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J.K. Rowling Being Sued for Plagiarism


Danyealle

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From this article...

The estate of the late Adrian Jacobs added the world's richest author as a defendant to a lawsuit that alleges that a substantial part of Mr Jacob's 1987 book The Adventures of Willy the Wizard: No 1 Livid Land was replicated in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, published 13 years later in July 2000.

Sounds weird to me and like someone is trying to make some bucks off the success of Harry Potter but do you think it could be true? Anyone read the book the mentioned?

I know Stephanie Meyer of Twilight fame is accused of the same thing and it's in the court system now.

So, what do you think?

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This kind of thing happens all the time qhen someone thinks up something that makes a lot of money aomeone comes out and tries to take the credit and it never works and after a while everyone forgets about it and I'm sure this is going to be the same.

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One exception to the 'never works' that I can think of off hand is Steven Ambrose - he was accused of plagiarism after his history texts became extremely popular. It was determined that he did, in fact, copy a lot of his work, so he was discredited as a historian. You can read about it (with passages that were copied and original text) here. I will also point out that he did die shortly after it ws proven that he did steal a good bit of material.

Danyealle: no, I have not read it, but there's apparently an official site. It includes brief excerpts about some of the things that can be compared between the two texts (although why some of the passages are in bold I don't know).

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It is indeed a regular enough occurence- both plagarism and the accusation thereof.

This isn't JKR's first defence of her title, either. Nancy Stouffer filed suit in 1999, but it was dismissed because she'd fabricated evidence.

Still, it isn't likely to go much of anyplace. If JKR is in any way in the wrong, she'll settle out of court and still have enough money to wallpaper her house with it.

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I heard about this.

I think the problem is that there are so many stories out there that authors can't help but have things over lapping. In any magic story you are going to have people saying, you stole my idea because you can only limit yourself to so much.

I.E. I found myself thinking the locket in DHs is like the Ring in LOTR. Do I think she intentionally copied this idea or deserves to be sued? No.

I don't think people who do a romance story about forbidden love and then have the characters die will be sued by Shakespeare. (If he came back from the dead obvs.)

In drama we learnt during our research that there are only actually something like 9 stories and all others are adaptations of these. I can't remember all the info, its all very vague to me now.

It's like I've started reading Fallen by lauren kate and I previously wrote down on DA that I had an idea involving fallen angels, a romance with the son of the devil falling for someone and it all being to do with the fight of heaven and hell. it was all gona go in a manga of mine. And I read it and went, oh bugger.

Its like, you're limited with characters as well. I have a character with black hair and green eyes in my book... Not because he's Harry potter in any shape or form but merely because at the age of fourteen when I started writing it I liked guys with dark hair and green eyes.

Sounds to me like the author is bitter about the fact that JK has done so well and yet their book has not. Yes it's a shame. i understand they must have worked hard. I'd be upset too if I'd published a book that didn't do great and then another came out with strong similarities that took the world by storm.

I hope it comes to nothing. I'm sorry for the author that feels their book was plagiarised. I just don't think it is the case. After creating Potter's world from her own imagination I do not imagine that JK one day decided, fuck I need help, I know... I remember that book... I'll have THAT happen!

**Sigh** sorry for the rant.

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  • 1 month later...

Their greedy money grabbers obviously lol. Did they forget that under copyright conventions that in written texts 10% of your text can contain copied text from other references? They also have to prove intent for JKR to actually purposely steal the works.

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  • 1 month later...
Guest livid fire

Another book that J.K could have tapped in since it was written in the 60ies or 70ies

Just let's all be honest.

Harry Potter my be her book, and it may be we all love/hate it but it is not her idea.

There are dozens of authors including Adrien and the link I gvae you up there who wrote about this and when you see the timelinw you're puzzled.

The only thing I give this woman creidt for is she obviously (like Britney Spears) had a good team of ppl backing her up. They did her PR, got the movie thing doen etc.

She made millions of an idea that was already realized before she even started writting.

bad teacher in black(Worst witch), conflict between a bad blond teacher pet and a good brown haired child who the teacher hates(Worst witch),

tournaments, broomstick flying cg, oh man oh man worst witch.

As for the rest Adrien's book.

You don't get credit for taping things into one book.

But then again, I've never read HP books so you're free to claim that these two books plagiazed J.K and not the other way around( even though it's more likely it's the other ways around).

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Eh. Every published author has to deal with this at least once. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an entire business field dedicated to finding "plagiarized works" for their estates to sue the latest best-seller.

The results of these things is either a) the author milking fame for themselves, or B) the author throwing money at the issue until it goes away.

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  • 1 month later...
Guest Snowfall

It's inevitable that when someone becomes wealthy and famous, false accusations that will grant monetary damages to the plaintiff will be made by scammers. The similarities stated in this thread could all be coincidental. It's how they are presented that would most likely determine whether or not there was actual plagiarism. Someone accused me of stealing Oberon from JK Rowling in my first fan fiction. Uh...I'd never read HP, nor had the desire to, and Oberon was the name William Shakespeare gave to the mythical king of the faeries that had been around for thousands of years and in many different cultures. Does that mean that JK Rowling plagiarized Shakespeare? I don't believe so. Public domain by now. I doubt Santa Clause is copyrighted because he's been around in different forms for centuries, if not millennia. When I was a kid, all soft drinks were called Coke, all pain relievers were called aspirin, and all nose tissues were called Kleenex. Rowling used a known figure in her story. Meyer may have used formula's that mimic others.

I tried to read Twilight, but couldn't manage to force myself past page two. A friend insisted that her birthday party celebrators watch two or three of the movies with her. Personally, I had been unimpressed and I couldn't have really cared about it one way or the other until I picked up Nora Robert's earlier copyrighted and published book, Birthright, and started to read. The first three words in the book were 'Douglas Edward Cullen'. That's when I began to have my doubts as to the originality of Stephenie Meyer's work...except for sparkling vampires. That probably is her idea. Sure, it's easy to have similar or same names, but that particular name? I don't know. I also won't wade through all of her books, the fanfiction she has read, and read similar books just to find out if she has been plagiarizing. BTW, I believe the overseas, or Canadian version of Robert's book came out a couple of months before Meyer's had her dream about her characters that she claims started the whole thing.

I doubt anyone will ever be able to prove beyond shadow of a doubt that she has plagiarized anything. I've seen fan fic authors take some very original events/scenarios from several different authors and throw them together in a poorly stitched up hodge podge that really sucks, but that is popular because of the ideas that are thought to be so original. You can't accuse a person of plagiarism if they've rewritten, in their own words, pieces of other authors' stories in order to make a poor story of their own. Very few ideas have enough originality in the first place. Much is recycled, even in the professional world.

I believe that those people who are suing are simply out for money and don't really care whether or not there was plagiarism. I would hope that Meyers has enough brains that she wouldn't stay too close to someone else's plot if she were consciously planning on stealing from them. Also, synchronicity does happen. It'll be interesting to see the outcome. If it was just synchronicity, more power to Meyers and I hope her lawyers kick those scavengers asses. If she's a plagiarist, I'm glad I didn't contribute to her income and hope the penalty is severe and teaches her a lesson. As far as Rowling, the fact that these people waited so long tells me that it isn't about plagiarism, but about pulling money out of Rowlings pockets. Whether or not she plagiarized will have to be determined by the courts, and I feel the same about it as I do about Meyers.

Edited by Snowfall
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