[HPforGrownups] "Muggle" in Children's Literature

Tandy, Heidi heidi.h.tandy.c92 at alumni.upenn.edu
Thu Jul 19 14:49:13 UTC 2001


No: HPFGUIDX 22748

At messages http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/15791 and
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/14370 (among other
posts) I've gotten into an extensive explanation of copyright & trademark
law and what they actually say & mean in the United States - I'm an
intellectual property attorney, so matters like this are what I do every
day. Basically, Stouffer's case has many factors to it that make her claims
untennable, including but not limited to the fact that you cannot copyright
a character name, and can only get rights in and to that name if there is a
trademark in the character, and I don't think that Stouffer her shown that
there ever was, or that there is now.

I have a related comment on this which I'm about to post on OT_Chatter...if
you're not a member, you should join! You get to be off-topic...on purpose!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Glenda and Danny Millgate [mailto:millgate at austarmetro.com.au]
> Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2001 12:43 AM
> To: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [HPforGrownups] "Muggle" in Children's Literature
> 
> 
> Real-To:  "Glenda and Danny Millgate" <millgate at austarmetro.com.au>
> 
> >   My personal opinion is that JKR seems to put great store by Honor 
> and Truth, so I am a believer that she wouldn't violate that "trust" 
> by stealing someone else's work.  Opal Dragonfly
> 
> Further to this...the thing that makes the Harry Potter books 
> great is not the names of the characters...it's the terrific 
> storyline, dialogue and the character's personalities. Why 
> would she bother stealing names that really are everyday 
> names...Harry/Larry, Lilly, Potter etc.? The word Muggle is a 
> made up word, in that it doesnt appear as part of the regular 
> English language, but there would be no point to her 
> 'stealing' it when she could just as easily make up another 
> one. She's obviously not lacking in imagination!
> 
> I really think that the whole thing is just a coincidence, or 
> possibly power of suggestion...if she'd read the other book 
> years before, then the names might pop into her head, but its 
> still not direct stealing.
> 
> If someone came forward with a matching plot, then we might 
> take it a bit more seriously!
> 
> Glenda
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> 
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