Yet we all think Apple's App store policies are draconian. Besides, it's not about copyright. It's about trade marks being expanded to include characters. I'm cool with trade marks (I wouldn't want to buy a book by JK Rowlings if it was actually written by Umberto Eco), but re-using characters doesn't seem so bad.
JKR is better than Umberto Eco in some ways. You don't have to think much (you just know that most of the twists at the end will be some sucker-punch magical tricks that you never even heard of), and her early stuff was like Roald Dahl. I wouldn't read Harry Potter and The Name of the Pendulum unless I had a lot of time on my hands.
