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.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: adrian jacobs, copyright, harry potter, jk rowling, nancy stouffer, plagiarism
Companies: bloomsbury publishing
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Good Lords, yes.
Oh wait, did I just quote someone? Frak it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
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 ...
;-)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
So, she didn’t just steal the character, she even stole the tag line.
“You’re a wizard Harry” — Taken verbatim from the movie Troll.
Of course the other author has Larry Potter (probably didn’t want to steal the name outright), and the muggles. Rowling actually settled that case out of court.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Hmmm
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?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
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.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
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."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
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.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not quite
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.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
pay time!!
So now it is pay time!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's Happened Before
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.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
There used to be a web site comparing the similarities between the two, but I don't remember the URL.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Worst Witch
I am really interested to read your comment, because my 7-year-old introduced me to the Worst Witch books not long ago and I was immediately struck by the similarity between the school for wizards of JKR and the school for witches of the other author (magic broomsticks and all). I had already noted the similarity between platform 13 and a half (I forget the actual number!) and the same idea appearing some years ago in one of the late Eva Ibbotson's books, When the latter was asked whether she regarded this as plagiarism, she laughed and said words to the effect of 'Who cares? we all get ideas from our colleagues!'.
For what it is worth, I have always regarded the Potter books as weary stuff, both as to the imagination and as to the writing, compared to CS Lewis or Tolkien and many others.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
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...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Two days in a row
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.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Two days in a row
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.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
lolwut
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: lolwut
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Rowling
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!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Jacobs and Rowling
Ignored, trivialized or crucified... the truth goes marching on. All else is so much whistling in the storm.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I am proud to call myself a huge fan of J.K. Rowling and if you doubt her writing skills watch the speech she gave at Harvard! AMAZING!!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Comment By Hannah
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
GO HERE EVERYBODY: Proof she did steal
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092115/
http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi1034487065/
You will see JK didn't just dream it up!
Check the link and the whole movie.. It was done way before JK Rowlings work came out!
I hope they sue her ass for as much as she as ripped anyone off!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
GO HERE EVERYBODY: Proof she did steal
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092115/
http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi1034487065/
You will see JK didn't just dream it up!
Check the link and the whole movie.. It was done way before JK Rowlings work came out!
I hope they sue her ass for as much as she as ripped anyone off!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
RE: GO HERE EVRYBODY
Whether we like it or not, there are certain themes in stories that have little change over time.
The Harry Potter series could be considered just as much (in the style of) Greek Tragedy as it could modern Fantasy Literature.
Yes, ideas are examined, and re-examined. But that happens in the course of human story telling. Story themes are told and re-told, updated for audiences.
There are tales of "witches and sorcerers" that date all the way back to the novels of ancient Greece and Egypt.
The battle between good and evil is also a common theme, and even pre-dates biblical literature. (Gilgamesh)
The Harry Potter novels have as much in common with Homer as it does Tolkien. BTW, Tolkien did his own fair bit of borrowing from Norse and Celtic Mythology.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: RE: GO HERE EVRYBODY
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This will blow your minds, but the concept of a boy hero from humble beginnings has been around a good deal longer than the 90s. So has magic, and the Philosopher's Stone. The wannabe hack who wrote Li Po could be accused of stealing hundreds of well known stories using his dream world definition of plagiarism. It's far more likely Rowling drew inspiration from one of them, instead of a slush pile piece of garbage that was rejected twenty years ago.
Kathy: I see the name Harry Potter, and that's about it. I must have missed the part of Harry Potter where a fuzzy troll king rampaged around a city for his lost ring of power all while turning people into plants.
Wait, a ring of power. Oh my god! The movie Troll is a total rip off of Lord of the Rings. The Tolkien Estate should sue!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
j.k rowling
second of she is one of the best authors in the world so dont go telling her that she plagrised cause u dont know her and no one probaly knows any of the authors that they mentioned in the articles
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: j.k rowling
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Adrain Jacobs
He operated in cahoots with Michael Preston and peter Smith to squeeze investment funds out of so called founder shareholders in an a company known as Structural development Group PLC between 1984 and 1987 using an invention of John Williams to produce asbestos free fire boards named temec and temstone. Everyone except Adrain Jacobs and Michael preston lost money when it went bust in around 1990. Michael preston and peter Smith bought the operation back from the liquidators and in so doing acquired a wonderful piece of industrial freehold down near the old kentish coalfields.
