Harry Potter in the RestrictedSection

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THEODORE
GODDARD

[Private]
DX: 47 London
[Private]
[Private]
Hurst
TX 76053
United States of America 

OUR Ref: 568/935/12552.130
BY POST & EMAIL 
13 January 2003
Dear Madam

Harry Potter adult fan fiction

We are a firm of solicitors (attorneys) in London. We have been consulted by our client, Christopher Little Literary Agency, on behalf of Ms. J K Rowling, and by our client Warner Bros, in connection with the Harry Potter adult fan fiction made available by you at URL http://www.restrictedsection.org/splash.html (see enclosed screenshot).

As you are aware, Ms. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter books. Ms. Rowling therefore owns the copyright in the Harry Potter books. The sexually explicit content of the fan fiction available at www.restrictedsection.org, which is plainly based on characters and other elements of the fictional world created by Ms. Rowling in the Harry Potter books, is a matter of serious concern to our client. In addition, our client Warner Bros, which owns the film and merchandising rights to the children's series of Harry Potter books, is concerned to protect the integrity of its Harry Potter properties. For the avoidance of doubt, our clients make no complaint about innocent fan fiction written by genuine Harry Potter fans.

There is plainly a very real risk that impressionable children, who of course comprise the principal readership of the Harry Potter books, will be directed (e.g. by a search engine result) to your sexually explicit web site, which you will appreciate most right-minded people would consider wholly inappropriate for minors. Plainly the warnings to the effect that children under 18 should not access your website do not in fact prevent minors from doing so. Indeed, such warnings may well serve simply to entice teenagers to your site.

In the circumstances, our clients therefore request you to remove all such material and cease making it available on the internet or by any other means. Would you please let us have your continuation that you will do so by no later than 18:00 GMT on Friday, 20 January 2003.

Yours faithfully
[Private]