Questions about the Stouffer stuff..(warning-- kind of long)

[Shanna Seanachai]

No: HPFGUIDX 12908

I don't think that her books were, uh, run off at Kinko's, persay. I saw
Stouffer on C-Span during the summer when this whole debacle began. I think
she had a very small publisher. However, she admitted that sales of her book
were limited to the US - EXCEPT (there's always an except) this one single
book fair in London which sold her book. I find it highly unlikely that JKR
just happened to be in London (when she lived in Edinborough - yes, I know
they do travel back and forth quite a bit, but I'm sure she wasn't there
constantly) to go to that stupid book fair and just happen to find her book
and be oh so inspired by it.
I can't see it as being anything but crazy coincidence. I mean, if you were
going to rip some one off, don't you think you'd be a little more subtle,
rather than nearly copying every name and term you can find?
Furthermore, Stouffer really doesn't gain much credibility from me - you are
absolutely right, she IS an opportunist. She even said she's filed lawsuits
before over people knicking her ideas. (And lost everyone of them,
apparently). You know, I'm sure all the children's writers in the world are
scrambling to steal from her works of genius. I think she is just doing this
because, even if she doesn't win the suit, let's face it, millions of people
know about her now then before, and maybe she'll end up selling more books.

shanna seanachai
envy.nu/snape


> At 12:43 AM 2/22/01 +0000, Kelley wrote:
> >Stouffer claims there was demand for her book; wouldn't it be
> >available in public libraries?  I've not tried looking, but is
there some reason it would not be available?
>
> Dave wrote:
> My understanding is that her books were self-publsihed (i.e. she
> ran off copies at Kinko's and distributed at local K-Marts).  So not
> only do her books probably have no ISBN/Library of Congress
> designation, but it seems highly improbable that JKR ever set
> eyes on them.
>
> BTW I invite everyone read my page of rebuttals to Stouffer's
> charges: http://www.mindspring.com/~daveh47/JKRvsNKS.html

Hi Dave.  I did go to your site, and agree with you completely.  I
thought all that stuff, too.  Because of these reasons, I figured
Stouffer's problem must be that all the instances she listed (all the
correct ones, anyway) were found in ~both~ their works.  See what I
mean?  The "Oz" books may have several instances in common, but
Stouffer's and JKR's have almost all of them in common.  I'm not
siding with Stouffer at all; I think she's a full-of-crap
opportunist.  What I'm trying to understand is if her case is based
on this entire list of 'similarities' between her's and JKR's works,
or if her whole case hinges on 'muggle'.  And, you know, the
governor/friar thing, perhaps there's a governor in her book, and she
put the terms in the wrong columns (I'm thinking of the "Fat
Friar").  Plus, how can she compare Elixir of Life to her Well of
Desire?  Not one of her lawyers has explained that JKR's is from
alchemy and the Philosopher's Stone?  I'm so baffled by all this.  Is
this woman an American?  Oh, and good grief:  went to Kinko's and
talked her local K-marts into selling her books?!  Is she kidding?
There is the bizarre chance that JKR could have seen this woman's
work, but seriously, what are the odds?  How on earth could she ever
hope to prove something like that?  I'm so tired of these people who
come crawling out of the woodwork, hoping to make an easy buck from
being a nuisance.  Okay, sorry for the rant guys.  Thanks for the
reply, Dave.  Appreciate it.

Kelley


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