MichiganRadio

A Very Potter Musical! ANN ARBOR, MI (Michigan Radio) - One day, Nick Lang and some other students at the University of Michigan were sitting around, reading the 4th Harry Potter book, when they noticed something:

"The character Draco Malfoy is always picking on Harry's best friend, Hermione. And just during the reading of it, we were like, Draco does he have a crush on her? We thought it was going to be a twist that Draco would have a crush on Hermione."

Draco is kind of the bully in the book, and spoiler alert, it turns out Draco did not have a crush on Hermione, he was just being bully. But it did get the guys thinking:

"This idea of a song just kind of came into our heads that was "I Feel Like I'm In Danger of Falling In Love with Hermione Granger." And so that was the first idea, and then we were like this could be a whole musical. You could make a musical out of Harry Potter."

They performed the two-act musical for free in April, and posted it to YouTube.

Soon enough, the videos were a big hit. But the guys got nervous that they might get in trouble with the company that owns Harry Potter, Warner Brothers. So they posted this song to YouTube:

"We don't wanna be sued. We're not trying to be rude, 'cause it ain't funny, we ain't got the money to lose."

With that, they took down the videos from YouTube and promised to re-post soon.

This isn't the first time a Harry Potter fan from Michigan has created a legal stir. Steve Vander Ark from Grand Rapids was sued by author JK Rowling and Warner Brothers for his guide to the Harry Potter Books, called The Harry Potter Lexicon. Now, the book was eventually published after some revisions. But the court said the original version Vander Ark wrote used too much of Rowling's original work, and that the book could potentially compete with an authorized version down the road.

But Jessica Litman says that's likely not the case with the Harry Potter Musical.

Litman, who teaches copyright law at the University of Michigan, says "no one is going to not read one of the books or not go to the movie because their appetite for all things Harry Potter has been satisfied by watching this musical."

Litman says since the script and the music are all original, with new content added, and no one made any money off the musical, there's a very strong case that the musical is protected under Fair Use laws.

Litman points to a Supreme Court case that deals with this very topic:

"It's a case involving 2 Live Crew's rap parody of Roy Orbison's 'Oh Pretty Woman.'"

In the rap, 2 Live Crew mixes up Orbison's lyrics a bunch, and the band ends up complaining about a variety of women, not just one pretty woman.

"And so," explains Litman, "instead of oh pretty woman, there's big hairy woman and bald-headed woman. And the Supreme Court held that that's fair use."

For all you Harry Potter fans out there with a penchant for jazz hands, you'll be happy to know the musical is back on YouTube under a new name: A Very Potter Musical. They edited most of the swear words out.

As for a soundtrack, here's Darren Criss. He wrote some of the songs and plays Harry in the musical:

"We have been wanting to release it, but we were trying to find out, OK, WB has been wonderful with us as far as being supportive of the show as long as it was agreed that it was a non commercial endeavor. And we were totally cool with that. So we were just checking to see if it was OK to release and sell some kind of a soundtrack."

Turns out, Warner Brothers says it's not ok. So, the guys plan to release the soundtrack for free online in the next couple of days.

To watch A Very Potter Musical on YouTube click here. © Copyright 2012, Michigan Radio