Thread: copyright ????

Dear all, I know once you've written a novel it's your property, but how on earth can you possibly know if someone has stolen it and used it for themselves? What I mean is, unless you read every single novel published there is no way you're going to found out if someone has stolen copyright - unless the novel becomes popular.

You can check if your work's been copied online easily enough. Just take key phrases, enclosed in speech marks, and Google them.

Originally Posted by mockingbird

What I mean is, unless you read every single novel published there is no way you're going to found out if someone has stolen copyright - unless the novel becomes popular.

Who do you think is going to plagiarise an unpopular novel? It's one thing to translate Harry Potter into Chinese, change the names and sell it in China, but no-one in their right mind is going to do the same for a novel that sold 5,000 copies.

Hi Movieman, I heard from some writer's source on the net that HP was plagiarised from the script of Star Wars - just changed names, lightsabre became a magic wand, yoda became you know who and there you have HP.

Originally Posted by mockingbird

I heard from some writer's source on the net that HP was plagiarised from the script of Star Wars - just changed names, lightsabre became a magic wand, yoda became you know who and there you have HP.

That's interesting, I haven't read the HP books but I've seen a couple of the movies and I could kind of see that making sense. However, even if it's true, Lucas lifted most of that story from Kurosawa and Campbell... 'farm boy makes good' is such a common storyline that it's been used a zillion times and will be again.

No one is going to copy your work unless they think they can make money from it. Noones going to think they can make money from it unless you have made money from it. If you have made money from it you can afford a lawyer to protect your work. Otherwise why bother?

The idea that Harry Potter was copied from Star Wars is laughable, have you seen the movie and read the book? Might as well say every modern work is a plaugarism of Gilgamesh.

Originally Posted by mockingbird

Hi Movieman, I heard from some writer's source on the net that HP was plagiarised from the script of Star Wars - just changed names, lightsabre became a magic wand, yoda became you know who and there you have HP.

There are definite similarities between the two franchises, but they are also different enough that HP cannot be considered as plagiarism. The argument that one book or idea has been copied from another has been going on for decades. If Dumbledore was a copy of Yoda, then was Yoda a copy of Gandalf, and Gandalf a copy of some earlier fictional character or possibly God? Most writers have copied ideas from others. West Side Story is basically a retelling of Romeo and Juliet, and I believe Shakespeare copied that story from an ancient Greek play (sorry, can't confirm this but I'm sure I heard it somewhere).

As long as a story has enough original material, then I don't think it can be called plagiarism.