Everyone apart from these scoundrels lost money
Jacobs was an ex lag of Ford Open Jail and met the markson family there as well as the drug dealing Sansom family in Hove who later used Jacobs to set up a boiler room operation for another con known as Urban Fuels PLC
Adrain Jacobs was always a scum bag, crook and fraud as was everyone around him. His forfeiture of his magnificent home in Cavendish Avenue was as a result of gambling all his money and wasting it on women whom he thought liked him.
It will be the greatest travesty of Justice if anything is awarded to the so called executors of his estate who want only a free ride based on wishful thinking.
If he had an original thought in his life it would only be in relation to some clever way of ripping off someone trusting and innocent. His executors would appear to be of the same genetic makeup - frauds, liars, and perjurers
Yours Sincerely,
leo Fromm
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
J.K.Rowling
Involved on the Jacobs Estate side of Rowling’s plagiarism court cases of everything from drug dealing to lying.
Methinks you are screaming out in pain upon Ms Rowling’s behalf-are you on her payroll?-What a scumbag you must be and are yourself-and how do you pretend know so much about it all? Who is vomiting venom in your poisonous little brain? Chris Little-is that old fraudster your source?
Leo Fromm-you can run but you cannot hide behind Techdirt and other blogs spewing Goebbels’ type lies for long-Herr Fromm-whoever you are-the forces of light now have you in their eye!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: J.K.Rowling
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
jk rowlings
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Rowling
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
JK Rowling
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: JK Rowling
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A Message From The Creator Of Harry Potter
http://mylord.amplify.com/The_True_Origins_Of_Harry_Potter
harrypotterextra.wordpress.com
jk rawling.wordpress.com
Several thousand technical and product design drawings, including many stories in the form of story-boards, were stolen from my home prior to any publications by Jo Rowling. Jo Rowling is not the creator of Harry Potter, I am. This is one reason why she found it hard to get the people believe she wrote the Harry Potter story. It is also why the first few stories in the Harry Potter series of titles was able to be quickly written up into books... because the first three titles were well developed in story-board form when they got lifted from my home in Australia! If you think Joanne Rowling is a plagiarist then 'Dont' change your mind... it is working as it should. For all others; Jo Rowling is a plagiarist!
Mylord
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A Message From The Creator Of Harry Potter
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: A Message From The Creator Of Harry Potter
yeah right.
you're only smart enough to say THAT and that's dumb. why would he break into someone's house?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
LIARS!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
cottonville
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Seriously?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Copy copy
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Really
However, by her using a name that has already been used, such as Harry Potter and his son Harry jr. in Troll, it makes it hard for her to bring suit against anyone using that name, especially using it in a story tied to the supernatural. The same would go for the word muggle.
Technically, if someone wanted to completely publish each of her books, online, quoting everything, and critically commenting on each paragraph and chapter, there is not a thing she could do, as the law allows for this. The reader could read the critique, thus the entire book, and not cost them a jot, nor any law be broken. It was a critique on an entire book.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Really
If one wished to create an "annotated edition" it would require permission of the author and, presumably, the publisher.
Interestingly, this is essentially what occurred in the suit Rowling's agency filed against the Harry Potter fan-cyclopedia, that it, rather than offering a fair-use glossary with original explication and speculation, merely reproduced her own writing, in quote or paraphrase, chopped into bits and rearranged in alphabetical order. Which in my understanding she was willing to overlook as long as it was a fan-site online, but drew the line with publishing such a derivative work for profit.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
harry potter plagurism
The characters names where Harry Potter junior and Harry Potter senior with a witch who lived in the same house as them and they had all kinds of magical and mythical creatures and Julia Louis Dreyfus played a naked wood nymph or something like that. Rowlands totally based her crap novels off of this and many others ideas to write books but I guess that kind of thing is ok in this day and age as long as the kiddies are happy
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It makes more sense that the author would be a male as the story is about a boy.
I seriously doubt that another book in the Potter series would be successfull as this time it would be written by Rowling. I do not expect her success in the Potter series will be repeated by any work of fiction she herself writes.
i am sorry that the true author is not given credit but it may be karmic.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The ideas sprang from her fully developed all at once.
This is highly unlikely as most authors are evolving the story as they write. Look at the widely popular Game of Thrones series. The author the series is based on is still writing the books. He can't write fast enough for the film crew who are delayed in production waiting for his final novel so they can write a screenplay.
It is more likely that another writer wrote this series on a contract. Why would that author wait until all the works were done, that author would naturally publish a work at once to make income and insure the success of following work. Some dirty deal was worked out wherein the author was forced to write without credit. Some day the truth will out no matter how much money and influence JK Rowling's parents or family may have.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]