Dear Ms. Rowling,Perhaps it is lost upon you that when people purposefully do things that make them rich and famous, they are no longer the same sort of "private citizen" they were when they were penniless weasels.
Bad enough that you and your shill, Warner Brothers, won your scurrilous lawsuit against a fan (he may be a little over the top in his admiration for your derivative works, but that's another story); now, it seems, a Scottish court has done what a sensible English court refused to do. It has found that indeed, it is a violation of your son's privacy for those fascinated by your inexplicable fame and wealth to take photographs of him. I wonder: Do you believe, like the hill people of Tibet, that taking his photograph will steal his soul? I doubt it. I think, rather, that you wish to take all the photos yourself and then sell them so you can....hmmmm....make more money, some half of one percent of which you will then vociferously give to charity.
I just read some headlines in which American college students opined that you are a "flash in the pan." I truly hope they are correct. Your books are not great literature; they are children's books, for crying out loud, and not in the Newbury Prize vein, either. Your books are probably popular because of the dumbing down of most populations, most places. In fact, it gave me a great deal of hope to note the U.S. college students have seen through you.
I also reread a blog posted by an author of a computer game whose work was widely disseminated as you were writing your own derivative tales. He noted that he had not gone after you, when it appears he might have done and won. He also pointed out that a female author had lost a copyright suit you brought against her. Her work about a wizard named Larry Potter was on the market first, so I don't know how you won that one. Perhaps she is a wizard, and picked your brain before even you knew what was in it, and you were magically able to prove that to the satisfaction of a judge not unlike Judge Patterson of New York. Or perhaps she simply hadn't had Warner Brothers' skirts to hide behind, nor treasury to use against you.
Your behavior has been, in a word, despicable. I have written at some length recently over the desirability of living in a nation where noblesse oblige is still in force, making it incumbent upon the 'haves' to at least pretend to value and care for the 'have nots.' That place was England. You have moved to Scotland. I think I can see why.
Sincerely,
Laura Harrison McBride
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