Harry Potter Author Sued For Copyright Theft

Oh dear! Author J.K. Rowling has been sued for infringement in violation the PREEXISTING copyrights of the estate of Adrian Jacobs. Author Adrian Jacobs wrote, copyrighted and published the book "The Adventures of Willy the Wizard -- No 1 Livid Land" in 1987. Rowling's book "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was released 10 YEARS LATER and has significant similarities to it. To make matters worse, Adrian Jacobs and J.K. Rowling are connected through literary agent, Christopher Jacobs, with the Plaintiff (Jacobs) having sought his services prior to the Defendant (Rowling). In closing, I agree with the New York judge in a separate J.K. Rowling infringement case last year - this magic stuff is gibberish. Harry Potter publisher denies plagiarism claim Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:30pm EDT - LONDON (Reuters) - Bloomsbury Publishing Plc on Monday denied allegations that author J.K. Rowling copied "substantial parts" of a book by another children's author when she wrote "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." The book, published in 2000, was the fourth installment of the hugely successful boy wizard Harry Potter series that has sold more than 400 million copies worldwide and been turned into a multi-billion-dollar film franchise... In an earlier statement, Jacobs' estate said that it had issued proceedings at London's High Court against Bloomsbury Publishing Plc for copyright infringement. "The Estate is also seeking a court order against J.K. Rowling herself for pre-action disclosure in order to determine whether to join her as a defendant to the ... action," the statement read. It named the estate's trustee as Paul Allen, and said that Rowling had copied "substantial parts" of "The Adventures of Willy the Wizard -- No 1 Livid Land" written by Jacobs in 1987. It added that the plot of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire copied elements of the plot of Willy the Wizard, including a wizard contest, and that the Potter series borrowed the idea of wizards traveling on trains. "Both Willy and Harry are required to work out the exact nature of the main task of the contest which they both achieve in a bathroom assisted by clues from helpers, in order to discover how to rescue human hostages imprisoned by a community of half-human, half-animal fantasy creatures," the estate statement said. "It is alleged that all of these are concepts first created by Adrian Jacobs in Willy the Wizard, some 10 years before J.K. Rowling first published any of the Harry Potter novels and 13 years before Goblet of Fire was published." According to the statement, Jacobs had sought the services of literary agent Christopher Little who later became Rowling's agent. Jacobs died "penniless" in a London hospice in 1997, it said... http://www.reuters.com