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JK Rowling Accused Of Plagiarizing Harry Potter... Yet Again
from the not-again? dept
For years, there have been various accusations that JK Rowling "stole" the characters or ideas for her series of Harry Potter books. The claim that got the most attention was Nancy Stouffer's book "The Legend Of RAH And The Muggles" which not only uses the word "muggles" (used in Rowling's work as well) but also has a character named Larry Potter (who has some resemblance to Harry's character). But, of course, that wasn't all. Last year, we wrote about a 1986 movie called Troll that also had a character named "Harry Potter." But apparently, that's not enough. The latest is that Rowling's publisher, Bloomsbury Publishing, has been sued again for plagiarism over the Potter books, this time by the estate of Adrian Jacobs. It seems that Jacobs once wrote a book about a boy wizard called Willy The Wizard that has some distant similarities to some stuff that happens in the Potter books.
The whole thing is pretty silly, of course. The publisher is vehemently denying any copying, and it seems unlikely that any copying did actually happen. However even if you did grant the premise and say that Rowling was "inspired" by some other book, so what? Did it really change the economics of the original book? If anything, this latest claim is just a clear money grab, designed to give new attention to a long-ignored book. No one could claim with a straight face that Rowling's work took away any value from the other book.
Of course, the side note to all of this is how aggressive Rowling has been about trying to "protect" her own copyright on the Potter books. Last year, author Orson Scott Card tore apart Rowling for her aggressive enforcement of copyright, while noting some amusing "similarities" between his own classic, Ender's Game, and the Harry Potter series -- pointing out that lots of people have similar ideas or are inspired by others -- and trying to shut them down is a mistake.
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"However even if you did grant the premise and say that Rowling was "inspired" by some other book, so what? Did it really change the economics of the original book"
Good Lords, yes.
Oh wait, did I just quote someone? Frak it.
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Hmmm
"Last year, author Orson Scott Card tore apart Rowling for her aggressive enforcement of copyright, while noting some amusing "similarities" between his own classic, Ender's Game, and the Harry Potter series"
Ok, first of all, Flying Speghetti Monster bless Orson Scott Card. Great writing, great sense of humore, analytical thinking.
2nd of all, I like her stories (although not really the writing style), but am I the only one that is starting to see repeated signs that JK is kind of a douche?
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Re:
> Frak it.
Tut tut, I believe you've just infringed "Frak" a little known video game from the 1980's on the BBC Micro.
So when you've finished writing that check to the creators of BSG ...
;-)
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Over the course of man's history pretty much every way of putting together a story has been used countless times. Every book will have elements from another book whether intentional, subconciouly or just plain accidentally. The genre doesn't matter. So that my opinion which may or may not (and usually doesnt) have any basis in reality.
What I'm curious about and maybe the lawyers can answer is in a book what is copyrighted and how far. For example if John wrote a book about a boy's adventures walking from new york to LA and I took that book changed the names and places and rewrote the basics is that copyright infringement. What about if i took the same book but added fantasy elements like magic. If I wrote a SciFi story about a girl traveling across the ruined wastelands from LA to New york is it still copyright infingment, when is it not.
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As pointed out here many times, copyright does not protect ideas. For example, the idea of a TV show about an innocent person on the run from the law who helps people each and every week, only to escape in the nick of time to start off in a new town the next week, has been done numerous times: The Fugitive (TV show), the Hulk (70s TV show), Renegade, Kung Fu, The Pretender, just to name a few.
Despite all of these shows using the same basic idea, i.e., the identical underlying plot, absolutely no one "owns" the idea or the plot.
In the same way, no one owns the idea of a boy wizard.
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Re:
Ahh! Bob has it upon the biggest dilemma facing copyright law. And, unfortunately, the answer is not alway clear.
Satire has always been allowable under copyright law. More recently, derivatives have been ruled as safe (e. g. The Wind Done Gone).
If the plot line is obviously the same, and you have added no new qualities to the work, it is most likely copyright violation. How far you have to go to ensure that there isn't copyright violation is a very hard to define line.
So for your theoretical book, most likely the answers would be "infringement", "questionable infringement", and "not infringement."
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Not quite
The Legend of RAH and The Muggles does not have a character named Larry Potter. This keeps getting repeated as fact.
Larry Potter was a character in a separate activity book by Nancy Stouffer that had nothing to do with The Legend of RAH and the Muggles.
I've never seen a Larry Potter activity book (I don't think anyone has), but I have read through The Legend of RAH and the Muggles and there are absolutely no similarities between it and the Harry Potter series. On top of that, it is utter rubbish.
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pay time!!
