Quote:
Originally Posted by Harper Kingsley
The issue is that characters are copyright protected. Considering the amount of people that are able to recognize Ana/Bella and Christian/Edward, Meyer can take James to court at any time. Just because she has chosen not to at this time, doesn't change the fact that she can wait until James amasses large quantities of money, then demand all proceeds. And if she were to die, her heirs have 70 years after her death to file any paperwork.
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This is not true for a couple of reasons - if you defend your copyright, you have to do so within a reasonable amount of time after finding out about the infringement. Waiting until your opponent has 'piles of money' will *undermine* your case.
It's called 'amelioration' - you have to do everything in your power to lessen or prevent damages. If you let a situation deteriorate in order to claim larger damages, the court could well find YOU liable for damages.
No, I'm not a lawyer, but I have taken college level business law classes, and this is pretty basic torts.
Given the amount of publicity this has gotten, the fact that Ms. Meyers has not already filed an injunction could mean that she could *never* bring the case to court. Of course, one always has the option of using one's lawyers to bully an opponent into a settlement, but that is an entirely different thing.
Of course, if authors start suing other authors on the basis of 'they got the idea from reading my book,' there will soon be no new novels at all. Everyone gets their ideas from somewhere.