J. K. Rowling Now a Defendent in the Willy the Wizard Case

[rattlesnakeroot]

exhpfan let me know that the Willy the Wizard Case is coming back around again. This case was originally filed last June and brought against Bloomsbury Books, but the plaintiff has now added JKR as a defendent due to "new information," whatever that means. This article says they expect the whole thing to be dismissed, but it should be interesting.

Harry

Comments

[sciencegeek]

I find this kind of interesting, since in research or in uni (at least, here), it doesn't matter if you haven't heard of, or read the work that is similar to/the same as your work. If it's already out there, you're fucked. I know someone who got screwed doing is PhD because someone scooped his work at a conference thing and published it before he had a chance to. Ah well.

[shyfoxling]

I find this kind of interesting, since in research or in uni (at least, here), it doesn't matter if you haven't heard of, or read the work that is similar to/the same as your work.

How can you plagiarize something you've never seen? You might still be liable for damages, but surely it's not philosophically the same thing?

[rattlesnakeroot]

I guess in academic circles, they assume that anyone doing research has to be up to date on the latest publications, and if they are too derivative of someone else their own work becomes suspect.

JKR will have to prove that she never saw this strange little book. Proving a negative is very hard to do, and it will probably be just her word against theirs, and the author of Willy is dead now anyway. We don't know what evidence they are going to throw out there that she saw the book, but they've been hinting at that now for years so they need to put up or shut up with documents or a witness or whatever. It could all be a coincidence and they have nothing - in that case it will be thrown out of court right away.

[sciencegeek]

Because the assumption is that if it is in your field, then you should know about it. And I realise that publishing is vastly different than research, given the many books with eerily similar plots. It's just that my experience is that before you publish anything in a scientific journal (not that I have myself, but my supervisors and professors have), you have to be extremely diligent in reading anything out there that is related, and make sure you cite properly. Again, in research it is very difficult to publish something if it is the same as something that has already been published. I know of people that have had to go before a panel to defend themselves because their professor was familiar of a paper with the same/similar thesis as the essay the person wrote, and it wasn't cited. When I was in school I had to be extremely diligent in my research for papers for classes to make sure anything that I was writing was not only supported, but also that I wasn't ripping off someone else. Textbooks are a slightly different animal since

[mary_j_59]

Well - Rowling has dozens of influences, and one of the most obvious is Jill Murphy. Harry Potter is in some ways a point-for-point imitation of The Worst Witch. But the way Rowling combined the details is, of course, unique to her, and therefore (I would argue) original enough. But I'd also argue that, in many ways, Murphy and others wrote better stories - more coherent and consistent in tone than Rowling's.

Just my two cents.

[a_waffling]

Ah, well, JKR uses lots of ideas, material etc. from, and makes allusions to many many other texts. IMO: This adds to the charm of her books. It's part of her style. And quoting without citing has been common in belletristic literature at least since Vergil's time (although Macrobius did complain).

You'll (almost) never hear me state that I've not read a certain book. (I read too much, and often too superficially to be able to trust my memory.) One more reason to admire JKR ... [:-)] ... .

And, well, at least over here, academic standards and intellectual property law are different things. Over here intellectual property of ideas does not exist (it does exist, of course, for plots, for wording, for imagined worlds, etc.).

[exhpfan]

Let's speculate on what"evidence discovered within the last 6 yrs" means. It has been JKR's position since this case first serviced in 2004 that she had not read the book or even knew it existed. There has clearly been discovery proceeding by the estate's lawfirm and my guess is that they have something. What would be enough to change everyone's opinion on the Plaintiff's chance for success? What if they have an Amazon order for the book under Joanne Murray's name? What if there is an email describing the plot of the book from Christopher Little to JKR? I think we need to wait and see what this "new evidence" is before we speculate on the Plaintiff's chances of success.

[bluestockingbb]

I agree with exphfan. I'm curious to see what they've got. The fact of the matter is that this suit has been around for quite a while. I would think that if it is completely meritless then it would have been disposed of much sooner.

[mary_j_59]

And I agree with both of you. If the suit were absolutely without merit, it would have been tossed by now.

[aredwitch]

They are suing for 500 million pounds. Maybe they are hoping that they will be paid something just to shut them up and go away.
I saw some comparisons of the texts and it just does not look at all similar.
I don't think works of fiction need to be as well researched as works of nonfiction.