Recursive plagiarism

[robinturner]

This is rich. Lawyers for J.K. Rowling, the author of the least original bestselling series ever, the Harry Potter books, are considering legal action against Dmitry Yemets, the author of a series of books featuring the a heroine caled Tanya Grotter. The aim was both to parody the Potter books and popularise Russian folklore. If this is plagiarism, then surely the original Potter books are not above suspicion - doesn't anyone remember Jill Murphy's "Worst Witch" series?

This looks like an attempt to move copyright law into patent law, as is happening in the case of software. I once described the absurdity of software patents by comaparing them to a crime writer trying to patent the idea that the butler did it, but it looks like that may soon be less far-fetched than I'd imagined.

Comments

[circumambulate.livejournal.com]

yeah, but you can't really patent something that is analagous to 'the butler did it'. If the mechanism that you've implemented is patently obvious, and really the only logical way to do something, you can't patent it.

[solri.livejournal.com]

But I'm sure the first time someone had the butler do it, it was an "innovation" ;-)

[chr0me-kitten.livejournal.com]

Ug. That's so freaking annoying. What about Diane Duane's So You Want to Be a Wizard? or Neil Gaiman's The Books of Magic. If she starts going lawsuit happy, the other, better writers who wrote it first better sue her ass. She's richer than the Queen. Literally. Everyone knows Harry Potter and who wrote it. She doesn't need to sue anyone.