JKR also believes in strong copyright laws (remember the harry potter dictionary website fiasco?).
So now it is pay time!
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It's Happened Before
In 1983 novelist Dimitri Gat released a mystery called "Nevsky's Demon". It was, he admitted, based on the structure of John D. McDonald's "The Dreadful Lemon Sky".
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1356&dat=19830807&id=MewTAAAAIBAJ&sjid=iQ YEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7128,3712778
Avon (the publisher) issued a recall-and-destroy order for 60,000 copies of the book. The current WorldCat entry for the book has a note to this effect.
http://www.worldcat.org/isbn/0380822482
Despite all of this (and one wonders how one mystery can be sooo much like another as to be actionable) there are still plenty of used copies available for a couple of bucks.
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What about The Worst Witch? A young girl at a magical school, taking classes such as potions? I'm not quite sure when it was first published, but it was made into a an HBO movie back in 1986, 12 years before the first Harry Potter book came out.
There used to be a web site comparing the similarities between the two, but I don't remember the URL.
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Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh
If wizard contests are copyrighted, the estate should be suing the entire shonen tournament genre.
For the record, there is one fantasy series that Rowling does say was a big influence on Harry Potter-- the "Dark is Rising" books by Susan Cooper. Who doesn't actually seem to mind...
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Why does anybody care about this nonsense? What about the real problems?
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Two days in a row
Yesterday you claimed that a financial analyst made a statement that Hulu was anti-american. But your readers commented that they could not find such a statement by the analyst you were screwing. Today you state that there is a book called the Legend of RAH that has a character named Larry Potter and again one of your readers has disputed this.
I love this blog and read it everyday, but the past few days our research is getting a little loose. I need to start reading the comments section a little more closely.
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lolwut
This is pure comedy. All authors are asked the same questions: "Where do you get your ideas from? What inspires you?" I have NEVER seen an author respond, "Nowhere. It is completely original. It spawned from the dark depths of my mind. From nothing, I created something." EVERYONE takes existing ideas, remixes them in their minds, and publishes them in a new form. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying. JK Rowling simply did a brilliant job of presenting her ideas in a way that everyone loved. She needs to return the favor and let new content creators take inspiration from her creations. Being inspired by prior art does NOT reduce the value of that prior art.
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Rowling
The case alleges that Rowling copied a substantial part of this small book into her larger book-thus rendering valuelss
Adrian Jacobs work. No one sues Rowling-lightly-in fact if you did your homework no one sues Rowling at all-it's always always the other way round.Even the Stouffer case was JKR suing for defamation. Show your readers where else Rowling has been sued! It don't happen. A millions of bucks a throw that sure is an expensive way to promote a small obscure book!
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I went to elementary school with a guy named harold potter. Bif deal.
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Re:
You forgot the A-Team you insensitive clod!
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Re: lolwut
Phillip Pullman believes he's completely original and totally different. But he's still wrong.
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Re: Two days in a row
Yesterday you claimed that a financial analyst made a statement that Hulu was anti-american. But your readers commented that they could not find such a statement by the analyst you were screwing.
You are a retard. Go back to those comments and same readers found the paper in which the financial analyst made an ass of herself.
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I disagree with the last paragraph and with OSC. The Warner vs. RDR lawsuit wasn't about some other work of fiction taking too many ideas from Harry Potter, it was about whether a reference work explicitly about the Potter books directly took so much material from them as to infringe. Similarly, the defendants in the lawsuits about a Bollywood film called Hari Puttar and the Hogwarts replica at the Hindu religious festive had openly taken names or visuals or whatnot from the novels, and their defense was that it was fair use. Whatever you think about the merits of these cases, they just aren't analogous to the lawsuits against Rowling/Bloomsbury.
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Jacobs and Rowling
The entire mystery of Rowlings, Harry Potter et al is quietly and efficiently laid to rest right here- http://www.bogsideartists.com/lipo/index.html. Once you have read it you will understand all. You will understand the Rowling camp's terror of public scrutiny and the 'legal' attempts to prevent it; Rowling's self-deluded manic attempts to protect 'authorship'; her agent Little's and his partner Blair's scrupulous absence from the public eye, Rowling's carefully choreographed interviews and timed insertions in the media and indeed the entire smokescreen that surrounds Harry Potter. The truth, if you can handle it, is here. Jacobs we believe was ripped off but the engine of the story, its real essence and the philosophy behind it is the brainchild of one of us, The Bogside Artists. William conceived of the story and unwittingly handed it on a plate to Rowling never thinking for an instant, until it was too late, that his story was at risk. That is the truth.
Ignored, trivialized or crucified... the truth goes marching on. All else is so much whistling in the storm.
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