We haven’t spoken about the JK Rowling’s lawsuit against Steve Vander Ark and RDR Publishers lately. But a whole bunch of news stories have cropped up today rehashing the issue. Here is how the Associated Press is reporting what Jo has said in her lawsuit:

“I am deeply troubled by the portrayal of my efforts to protect and preserve the copyrights I have been granted in the Harry Potter books,” she wrote in court papers filed Wednesday in a lawsuit she brought against the small Muskegon, Mich., publisher.She said she intends to publish her own definitive Harry Potter encyclopedia. 

 “If RDR’s position is accepted, it will undoubtedly have a significant, negative impact on the freedoms enjoyed by genuine fans on the Internet,” she said.

 “Authors everywhere will be forced to protect their creations much more rigorously, which could mean denying well-meaning fans permission to pursue legitimate creative activities.”

 She added: “I find it devastating to contemplate the possibility of such a severe alteration of author-fan relations.” 

 I am still unsure how I feel about this. What are your thoughts?  

If you want to get in your voicemail for episode 71 (Patterns in Potter, Prisoner of Azkaban part 1, yada yada yada), please have them in by Saturday March 1 at 8pm. I am hoping to record on Saturday night. Not that that means anything but one can always dream… (Remember send them to harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com and keep them as close to a minute as possible unless they will completely and irrevocably knock our proverbial socks off.) 

In this week’s episode we continued our discussion on the theme of identity in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We did a brilliant (in Greg’s opinion) deconstruction of some of the characters in the book: specifically the individuals who were attacked by the basilisk and the so to speak cosmic justice of why they were attacked and the karma involved in that. It was a really interesting discussion and we can’t wait to get your thoughts on it.We also had some AMAZING listener comments from Michelle and Michal. They were both very well thought out and very well presented. Here are some links we promised you during the show:

• Potter’s Army Podcast
• Real life invisibility cloak
• HPProgs listener forums
• UK call-in number

We really want to hear from you so please be in touch!! In the news:

• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix nominated for a boatload of Saturn Awards.
• A scene that wasn’t in the book will be added to the Half Blood Prince Movie.
• It is looking like David Yates might direct Deathly Hallows.
• Dan Radcliffe won an award for taking it all off.
• Harry Potter, addictive? You tell me.

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download it directly as an mp3.

Yes, I totally stole the title of this post from Travis, sorry but it works.

So here is a few tidbits of info for y’all:

–In case you haven’t noticed, the Thursday update thing has not been happening lately. We have found that it is much easier to record some time over the weekend- usually Saturday night or Sunday so for now I *think* that we are making a bit of a change to the HPProgs release schedule. For those of you who listen to other HP podcasts on that release schedule, I do to, but we appreciate your flexibility here.

–Andy, a long time HPProgs listener from Scotland has come up with a great way for the UK listeners to get us MP3 comments for the Patterns In Potter Series: You just have to dial this UK number 07092 899490 it will record your message & email to us as an mp3 file. So if you don’t have recording equipment, this is an easier solution for you.

To call the number from outside the UK the number is :+44 7092 899490. Thanks Andy, we really appreciate this.

–I feel horrible that we haven’t mentioned the HPProgs listener forums in the longest time. Yamil started these forums and Rachael has been doing a bang up job keeping it going with him. The episode discussions usually take place here on the website, but there is a lot of great discussion and introductions happening over at the forums. Make sure to check them out, and once again, thanks Yamil and Rachael!!

–Finally, the February Portus Preview Podcast is up. I haven’t had time to listen to it yet, but you better believe I will be doing so soon especially since I am getting BIG TIME excited about Portus. I will probably write more about the Portus Preview after I’ve listened to it, but I do know that they had Valentine’s Day shoutouts- which I am sure are quite entertaining!

OK, see you next time for Part two of the Chamber of Secrets Discussion in our Patterns in Potter series. You can still send us mp3 comments to harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com (please keep them to as close to one minute as possible).

-Penny

In this week’s episode we started to discuss the theme of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Identity.   As usual, the theme is present from the beginning of the book at the Dursley’s  and continues to make its appearance throughout the book. We talked about Harry’s struggle with identity and how it relates to other characters like Dobby, Gilderoy Lockhart, and Colin Creevey.  We also talked about how Harry struggles to create  his own identity while trying to deal with the famous name that was thrust upon him in his infancy.

We started the episode with two excellent audio comments from Travis and Nathalie.  Both comments really set the stage for the discussion and we look forward to receiving more of these comments.  Please send in your audio comments to harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com and remember, please keep them as close to one minute as possible.

On the announcement front, I (Penny) made an exciting announcement about Portus 2008- so make sure to listen for that. Also, this episode was monumental because I did a great job (in my humble opinion) diverting the conversation as much if not more than Greg ever does (with the exception of the news of course when Greg was in his finest tangential form).  We’ll blame it on the head cold which is also more than obvious throughout the episode.

