JK Rowling Sued for Plagiarism

JK Rowling is being accused of copying material for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth book in her record-breaking series. Her name was recently added to a multimillion-dollar suit against her publisher, Bloomsbury, brought by the estate of the author of another wizard-themed book. The suit alleges that a substantial part of the 2000 bestseller was lifted from a 1987 book called The Adventures of Willy the Wizard: No 1 Livid Land by Adrian Jacobs.

"If your child read Willy the Wizard he would say to you, 'That's just like Goblet of Fire,'" an agent for the Jacobs estate tells the Times of London. Jacobs and Rowling had the same literary agent. The suit claims the books share several themes, including wizard competitions. Willy the Wizard sold just 5,000 copies. Jacobs was a "very clever man," said a family spokesman. "But he died in poverty in a hospice." Last summer, Bloomsbury called the plagiarism allegations "unfounded, unsubstantiated, and untrue." (More Harry Potter stories.)