A train by any other name
I enjoyed David Hellawell's Marx brothers' anecdote, (Letters, December 31) but the relative film-industry clout of Carnforth railway station and Warner Bros is somewhat different (Tourism potential of Harry Potter express derailed, December 28). Hollywood film contracts are frightening in their exclusivity: legal budgets for exploring alleged breaches of copyright are inversely proportional to the vigour executives display in trying to make a profit, lest companies have to pay more to the parties involved in making the movie. Carnforth station might try a different tack. Why not ask Joanne Rowling if she would be prepared to have the famous train named the JK Rowling Express, perhaps offering to donate a proportion of the tourists' train fares to a literacy programme. Under copyright law, it is as impossible to trademark a person's name as it is to copyright the "design" of the countryside surrounding Carnforth station or the trains on the tracks. Joanne Rowling will, eventually, come to write about something other than Harry Potter and so the JK Rowling moniker is independent of the Hogwarts series. Christopher Norris christopher.norris@utopia media.co.uk A train by any other name The Guardian - 01 January2002
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