Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
And, of course, an "idea" cannot be copyrighted. Anyone is free to write a book about a boy going to a school for wizards.
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True though the more common threads one book has with another author's book the greater the chance of someone saying that author x stole my story and claimed it as his/her own. J.K. Rowling has faced that problem herself I believe. Another author had written similar stories at about the same time as her 1st Harry Potter books were coming out and terms like "Muggles" were used in both stories as well so the other author took Ms. Rowling to court accusing her of plagarism as I recall. Which isn't to say that it doesn't happen either. There was a romance novelist who 'borrowed' shall we say ideas that were the work of another author in the genre and there was a big stink about it. In the end there is no such thing as a totally original idea I don't think. Every author draws on experiences in their lives and being that all authors are human beings there are going to be some common themes and ideas. The trick is to mix them up in an original manner so the stories seem to be fresh and new even though the basic plots were laid down by the time of Aristotle if not before.