Some morons are trying to milk the work of the late Adrian Jacobs by suing Bloomsbury, claiming that "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" infringes the copyright of a 36 page booklet published in the 80's called "The Adventures of Willy the Wizard-No 1 Livid Land".

To quote from the press release prepared by Jacobs' estate;


...Both books describe the adventures of a main character, "Willy" in Jacobs' book and "Harry Potter" in Rowling's, who are wizards, who compete in a wizard contest which they ultimately win... ...Many other similarities are described in the Claim filed by the Estate, which include the idea of wizards travelling on trains, famously referred to in Harry Potter as the Hogwarts Express...


Basically, the copyright infringement claim, and the website they set up for "Willy the Wizard" make it out as though anything in relation to the concept of "wizardry" from chess, to schools, to trains, to contests, and pretty much anything else you can think of were invented by and are the sole property of the Adrien Jacobs and that anything remotely similar MUST be plagiarism because ideas like there being a school for wizards or a contest for wizards are so unique and exclusive to Jacob's work that only someone who read "Willy the Wizard" could have thought to use them in their own stories.

This is about as crazy as if Frank Baum's estate sued Phillip Pullman for "His Dark Materials" by claiming that his books are a ripoff of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" because they both involve a girl traveling to another world and making friends with a talking carnivorous animal. It would be like Tolkien's estate suing Nintendo over the "Legend of Zelda" games because they are elves and dark lords and battles using swords and bows. It would be like the guy who made "Dexter's Laboratory" suing Nickelodeon for making "Jimmy Neutron" because they both involve boy genius inventors. It's just totally absurd.

Bloomsbury is ready to rumble and has already released their own press release asserting that the claim of Jacobs' estate is total garbage.

In cooler news, check out this moth I found resting on the garage door in my backyard.



That pattern is awesome and beautiful.

Okay, back to work on the next site feature for this Saturday.