Quote:
Originally Posted by Urlik  Larry Potter written by an author who also copyrighted the name muggles as a term for the non magical characters in another story (but was unsuccessful when she tried to fight JKR on the grounds of copyright theft). |
You can't copyright names and you can't copyright ideas, so the other author did
not hold a copyright on the term Muggles. And I remember that case. I believe there was also a character named Lily Potter, the same as Harry's mother. But the court didn't find
enough similarities to rule in favor of the other author and against J. K. Rowling. In a work of fiction, it can be very hard to prove a case of infringement, unless similarities are numerous and parts of the text appear to be copied or paraphrased.
Oh, and I was particularly interested by her remarks about the train platform, because that was pretty much lifted straight out of a book by Eva Ibbotson.