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J.K. Rowling sued for major Harry Potter copyright breach
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has been sued for breach of copyright in her book Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. The suit claims she copied a substantial part of The Adventures of Willy The Wizard No 1 Livid Land by Adrian Jacobs, published in 1987, which included Wizard colleges and Wizard contests like the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
> Read the full articleReader Comments: What a load of rubbish. She obviously has a very vast imagination, otherwise she may not have come up with the rest of the book and have it published.
She is a very good author, and i feel sorry that people try to report against. Posted by Vicky from England on March 21, 2010 08:01 AM
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Well, I had a look at some of the extracts and I have to say, they were woeful! And any author who uses the phrase "quite unique" deserves to be shot. A thing is either unique, or it isn't. If it needs a qualifier (quite) then it isn't unique, as in one of a kind, at all.
If they are accusing Rowling of plagiarism, then they are way off. She certainly hasn't copied chunks of text from what I saw, and if you make up a wizard world that parallels the real world then there are bound to be certain similarities. For crying out loud - solving problems in the bath? Who DOESN'T do that? It's the only place in the house, apart from the toilet, where no one's going to disturb you. Except for Moaning Myrtle, of course.
This just looks like someone trying to make a buck.
As for saying that the Triwizard Tournament was a "major theme" that is nonsensical. It is a plot device. Not a theme. Themes are somewhat deeper than that. If we were to sue everytime an author uses a similar plot device to another author then the whole damn lot of us would be out of jobs. Possibly R.M Ballantyne's estate should have sued the pants off William Golding for Lord of the Flies which deliberately uses a similar plot device (boys stranded on a desert island) to Ballantyne's The Coral Island, but explores different themes, thereby creating an entirely original work.
Or maybe Anne McCaffrey and the Tolkien estate, and probably David Eddings too, should be after Christopher Paolini?
And the Tolkien estate (again) could go after Terry Brooks for The Sword of Shannara? Actually, the Tolkien estate could sue just about everyone for using themes of life, , immortality, and good vs evil. And then I guess the writers of the Norse sagas could sue Tolkien... and while they're doing that, Jane Austen's ghost can sue anyone who's ever written a romance where a rich man falls reluctantly in love with a girl he should never have even noticed, and so on, and so forth.
I just want to tell these people to GROW UP!
Mr Jacobs' writing reminds me of that ghastly woman mentioned by Dumbledore in Beedle the Bard as re-writing the stories to make them fit for "little ears". Yuck!
Let's hope the courts knock this out quickly. I'd be surprised if it could be proved Rowling had ever read the books; she has far better taste than that. It only sold about 5000 copies. From the website it sounds as though it was published by a vanity press because although publishers were interested, Jacobs wasn't interested in doing the rewrites they wanted. Some author.
Note to self: have character in current book describe something as "quite unique" and then have another character shoot it down in flames. Posted by Elizabeth from Australia on March 22, 2010 5:21 PM
And why only sue her now? why not when the book was published? Posted by Cal from Hogwarts, Ravenclaw Table, Great hall on March 31, 2010 6:52 PM
Apparently they have been trying to get the case going for some time, Cal. It kept getting knocked back, but they've finally got a court date. It seems rather ridiculous. I suspect it be thrown out just as Nancy Stouffer's claim against Rowling was thrown out years ago. Posted by Elizabeth from Australia on April 2, 2010 8:33 PM
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