In the news:

• Jim Dale won a Grammy Award for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:  Oh Hareeeeeee (Sorry, I couldn’t resist)!
• BAFTA Awards were last week.  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix didn’t win anything.  But we got some interesting sound bytes from Daniel Radcliffe and Jason Isaacs.
• Fleur Delacour won’t be making an appearance in the Half-Blood Prince movie.  I am only sad about this because I liked the scene in the end of HBP when Fleur and Molly hug. Oh well.
• Harry Potter producers Davids Heyman and Barron remain non-comittal about splitting the 7th book into two movies.
• JK Rowling has picked up the James Joyce Award.  She said some interesting new things.
• Actors have been cast in the roles of Fenrir Greyback and Amycus Carrow.

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download directly as an mp3.

We have gotten some really great feedback on the voicemail discussions as part of the Patterns In Potter Series. So, because we released episode #68 late, we want people to have time to listen to it before moving on to episode #69.

We plan on recording most probably (and in Greg and Penny terms that means that NOTHING is set in stone) on Saturday night. But we do want more voicemails. So please record your mp3 comment on your thoughts of the patters in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and e-mail it to us at harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com. Once again, please keep your comments to as close as 1 minute in length as possible. We may not be able to get to EVERYONE’s comment, but would love to discuss as many as possible. We ask that you get the voicemails in by 8pm EST this coming Saturday evening (February 16).

We look forward to hearing from you- literally.

Penny

In this week’s episode we continued our discussion on Power as the prevaling theme in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. We specifically addressed the invisibility cloak and Mirror of Erised and their roles in bringing the theme to life. We also had some great listener comments in MP3 form from: Shimon, Aaron, David & Christian, and Travis (from the Hogs Head Pubcast).

News was slow this week but we discussed a couple of interesting news items.

We are enjoying the listener participation so please send your voice comments to us in mp3 format to harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com as soon as possible. We will be starting our discussion on the Patterns of Book 2 so we’d love to hear what ya’ll have to say. Please keep the comments to around 1 minute in length.

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download directly as an mp3.

Believe it or not, we actually recorded episode 68 on Sunday.  But between a kid who might have the flu, work related emergencies, and an inability to upload the episode to the site we normally upload it to, we haven’t gotten it to you yet.  Once again, we really do apologize.  We will get this episode to you as soon as humanly possible. The good news is that you might get two HP Progs in like a 3 days time period.  Then again, with the way we are going it might be a 3 week time period…

Hey All.  Episode 68 will be recorded late this week, therefore will probably be a bit late getting to you.  Right now we are looking to record it on Friday morning.  We apologize for the inconvenience. We have gotten some pretty great sound files for the episode though and we can’t wait to include them in the Patterns in Potter discussion.

Keep on Prognosticating!!

Penny

UPDATE
Due to some circumstances beyond out control, we were unable to record this morning. We are looking at HOPEFULLY recording sometime on Saturday Night. Once again, we apologize. If you still feel like you need and hpprogs fix, let me suggest some of our better episodes to re-listen to:

-Episode #44: “Prophecy 2007 Recap.” If you are wondering what all the fuss about Portus 2008 is, listen to our thoughts on Prophecy 2007.
-Episode #48: “Dumbledore and The Greater Good.”
-Episode #53: “The Making of a Wizard: The Story of Neville Longbottom”
-Episode #55: Dumbledore is Gay! (Not That There Is Anything Wrong With That): our initial reactions to the news when JKR outed good ol’ Dumbledore.
-Episode #64: Ronald Weasley: We were in really good moods when we recorded this episode and our giddiness was sort of contagious.

In our first episode of Patterns in Potter for Book 1, we take a look at the circumstances of Harry’s childhood and how that shaped him into the young man we meet right before being plunged into the wizarding world.  The rush of power, along with a less-than-clear message on the nature of right and wrong make up Harry’s first year at Hogwarts. 

It is a new month, so please help us out by voting for us on Podcast Alley. Much appreciated.

In the news:

• JK Rowling to be the guest speaker at Harvard commencement ceremonies. If you are in Harvard, we would love to be part of your extended family at this special time.
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie won a Golden Tomato Award.
• Alan Rickman does not talk about the character of Severus Snape.
• Filming for HBP has started in Gloucester.
• Ace of Cakes premeired last week with a cake that was used at the LA Premiere of OoTP. Duff Goldman, if you googled your name and are reading this- we want you to come on our show. We are in Baltimore. You rawk!!!!!!!!!!!!
• It doesn’t look like Del Toro will be directing Deathly Hallows.
• JK Rowling has received a South Bank Award. She spoke of her split from Harry being more painful than any relationship ending.
• Lord Richard Attenborough feels left out of all the Potter-hoopla.

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download an mp3 directly.