against the legal action. In February, DADA released a press statement advocating a boycott of all Harry Potter merchandise. Harry Potter creator JK Rowling had still not commented on the incidents, despite an e-mail campaign to inform her of the situation.

In February, the Bringers lent their support to the PotterWar/DADA alliance. Confusion continued over the situation as WB's spokesperson Diane Nelson claimed that the "vast majority" of domain registrants who received letters "did, in fact, intend to gain commercially from the association with Harry Potter or to extort money from Warner Bros." Nelson said that there had been "many amicable resolutions" with "pure" Harry Potter fans, but this failed to explain why the legal action against Claire Field and the others still continued.

On 9th March 2001 came the breakthrough we'd all been waiting for. As reported in the very first Bringers newsletter, Prettys released a press statement announcing that WB was "prepared now to rely on Claire's good faith" and were no longer seeking transferrence of the domain name. At the time, PotterWar webmaster Alastair Alexander stated that this was "great news" but stressed that there were "many, many other domains out there" and that the campaign was not over yet.

The allied campaign groups awaited further news from Diane Nelson, but none was forthcoming. In April, a new plan was launched, featuring World War 2 posters adapted for the purposes of the campaign. This was shortlived, however, as the posters induced complaints by various website visitors who found them to be offensive. Then on 3rd May, www.dprophet.com went down (and DADA with it). Rumours of WB involvement with the incident circulated, but this was never confirmed. Later that month, the site became available once more and a full account of the webmistress' experiences with service provider MMHosting was detailed at http://www.eprophet.homestead.com/DADA.html

In June, PotterWar supporters started to question the current position and the group's aims at the present time. On 6th June 2001, Alastair Alexander announced that PotterWar had "pretty much accomplished" it's mission. The DADA campaign site gave further news of the situation, stating that Ross McCaw, Peter Walker and Tom Morris had reached a settlement with Warner Bros. and "we received word that as part of that settlement, they were not supposed to talk to us regarding the boycott." Meanwhile, the PotterWar site simply announced "It's over."

PotterWar webmaster Alastair Alexander was a key figure in the fight against Warner Bros' behaviour. In an exclusive interview, the Bringers asked him why he did it, how he did it and what the future holds.

Q. After the breakthrough in Claire Field's case, you said the war wasn't over yet. As recently as April, PotterWar and DADA launched a new campaign (featuring specially edited vintage war propaganda flyers). If victory hadn't been reached at that point, what's changed since then?

A. The April campaign would have been a hoot, but managed to upset the Japanese, the Germans, and a number of other people. So we quietly binned that one. DProphet.com [online home of DADA] went down at about the same time, so we had other issues to worry about. Most of the remaining domain name cases have now been sorted satisfactorily, although there's one or two niggling annoyances. That's what changed. Warners finally twigged that they should be talking to their fans rather than threatening them.

Q. How instrumental do you feel PotterWar and its supporters were in securing the victory?

A. When people began to find out via PotterWar/DADA and its supporters that Warners actions were world-wide and the extent to which Warners were fibbing about them, we began to get an awful lot of public support. The supporters pooled information, wrote letters, set up foreign-language sites, and linked to the campaign sites. That was what made it work. We had syndicated articles mentioning us, the campaign was the subject of Easter sermons, and each time that brought more on more support. That's what made it work. Other people put in work and helped pile the pressure onto Warners, and that's what kept it going.

Q. How instrumental do you feel you yourself were in securing victory in the campaign?

A. I put in a lot of time to the campaign and bashed out press releases and so on. Heather was starting to organise something similar in the US and PotterWar was only slightly ahead of her, so something would have happened - albeit in a different shape. My experience of dealing with the media in the past probably helped, and my political background gave me a head start on how to push an issue. I think that I had more of a dirty fighter mentality about the campaign, too, so I made sure we took the fight to JK Rowling's agent too, for example. I think that helped. So - I'll claim some of the laurels. But it wouldn't have happened without a lot of other people's support and help in addition.

Q. Do you feel this dispute has changed the way Warner Bros will operate in future and do you think it will have an impact on companies considering similar action in the future?

A. Warners have presided over a PR debacle that's had them portrayed as villains the world over. I think they'll approach things differently next time. I think authors will be more careful about how their projects are handled, too.

Q. How did you become involved in the cause?

A. I read about Claire's case in a keepahead.com e-mail. I'd been involved in the etoy/eToys dispute in 1999/2000 and when I read the article I thought 'here we go again'. I happened to have a small refund cheque burning a hole in my pocket, and so I bought the domain and a meg of webspace. I really didn't expect it to take off at all.

