Today is RSS Awareness Day, a day dedicated to promoting a great technology that’s used by many, but hasn’t quite broken into the mainstream. RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, will save you time, reduce the amount of spam in your inbox, and allow you to keep up with Harry Potter news easier than ever. Watch this short YouTube video to learn about RSS.

The Leaky Cauldron has a new post up about the JKR/WB vs. RDR Books trial. In it, authors Orson Scott Card and Neil Gaiman, as well as Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings, voice their opinions on the suit. They had plenty to say, and I can’t help but agree with most of what was said. However, the “Editor’s Note[s]” added seem a little quick to disagree with them.

I have to agree with Mr. Card and Mr. Jennings. As Ken Jennings said,

“Books like The Harry Potter Lexicon are nothing new. When I was a kid, I had a bunch of unlicensed glossaries like these on my shelves: Robert Foster’s Complete Guide to Middle-Earth, Bjo Trimble’s Star Trek Concordance, etc.”

Warner Brothers has confirmed that the first part of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows movie (titled, creatively, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1) will be released on November 19, 2010. No word on when the second half of the movie will come out.

We’re back, but in a minimal form.

Our host was doing some work recently, and they seem to have lost all our files. We have a backup, but an outdated one. We’ve got a bare minimum of what we need, so we’ll have to re-build a lot of things. So don’t worry too much about things not working for now. News will continue to be posted, and all the content seems to be here.

Via Ars Technica. J.K. Rowling is coming to the U.S. this week to testify against Steve Vander Ark in the Harry Potter Lexicon case. On an interesting note:

“lexicons for popular series are common and both Narnia and Middle-Earth have multiple such guides. Although the works have generally been considered a “transformative” use of an author’s work and world, Rowling is prepared to argue that the new lexicon does not, in fact, pass the fair use four-part test found in US copyright law.”

Three words: Culture of Ownership. This will majorly affect future fair-use cases, and not in  good way. Being an aspiring writer myself, I think I have a general idea what JKR is thinking, but I have to say I’m on Mr. Vander Ark’s side here.

Looking at previous coverage of this lawsuit, I’ve noticed that the website keeps being dragged into this. The outcome will not just affect the Lexicon, but the entire internet. If this precedent is set, fair-use is three steps closer to disappearing altogether.

The Harry Potter Obsession Test is back! After a couple months of being online, due to a bug that surfaced when we did some back-end updates, it has been fixed and put back up, better than ever.

Warner Brothers has released a high resolution image from the upcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie. It is the first image to be released from the new film.

The picture (as seen below) depicts Harry showing Snape’s copy of Advanced Potionmaking to Ron and Hermione in the Gryffindor common room.

Thanks to Leaky and Mugglenet.

Empire Magazine has a new article up about the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows film (2010). The interview, with producer David Heyman, relates to the decision to make Deathly Hallows a two-part movie, and has a few new facts of interest.

(Via The Leaky Cauldron)

It’s official. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be two movies, not just one. Producer David Heyman says that it is for “purely creative reasons,” not just to make some more dollar signs off Harry Potter, like a lot of skeptics claim (skeptics who are probably not Harry Potter fans, I’d bet…). David Yates will direct both halves of the film, becoming the longest-running HP director.

Some other points of interest:

• The two movies will be titled “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I” and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II”
• Steven Kloves will screenwrite
• JKR is okay with the decision
• The first half of the move will be released “holiday” 2010, the second part following in late spring to early summer 2011.

Matt Lewis (who plays Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter films) recently stated that filming for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows would start in February 2009. He is also of the opinion that it will probably be a two-part movie, though the producers have yet to confirm this.