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Meyers Accused of Plaguarism

StirlingStirling
edited May 2009 in - Reading
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/1/20090420/ten-new-moon-halted-over-lawsuit-c60bd6d.html

I wonder what legal position this leaves? Copyright covers the words; if it is true about the idea can she be sued?

Comments

  • CarolCarol
    They can sue, but wouldn't win.
    The DVC case here has proved that. Okay this was a UK case, but the law is basically the same.
    There is nothing to stop anyone reading a story and formulating their own on the basis of the ideas in that story.
    After all there are only so many plots...
  • TessadragonTessadragon
    edited May 2009
    Meyer. That's how her name's spelt. Myers, is more like Mike Myers...and he can only be sued for being an idiot in Cat in the hat.
    As for suing her for making a whole novel successfully, that is stupid. If she won, it'd mean that almost all authors could be sued for having written something similar to anything they've encountered. A short story can't even be compared to a novel, let alone a quartet.
  • RedRed
    Only in America...doesn't she realise there is no copyright on ideas? Or is the old cynic in me thinking said student has seen $$ in her eyes?
  • NutmegNutmeg
    not only in America...

    didn't someone make the same comments about the Harry Potter series...?
  • StirlingStirling
    Typo easily remedied.

    The thing I find laughable is that Buffy was around 10-20 years ago. Still, if it is true and she has 'stolen' the idea I find it morally reprehensible. However, she claims to have found the idea in a dream, so her mind could have done something really odd. I know it has happened to me; I got the idea for my second novel after watching a lot of tennis and had a dream about a tennis player being murdered. The mind moves in mysterious ways . . .

    I did some reading, in law copyright and plaguarism are two different things. In academic writing if I don't cite Barthes' theory of hermaneutics, it means I am claiming the idea is mine and plaguarising.

    The lawyers can't claim copyright to the idea; but they can claim Meyers didn't credit her friend.
  • StirlingStirling
    You're right Jemma. I think the an author had a book published that used the word 'muggles.'

    Also a student claimed Tolkien stole the word 'Hobbit' from a piece of creative writing.
  • RedRed
    They work on differnt levels to us. Like in space. They can try and claim Meyers didn't credit ger friend, but again, laughably, there is no law which states you must credit any friend for coming up with an idea that, some years down the line, you pick up on and write a bestseller. Said friend should have got up off her a**e and written it herself if she was that bothered.

    This is about money. Why is this an issue now, some years later? Would she be bothered if Meyers hadn't have hit the big time.
  • StirlingStirling
    Surely Buffy pre-dates both?
  • TessadragonTessadragon
    Buffy aired from 1997 to 2003.
  • StirlingStirling
    So that is twelve years ago, when did Meyers start writing the novels?
  • TessadragonTessadragon
    2003 was when she had the dream and started writing bits of it, such as chapter 13.
  • NephNeph
    That is a rumour that has been circulating for a while and there is no truth to it apparently.
  • StirlingStirling
    I wonder if it has risen again that new legal proceedings have started?
  • NutmegNutmeg
    just realised that the article is from April...its now may...

    here is what Stephanie said on her website:

    http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/

    "I am not being sued. No one has contacted me or my publisher to inform either of us that I'm being sued. I never had a roommate named Heidi. There is no professor in the BYU English department named Dr. Peter Benton (though there is a character on ER by that name). And most of all, I began writing Twilight exactly the way I've told people in countless interviews and events for the past six years: I had a cool dream, I wrote it down, writing it down was really fun, so I kept writing until I had a whole book."
  • NephNeph
    According to Meyer in a statement posted on her website www.stepheniemeyer.com there is no law suit, she never roomed with someone called Heidi, and there doesn't appear to have been anything else posted anywhere since 20th April.
  • CarolCarol
    Sounds like one of those- someone searching for something, came across the claim by chance and it has spread from there.
  • Emma BEmma B
    Red: I second that. There is no copyright on ideas. Silly money grabbing band-wagon jumper (the suing party not Red :-))
  • Lou TreleavenLou Treleaven
    I thought we'd established there is no suing party?
  • NephNeph
    edited May 2009
    There isn't Lou.

    The only thing she should be sued for is what she has done to vampires, sparkle indeed :P
  • Lou TreleavenLou Treleaven
    :D

    Perhaps a vampire will sue her?
  • Lou TreleavenLou Treleaven
    Actually just thought of a great plot - a novelist becomes famous for her vampire books and is pursued by vampires trying to get their revenge on her! (Copyright Lou Treleaven)
  • StirlingStirling
    I'll sue her for crimes against Gothic fiction. Wanna join Neph?
  • Emma BEmma B
    edited May 2009
    Think I've got confused :rolleyes:
  • NephNeph
    Lou hate to tell you but I've already hired my vampires to dispose of her on the quiet, they have been chuntering about bad press in one of my shorts already!!!

    With you all the way there Stirling.
  • carocaro
    This person is probably just looking for a bit of attention. Maybe she believes that some publisher or agent will be interested in her, but they probably wouldn't touch her with a bargepole. Anyway if she did come up with the idea she should have written it herself.
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