It seems to me that the case of Warner Bros. Entertainment and J.K. Rowling vs. RDR Books shows how commercial interests are trying to change the meaning and purpose of copyright law. Copyright is meant to encourage creativity. Steven Vander Ark has done nothing wrong. He simply created something based off of someone else's work which copyright allows.
If J.K. Rowling wins this case it will change the meaning of copyright. J.K. Rowling said that she planned to write a similar encyclopedia to that of Steven Vander Ark's. If she wins her case, copyright is ultimately protecting something that has not been created yet. There is another implication if she wins her case. It would set a precedent to make it illegal to base a work on someone else's previous work. In the end, setting that precedent would choke creativity because it would be illegal for people to get ideas from any copyrighted source.
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I think you have hit the nail on the head here, Aimee, when you say that, "If she wins her case, copyright is ultimately protecting something that has not been created yet."
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