J.K. Rowling Accused of Plagiarizing 'Harry Potter'

By PopEater Staff Posted Feb 18th 2010 08:30AM

J.K. Rowling finds herself in the middle of a plagiarism lawsuit, EOnline.com reports.

The 'Harry Potter' author has been added to the 2004 suit against her British publisher Bloomsbury, which claims Rowling stole the idea for the fourth book in the series -- 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' -- from a 1987 children's novel, 'The Adventures of Willy the Wizard: No. 1 Livid Land,' by Adrian Jacobs.

"I am saddened that yet another claim has been made that I have taken material from another source to write Harry," Rowling said in a statement.

"The fact is, I had never heard of the author or the book before the first accusation by those connected to the author's estate in 2004; I have certainly never read the book," she added.

"The claims that are made are not only unfounded but absurd and I am disappointed that I, and my U.K. publisher Bloomsbury, are put in a position to have to defend ourselves," the author continued.

Jacobs' estate claims he came up with the ideas for wizard prisons, schools and hospitals -- all elements of Rowling's 'Potter' world.

Tags: harry potter, jk rowling

Comments

(31)

Thursday 18 February

By Amber

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She did plagerize The Once and Future King. But you know, everyone takes inspiration from somewhere.

By Lauren

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You just took that out of no where. Once again, just because there are some similarities between two things does not mean it's been plagerized. If you look hard enough, you can find similarities between anything.

By Nancy

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Kenny, it seems to me that the simularities stop with "stone" and the 2 boys, one orphan the other priviledged....oh yah, it's setting is a castle and Merlyn is teaching magic tricks to Wart, another possible simularity. The rest of the plot is totally different....where do you think he got the idea for Robin Hood?

By JT

I'm not even a HP fan but this 'plagiarism' bull is so stupid. It's like when the creators of the god-awful movie 'Troll' were upset because their film had a character named 'Harry Potter' in it. Plus, if it IS an act of plagiarism, why are the people who are upset only doing something about it now? Hasn't the HP series been around for over 12+ years? It sounds to me like a cash grab. And does that mean that EVERY SINGLE fantasy type novel/movie should be sued by the people who represent Joseph Campbell? He was the one who wrote the monomyth on how fantasy stories should unfold and almost all the popular sagas of the modern age (Star Wars, The Matrix, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones... the list goes on and on) follow this format practically verbatim. This is just too moronic.

Why are these people trying to sue again? They've already lost once. and if they were really concerned about their story being plagerized, they should have sued as soon as it came out, but as they didn't, I'd say their just in it for the money. This all is nothing but a joke. These people need to just get over the fact that she's a successful writer and that she's done better than they have.
Jo, we love you and we're behind you 100%!!

By Bob

I've always been surprised that Neil Gaiman has been as generous as he has with JK Rowlings "borrowing" from his Books of Magic.

Must be a cultural thing.

By Christina

really? just really

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Friday 19 February

Hey, I love the Harry Potter series, don't get me wrong. But it is a fact that she did take a lot of her ideas from other works. Is it still a fabulous series with a lot of her original thought behind it? Absolutely, and I've read and reread the books. Still, even if you love them, to deny she took key elements from other novels is ignorant. And she did take things from TOAFK. Not the plot, but elements. Read it again.

Saturday 20 February

By Cathy

Doesn't matter if JK Rowlings' and her publisher are British. She and her work are world known, from what I understand second only to the Bible. She and her books never got this type of negative attention until HER WORK became popular and SUCCESSFUL. Its ashame people still want something for nothing.

By Nico Toscani

I'd be more embarrassed to admit I was an adult who read the Harry Potter books than I'd be if I was J.K. Rowling; who clearly "borrowed" every idea in the books from someplace else. They are books meant for children, yet so many adults feel super smart for having read them (I mean, ANY book is better than another copy of Vanity Fair right?).

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