[HPforGrownups] From the Person who posted: J.K.Rowling & The Legend of Rah and the Muggles

[Simon]

No: HPFGUIDX 14517

My_email_1 wrote: "I am a huge Harry Potter fan and was extremely
disappointed to hear that J.K. Rowling has copied things from another
author.

Yes, it is true that she has changed the story and made it a lot more
interesting, but still, she did not come up with the 'main' idea. It
doesn't matter that it is not illegal, but what I'm saying is that when
writers write books, they should use their own BRAINS and NOT someone
elses!!"

It would be interesting to know how you think this copying happened. By the
admission of the author of The Legend of Rah and the Muggles her books were
only published in the US and at that I believe I am correct in saying only
in one US state.

Jo Rowling is a British author, who until recently had never visited the
US. How, if she did copy (something I do not believe), did she get hold of
a set of books that had been out of print for 5 years when she started to
write PS at the beginning of the 90's? It seems very unlikely, to me at
least, that a copy of these books ever made it to the UK or Portugal
(where, IIRC, Jo was living in the late 80's).

They have definitely never been properly published in the UK (yes I have
checked, I have access to all books ever published in the UK and a
catalogue indexing them), and they have never made it to the Library of
Congress (?) in the US. Members of this group have before now tried to
obtain copies, but have never managed.


There are similarities, but it is possible to find similarities between
many books. Harry is one of the most popular boys names in the UK (and has
been for quite a while). Larry seems to be a fairly common US boy's name.
Potter is a common British surname.
Muggles, as a word, has appeared in many different places and is used to
mean something totally different in the two sets of books.


I could go on with the comments about the alleged infringements, but the
similarities mentioned are common to numerous books I have read.

$20 dollars for a copy of her book? Forgive me while I collapse in
laughter.


Simon