Community | June 16, 2009 | 8 comments

JK Rowling sued for plagiarism in £500m lawsuit

source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1193283/JK-Rowling-sued-500m-plagiarism-lawsuit...

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JK Rowling and her publisher are being sued for £500million for allegedly copying Harry Potter from an earlier children's book.

Adrian Jacobs's book Willy The Wizard - also about a child discovering he has magical powers - was published in 1987, ten years before the first in the Harry Potter series and three years before Rowling says she came up with her idea.

He allegedly sent the manuscript to Christopher Little, the literary agent at Bloomsbury Publishing who went on to represent Rowling, but it was rejected. Instead his book was published by a smaller company under the title The Adventures Of Willy The Wizard No 1: Livid Land.

Mr Jacobs, who lost all his money in a stock market crash in 1991, died in 1997, so did not live to see the Harry Potter books' success. But his estate now claims Rowling's fourth book, Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, was plagiarised.

In both books, the boy wizard competes in a magic contest. The lawsuit also notes both have the boys trying to rescue human hostages held by half-human creatures from a bathroom. Shared references to a wizard train and a wizard prison are also part of the allegations.
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8 comments // JK Rowling sued for plagiarism in £500m lawsuit

  • Eva_Flores
    • 0
      Eva_Flores  

    • This must be the silliest lawsuit of all time. Even the lawyer’s description of the similarities between the two books seems awfully thin. There is nothing that couldn’t just be a coincidence and there seems to be a great deal of difference in the nature and scope of the books. Does “Moby Dick” plagarize the Bible because they both have a whale and a guy named Ahab? These people are just hoping she will pay them a little something until they go away.
      L. Grey http://www.greyorgray.com

    • 2 years ago
  • twitterbot
    • 0
      twitterbot  

    • @c_a_t on twitter says "JK Rowling sued for plagiarism! "In both books, the boy wizard competes in a magic contest." LOL, morons."

    • 2 years ago
  • nazbags
    • 0
      nazbags  

    • Eh, this sounds sort of like a stretch. I don't like the Harry Potter series because I think they are very formulated - but coming up with a magic contest with half-humans and wizards is not very original

    • 2 years ago
  • matlaroche
  • Mr_T
    • 0
      Mr_T  

    • once... when i was a child.... like... i once did a drawing of a boy.... who was kinda... like a wizard... y'know... so i think i might sue myself

    • 2 years ago
  • Mr_Costello
  • couldntfindausername
    • 0
      couldntfindausername  

    • This sounds a bit like suing John Grisham because you wrote a book about some lawyers who did something in a courtroom. Obviously nobody liked this guy's attempt at the story, so the estate shouldn't get a penny.

      The whole point of Rowling's success is that she made the age old, tired "boy meets wand" story a little bit fun.

    • 2 years ago
  • abbym0308
    • 0
      abbym0308  

    • Whoa. That would be a big blow to JK Rowling's success. But to be fair, the allegedly plagiarised bits are not THAT specific or original. A boy wizard in a magic contest? NO WAY!!

    • 2 years ago
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