My personal thought is always the same on intellectual property : if people want to use your characters without a license they should always be free to do so as LONG AS they're not making money off of it. That used to be the golden rule, before the mp3 thing happened and suddenly owning copies of music was illegal unless you paid for them, even if you got them for free.
I think she has a right to protect her copyright. If people want to make websites to reference her stuff, awesome. If they want to self-publish books and give them out for free, awesome. If they want to SELL them, without at least consulting her and getting the right to do so, they shouldn't be allowed to.
Now granted, I realize there's a whole guidebook/lexicon genre that usually does this kind of stuff, but with big licensed products they ALWAYS go to the source. If they don't, they get sued, and people have always accepted that. How many Warcraft guide-books do you see that didn't have the express permission of Blizzard to be made (most of which are published under some imprint of Blizzard's publishing house). How many books are out there about licensed Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance characters that were not published and licensed by WoTC? I just don't understand why people see the Harry Potter universe differently.
I realize this is not a debate post but I felt it needed to be said.
