ROWLING SEEKS TO DISMISS PLAGIARISM CASE
HARRY POTTER author J.K. ROWLING has blasted a plagiarism lawsuit against= her as "absurd" - and is pressing for the case to be thrown out of court= ..
Late British writer Adrian Jacobs’ estate has filed papers alleging the= author approached Rowling’s U.K. publishers Bloomsbury in 1987, ten year= s before his death, and unsuccessfully attempted to sell them his Willy T= he Wizard stories.
Jacobs’ family members filed a lawsuit last June (09), claiming Rowling= ’s 2000 book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire steals segments of the w= riter’s novel The Adventures of Willy the Wizard - No 1 Livid Land.
Rowling was named as a defendant in the lawsuit on Wednesday (17Feb10) = after the trustee of Jacobs’ estate, Paul Allen, realised the time limit = to sue the writer had not run out.
But Rowling has moved quickly to slam the accusation, insisting she has= never even read Jacobs’ book and will be applying to have the claim dism= issed immediately.
In a statement, she says: "The fact is I had never heard of the author = or the book before the first accusation by those connected to the author’= s estate in 2004; I have certainly never read the book.
"The claims that are made are not only unfounded but absurd and I am di= sappointed that I, and my U.K. publisher Bloomsbury, are put in a positio= n to have to defend ourselves. We will be applying to the court immediate= ly for a ruling that the claim is without merit and should therefore be d= ismissed without delay."
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