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Harry Potter author sued for $820 million
Calcutta News.Net
Friday 19th June, 2009 (BANG Showbiz)
The estate of little-known British author Adrian Jacobs has claimed JK Rowling's fourth novel 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' was copied from Jacobs' 1987 book 'The Adventures Of Willy The Wizard No 1: Livid Land'.
Jacobs' died in 1997 without ever reading a 'Harry Potter' novel – the first title in the hit series was published the same year – but his son and grandson are convinced Rowling studied and duplicated his 36-page story, which also featured a child who discovers he has magical powers.
They claim Jacobs' sent his manuscript to Christopher Little, the literary agent at Bloomsbury Publishing who went on to represent Rowling, but it was rejected.
The estate is now suing Rowling and Bloomsbury Publishing for plagiarism, lodging legal proceedings at Britain's High Court.
Legal papers filed by Jacobs' estate list similarities between the books, including "shared references" to a wizard train and prison and a magical contest where the boy wizard must rescue human hostages taken captive by half-human creatures.
In addition to £500 million ($820 million) in damages, the estate is seeking an injunction to prevent further sales of the offending book, or a share in the tome's profits.
Rowling is estimated to have a personal fortune of £560 million ($918 million).
Bloomsbury Publishing has branded the allegations “unfounded, unsubstantiated and untrue”.
A statement said: "JK Rowling had never heard of Adrian Jacobs nor seen, read or heard of his book ‘Willy the Wizard’ until this claim was first made in 2004 - almost seven years after the publication of the first book in the highly publicised ‘Harry Potter’ series.
"‘Willy the Wizard’ is a very insubstantial booklet running to 36 pages which had very limited distribution. The central character of ‘Willy the Wizard’ is not a young wizard and the book does not revolve around a wizard school. This claim is without merit and will be defended vigorously."  Email this story to a friend
Comments on this story
Frank Persol
06-19-09, 09:13 PM |
Harry Potter author sued for $820 million
I guess they would not have brought this suit if it had been without merit and if they didn’t believe that the Harry Potter book had infringed their copyright. You can’t take on the worlds richest(and one of the most honored writers)
without good reason. There a lots of extracts from the little 1987 book on www.willythewizard.com and they do bear some likeness to POtter.You can’t alter the printed word.FP
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MERCER
06-19-09, 11:27 PM |
HARRY POTTER PLAGIARISM Allegations
Okay I read the website-it is strange it reads
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MERCER
06-19-09, 11:31 PM |
Harry Potter Plagiarism
Okay I read the website-it is strange that there are Wizard Traiins Wizard Chess,gambling wizards,Special Wizard Hospitals,an old wizard who didnt know he was a wizard when he was a boy until he was 14,jerking spells,memory loss spells-and oh yes Ancient Wizardry Histoire lessons-isn’t that a bit like history of Magic in Harry Poetter-not to mention the bathroom scene where he learns his task of hostage rescue.Too close for comfort for Jo Rowling maybe? See whether they defend-or try to stifle by spending Jacobs Estate to death!
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Ubiquitous
06-19-09, 11:36 PM |
$820 million
According to the news wire stories this week Jacobs claims he employed Christopher Little as his literary agent in 1987! Christopher Little now represents JKRowling!
Yet Rowling always says she found Little 's name in a directory at random.Wasn’t he a lucky chap to have two similar wizard books ten years apart! The world will watch this case with Interest!!
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Potterfan
06-19-09, 11:39 PM |
$820 million
I don’t believe she could have done it! She is much too honorable and this was an unknown book.It’s just a load of co-incidences.
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Anonymous
06-20-09, 01:16 AM |
Easy target
using the only parlance that fits this story,.. it’s a shakedown!
If true, the publisher would have been nuts to not get a twinkle of recognition and defend the burgeoning empire with some advance notice to Rowling.
If false, someone sees a cash rich target and has a similar story in their family. Even if paid 500k to go away, they have scored.
If really about credit,.. wouldn’t they demand all copies not sold be recovered with corrected credit?
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Just Another Guy
12-22-09, 01:58 PM |
Ridiculous
Wow! Rowling is worth 920 million dollars, so of course idiotic people will find reasons to tey and steal her money. The book was published a decade earlier, and has a couple of vague similarities. So many books out there have some of the same content. It’s a flat-out joke that’s all. I guess I should sue Rowling for plagarizing my second grade story about a wizard too.
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