J.K. Rowling hit with plagarizing lawsuit for "Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire."

J.K. Rowling is facing a plagarizing lawsuit. They are saying that when she wrote "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" she copied substianal parts of the 1987 Adrian Jacobs book, "The Adventures of Willy the Wizard — No. 1 Livid Land." What do you think of this?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101014/ap_en_ce/eu_britain_rowling_lawsuit

There was a different one a few years ago. A woman had written a book in which she says she coined the term "muggles" (which were subhuman creatures, I seem to recall). Also she wrote some booklets featuring a kid with glasses named Larry Potter.

Quite a coincidence, but it was proven in a several hearings that there was no way Rowling could have seen them.

According the "The Guardian," the accusations were first made in 2004.

Famous authors are frequently hit with plagiarism lawsuits.

Some are legitimate; many are frivolous; few prevail.

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Eva Ibbotson's work has been compared to Rowling's, with many readers finding similarities between them. But unlike these two, Ibbotson says of Rowling that she'd "like to shake her by the hand. I think we all borrow from each other as writers."

Well, Peter Pan was written after The Wizard of Oz, so no.

But at any rate, these lawsuits (and I agree they don't have merit) aren't about generalized aspects of the fantasy genre. They claim specific plot point and nomenclature were copied.

I've been doing some research on this and apparently they are saying JK Rowling stole things like the idea of wizards traveling on trains and both main characters being required to solve a task as part of a contest which they both do in the bathroom.

I'm going to guess that since the UK is party to the Berne convention, their copyright infringement standards aren't too different from those of the U.S., in which case the following can be relevant:

You can't copyright ideas - only the expression of those ideas. Which is obviously a really blurry line that attorneys spend entire trials arguing over, but cripes, those are stupid examples. If that's all the plaintiff's got, (s)he's basically just playing the litigation lottery and hoping to get lucky.

The "wizards travelling by train" thing, especially, is just bone stupid. There are only so many ways wizards can travel - magical means like carpets, brooms, etc. or mundane means like cars, ships, and yes, trains. When an idea like "wizards travelling" has only so many ways to be expressed, it's mise en scene - you can't claim a big chunk of it for yourself and take it out of the commons. I'm guessing that the lawsuit has something more detailed and specific than "wizards on trains", or else it really is the work of utter dumbasses.

And all that won't even be a consideration unless the "plagiarized" content reaches the level of expression rather than ideas, which it very well may not. Oy.

The suit has been dismissed.

http://news-briefs.ew.com/2011/01/07/harry-potter-plagiarism-suit-dismissed/