Q. Why did you feel so strongly about the cause?

A. Because major corporations are getting away with too much. They have huge amounts of money and power, and (certainly in this case) they were using it to bluff and bully their way through some legal grey areas. Claire Field's lawyer was dead good and knew his stuff - he saw that Warners were on iffy ground and he wouldn't back off. Warners called it off as they might just have lost and that would have left them wide open. You can't let these huge entities get away with it. You have to do something to stop them. It worked with the McLibel case, it's happening with Michael Moore and Mark Thomas, and it did something with Warners.

Q. Warner Bros. still haven't issued formal apologies to all the domain owners to whom they sent threatening letters. Do you feel this is something PotterWar and DADA should continue to campaign for?

A. Warners seem to be doing a fine job of climbing down. I don't want to bother them while they're eating crow. Our job now is to make sure that everyone is as least unhappy as possible. There's one or two cases that haven't been sorted out that well, so in the next revision of the site I'll be pointing out that Warners are still not that nice.

Q. Are you or have you been conscious of the risk of "dragging out" the conflict for longer than necessary?

A. We almost did. It was only a comment on the [PotterWar mailing] list that made me realise that we didn't have that much to kick against any more. If we'd gone on much longer it would have looked like we were getting silly. We got the best we could out of them and pushing for much more might have led them to just slap us down.

Q. Is there any part of the campaign that you feel was ineffective or that you regret?

A. The World War 2 posters campaign wasn't as funny as I thought it was and we ended up causing a bit of offence, which was bad. You forget that events like that have different perceptions, and in an international campaign like PotterWar/DADA that was a mistake. I didn't know, for example, that German law specifically prohibits any pressure group from taking a militaristic approach - so even the use of the word 'war' was a bit too much for some. We learn as we go along, I guess.

I wish I'd taken the fight to Warners sooner - I agonised about putting e-mail addresses on the site for a bit too long, I think. I think we could have done a better job with the press - but there were only a handful of us. There's nothing I lie awake at nights over, though.

Q. How important do you feel the Harry Potter movie and merchandise boycott was in respect to the campaign as a whole?

A. It brought home to people that the fans really weren't happy. These were the people who were expected to mindlessly buy the tat that Warners were peddling - and they were saying 'no'. That made news, and that gave us publicity. We've had some hate mail from people claiming that our call for a boycott has financially ruined them, but I honestly doubt we can take all the blame for that. I referred them on to Warners.

Q. Do you have a vendetta against Warner Bros?

A. Not a vendetta, no. But if you know a dog's liable to bite, you watch it. Warners made a mistake, and I'm enjoying publicising that mistake. If they do it again, I'll be waiting.

Q. Do you feel the cause would have garnered so much support and attention if the victims had been older, rather than teenagers?

A. Hmm. Possibly not. I kept myself in the background a lot of the time as younger activists like Heather and Ross made for better press rather than a 33-year-old agitator prone to terrorist-style rants. It wouldn't have made such a great story, so there wouldn't have been the publicity. Mind you, if it had been an older group of fans I think the campaign would have been nastier.

Q. What lessons do you think can be drawn from the incident?

A. Don't trust Warner Brothers. Ever. They fib.

Q. And from the perspective of companies?

A. Try a little tact when dealing with children.

Q. Alastair Alexander, you've just led a successful campaign against an international corporation's attempts to bully children. What are you going to do next?

A. FanDefence.org is our next baby. Something between a consultancy and a resource centre for fans being put under the cosh by corporations. PotterWar attracted a number of fan groups - Bringers being the biggest and most vocal - and that made me realise that there's an awful lot of fan groups out there who will help if for no other reason than to try and make sure they're not next. So - FanDefence.org will *try* to get all of them in touch with each other. Sort of like the gang meeting at the beginning of 'The Warriors'. Then we'll just wait and see who gets bullied next and go to town on them. FanDefence.org isn't going to be a campaigning machine - more like a consultancy to help you run your own campaign. We've got veterans of a couple of disputes, we've got a lot of people still interested after PotterWar, and (joy!) we've got our own server space - so all is looking good.

To set this up we'll need a brains trust - so we're recruiting. If anyone's interested, they should mail me. Also - links, contacts, suggestions and stuff are all welcome.

[Alastair can be contacted at alibear@easynet.co.uk]

Links

PotterWar
This was the centre of the action for the duration of the campaign. It now displays Alastair's message of victory.

Defense Against the Dark Arts
Heather's campaign site, featuring a mission statement and more information about the campaign.