He's a Web wizard, too!

“Don’t screw with Harry Potter,” was the message from a U.N. panel set up to arbitrate Web-related domain name disputes. It seems a certain “Web squatter” — jargon for people who register domain names in the hopes of later selling them to businesses for large sums of money — had claimed over a hundred Harry Potter-related names such as www.harrypottersmovie.com> and www.harrypotterfilm.org. Through a decision made in Geneva last week, those names were awarded to Time Warner, the company that is producing the upcoming full-blown Harry Potter movie. Although it would be hard to defend anyone’s right to snatch up Websites for profit, the power that the young wizard has over both children and international courts is somewhat alarming. Maybe this also explains how Bush won the election.

Aaron Warshaw is the Metro Times listings editor. E-mail him at [email protected]