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ARTICLE · 17 DECEMBER 2009

Intellectual Property: When can you host a party and NOT offend Warner Bros?

Truman Hoyle
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Last Halloween’s news that lawyers for Warner Bros wrote a ‘cease and desist’ letter to Ms Marmite Lover, a single Mum in the UK, who was planning to host a Harry Potter themed dinner party (complete with butterbeer and pumpkin soup) received worldwide media coverage, perhaps focussing on the irony of the former single Mum, JK Rowling, seeking to restrain another single Mum from eking out an existence or just being the "fun police". However the story raises some interesting questions: Can you ho

AustraliaIntellectual Property
Kate Morton
Kate Morton
Hamish Fraser
Hamish Fraser

Last Halloween's news that lawyers for Warner Bros wrote a 'cease and desist' letter to Ms Marmite Lover, a single Mum in the UK, who was planning to host a Harry Potter themed dinner party (complete with butterbeer and pumpkin soup) received worldwide media coverage, perhaps focussing on the irony of the former single Mum, JK Rowling, seeking to restrain another single Mum from eking out an existence or just being the "fun police". However the story raises some interesting questions: Can you host a Harry Potter party without offending any of JK Rowling's IP rights (or those of the movie studios and other rights holders)?

This story highlights some of the fundamental weaknesses in the creation and enforcement of IP rights when measured against commercial exploitation. No one would deny that blatant "stealing" of IP should be discouraged (music and movie copying is widely accepted as socially unacceptable as well as of course illegal), but when is a passion for a

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