Rowling shouldn't have ANY control over ANY Harry Potter copyrights- she ripped her idea off from Neil Gaiman's graphic novel trilogy "Books of Magic" anyway.

Gaiman said publicly that he had not pursued Rowling because he felt like the most important goal was to get children to read, and the Harry Potter novels certainly accomplished it.

I find it shocking that Mrs. Rowling (the richest woman in the world) feels the need to sue fans when she herself was granted copyright freedom.

If you read Neil Gaiman's interview at this link, <link> this may clarify his view on this.

Wikipedia's way of putting it: "Neil Gaiman has been quoted as saying that while there are similarities between the two they are largely superficial and most likely reflect the fact that both draw on common archetypes."

I'm not sure this is an issue.

Ah, but Thandeka, the fact that they draw on achetypes limits her ability to justify a copyright infringement suite.

I agree. I f you have read the origional BoM, there are sooo many things that are not just similar but plain ripped off. Most powerful wizard, white owl, the description of the cousin. Also, hasn't she also been quoted as saying she invented hippogryphs?

archtypes are not considered owned by anyone, thus they do not limit copyright liability.

Ms Rowling did not claim to have created any of the creatures, she got them out of mythology. In fact many of the Unofficial guides and speculation books about the next books all stated her many use of "common archetypes" They even pointed out that Harry Potter would win because of these common archetypes.

Almost every book you read today has the idea that Vampires can not handle garlic, holy water and they die from a stake in the heart. hmm... so all of the vampire stories are using the same common archetypes they must be ripping the story off of the one published before them and only one of them not all of them or even the first book to state the "rules".

Common archetypes are just that - Common.

Gaiman doesn't say Rowling ripped him off. Neil Gaiman: Last year, initially The Scotsman newspaper -- being Scottish and J.K. Rowling being Scottish -- and because of the English tendency to try and tear down their idols, they kept trying to build stories which said J.K. Rowling ripped off Neil Gaiman. They kept getting in touch with me and I kept declining to play because I thought it was silly. And then The Daily Mirror in England ran an article about that mad woman who was trying to sue J.K. Rowling over having stolen muggles from her. And they finished off with a line saying [something like]: And Neil Gaiman has accused her of stealing. Luckily I found this online and I found it the night it came out by pure coincidence and the reporter's e-mail address was at the bottom of the thing so I fired off an e-mail saying: This is not true, I never said this. You are making this up. I got an apologetic e-mail back, but by the time I'd gotten the apologetic e-mail back it was already in The Daily Mail the following morning and it was very obvious that The Daily Mail's research [had] consisted of reading The Daily Mirror. And you're going: journalists are so lazy. What was it of yours they were accusing her of stealing from you? My character Tim Hunter from Books of Magic who came out in 1990 was a small dark-haired boy with big round spectacles -- a 12-year-old English boy -- who has the potential to be the most powerful wizard in the world and has a little barn owl. So there were commonalties, for sure. Well, yes and as I finally, pissed off, pointed out to an English reviewer who tried to start this again, I said: Look, all of the things that they actually have in common are such incredibly obvious, surface things that, had she actually been stealing, they were the things that would be first to be changed. Change hair color from brown to fair, you lose the glasses, you know: that kind of thing.

I think you would find it hard to find artists who have not taken ideas, inspirations from others. It is a very common thing, thats how you get movements, and in fact I cannot imagine how you can come up with truly original ideas - shut off from everything else. The difference with this case is he is not using Rowling as inspiration for his own work, he's re-hashing it.

However, I do wonder how the argument about a "guide" will stand up in court. I will be interested to hear the result. In principal, I am with Rowling!