Warner Bros. Shuts Down Mom’s Harry Potter Party

If you’re planning a Harry Potter to celebrate Halloween with the kids, be careful. A London mom who likes to throw themed dinner parties has gotten a cease and desist order for her Potter plans.

According to the Telegraph, the lawyer who goes by the name Marmite Lover (er, OK?) received a letter from Warner Bros. warning her that her dinner party in her home was a “copyright infringement.”

Lover says her daughter is a huge fan of the books, and she’d planned a menu of butterbeer, pumpking pasties and Dumbledore’s favorite sweets.The side of the building would have been recast as Diagon Alley, and guests were to be greeted by a portrait of the Fat Lady demanding a password for entrance.

So what’s the problem? Lover was planning to charge guests 25 pounds for entrance. Warner Bros. asked that she “refrain from holding and/oroffering (sic) for sale any tickets to the Harry Potter Nights . . . Warner does not, of course, object to you holding a generic wizard/Halloween night at the Underground Restaurant.”

Lover has made the concession and changed the name, but she points out on her blog that Potter author J.K. Rowling was once a single mother herself. “Having donated to the National Council of One Parent Families, [she] would probably approve of a single mother being entrepeneurial and creative,” Lover said.

Although it’s fair to say most of us don’t charge for entrance to our kids parties, this does put into question any party you might throw for your kids’ school, a Girl Scout troop Halloween party or even a library event with an admission fee. It stands within reason that you can’t show the movie and charge money because that little FBI warning at the beginning of  every movie. But are the foods in a book protected? Kids’ favorite scenes?

Image: Amazon

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Tags: copyright infringement, Halloween parties for kids, Harry Potter, Harry Potter parties, Jeanne Sager, Warner Bros.