Meyer Sued

brainstorm77 · Aug 21, 2009

Yup http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090820/entertainment/centertainment_us_books_twilight

Jordan Scott accuses Meyer of copyright infringement. Claims Meyer stole passages from her novel The Nocturne.

Parametric · Aug 21, 2009

Scott's book "The Nocturne," which she started writing at age 15 in 2003, had an initial printing of 5,000 books and is about to go into a second printing, according to her lawsuit.

I believe we have the real reason for the lawsuit here.

(This story's been around for a while, I think.)

brainstorm77 · Aug 21, 2009

Parametric said:
I believe we have the real reason for the lawsuit here.

(This story's been around for a while, I think.)

It has but I think she's just finally filed the suit. And I agree...

Cyia · Aug 21, 2009

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150640

Here's the original thread about the suit. (Which is nuts if her "comparisons" are all she's got. There are no real similarities there at all.)

brainstorm77 · Aug 21, 2009

Perhaps this could be merged with the other thread.

MGraybosch · Aug 21, 2009

brainstorm77 said:
Yup http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090820/entertainment/centertainment_us_books_twilight

Jordan Scott accuses Meyer of copyright infringement. Claims Meyer stole passages from her novel The Nocturne.

Huh. I had thought the author of The Legend of Rah and the Muggles had decided to try old and busted shenanigans on the new hotness now that Harry Potter is over.

jennibly · Aug 22, 2009

All this proves is that the two authors are equally uninspired (sorry Twilight fans). I mean seriously, one of the "similarities" is a sex scene on the beach? Romance authors across the world are rolling their eyes at that.

M.R.J. Le Blanc · Aug 22, 2009

It seems pretty clear that this is a frivolous lawsuit (IANAL, btw). Can't she get in huge trouble legal-wise?

Gillhoughly · Aug 22, 2009

She'll have to pay court costs when she loses.

Having read and compared the "questionable" passages, she will totally lose.

However, the extra publicity will help book sales and raise her profile.

I think she's a moron. It's just way too obvious she's trying to ride the Twi-coattail to increase sales. I can't respect that.

brainstorm77 · Aug 22, 2009

Gillhoughly said:
She'll have to pay court costs when she loses.

Having read and compared the "questionable" passages, she will totally lose.

However, the extra publicity will help book sales and raise her profile.

I think she's a moron. It's just way too obvious she's trying to ride the Twi-coattail to increase sales. I can't respect that.

I tried to look up her book and could not find it.

Gillhoughly · Aug 22, 2009

There's a link on the other thread on this topic. It has the PDF files.

M.R.J. Le Blanc · Aug 22, 2009

Gillhoughly said:
She'll have to pay court costs when she loses.

Having read and compared the "questionable" passages, she will totally lose.

However, the extra publicity will help book sales and raise her profile.

I think she's a moron. It's just way too obvious she's trying to ride the Twi-coattail to increase sales. I can't respect that.

Yeah, I guess that would be punishment enough

Though I'd be curious to see if it actually does help her book sales, or if people might just think her too pathetic to bother. I for one have no interest in her book now, and admit I haven't heard of her before this. I mean this isn't like Da Vinci where the Catholic Church made such a big hoopla over the subject matter. It's a very obviously desperate ploy. I think most people would be more apt to just roll their eyes and move on as opposed to buying it.

MGraybosch · Aug 22, 2009

jennibly said:
All this proves is that the two authors are equally uninspired (sorry Twilight fans). I mean seriously, one of the "similarities" is a sex scene on the beach? Romance authors across the world are rolling their eyes at that.

Are the writers and producers of From Here to Eternity getting royalties every time somebody writes or films a sex scene on a beach?

brainstorm77 · Aug 22, 2009

I'm curious to read her book.. Does anyone know who published it?

katiemac · Aug 22, 2009

brainstorm77 said:
I'm curious to read her book.. Does anyone know who published it?

Apparently it is unpublished. The article you linked said the author started writing the book in 2003 when she was 15. She is now an aspiring screenwriter. Apparently she posted passages of her writing online at some point (not sure what year this was supposed to be) and I think Meyer is "supposed" to have stolen from her work there.

ETA: The second article Cyia links says the author "claims her book was published in 2006." I have no idea how someone can "claim" a book was published a certain year unless it wasn't traditionally done.

brainstorm77 · Aug 22, 2009

katiemac said:
Apparently it is unpublished. The article you linked said the author started writing the book in 2003 when she was 15. She is now an aspiring screenwriter. Apparently she posted passages of her writing online at some point (not sure what year this was supposed to be) and I think Meyer is "supposed" to have stolen from her work there.

ETA: The second article Cyia links says the author "claims her book was published in 2006." I have no idea how someone can "claim" a book was published a certain year unless it wasn't traditionally done.

True enough. Thanks.

ChristineR · Aug 23, 2009

I'm having trouble finding all the links now, but I seem to recall reading that she published it on the Internet, starting in 2003, for any and all to read--or maybe it was only parts of it.

Reacting to another claim in the Hachette statement that "The Nocturne" was never formally published, Scott explained that while it was not formally published until 2006, she filed for copyright protection for the novel as early as 2003, when she began slowly posting chapters and portions of the book as it was being written at the behest of her online following.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1619255/20090821/story.jhtml

If it was on Usenet or someplace like that, you'd think that links to archives would have turned up by now, which would at least let fans analyze whatever Meyers could have seen.

However, if you want to read it, Amazon has it in e-book and paperback. The date is on the e-book is 2006, on the paperback, 2009, but I don't know if that really means it was out on Kindle in 2006.

Nivarion · Aug 23, 2009

You know, With all of the cases against Meyer, Rowling, King, Martin or any of the other big authors who may or may not have been sued. I would think someone would actually have a case.

Its probably because if the book was any good to have been plagiarized, the original author would have been able to publish it.

jodiodi · Aug 23, 2009

Perhaps, if I'm ever published, my book will be famous as the bastard love-child of a wild orgy involving Bertrice Small , Stephen King and JRR Tolkien.

JimmyB27 · Aug 24, 2009

Is this how you know you've made it these days? You're nothing until someone's sued you for plagiarism.

Samantha's_Song · Aug 24, 2009

There's one thing that might make people think twice about what they're doing - putting lots of scenes of their own novels onto the internet for others to read. Anyone could be reading them and then taking their ideas for their own works, couldn't they. I've got old part-chapters of some of my own work on my website, but never enough to get the whole story out there, there's much more background to my own than seems from my excerpts. Saying that though, when I was telling a lot of my story, via query hell on here, it made me quite nervous telling so much about the plot

Reading what the Scott girl said, it seems quite plausible to me, she was 14 or 15 years old and writing a story that suited that age group and putting it onto the net. Then some middle-aged woman comes along and makes a bomb about teenage vampires. It certainly makes me think twice about it.

Then there all those ridiculous little Twilight readers having hissy fits about Scott on the comments part. :roll:

She's a very pretty girl too, so I suspect a little jealousy sneaks in there also.

Cyia · Aug 24, 2009

From the article:

When friends began pointing out to her the alleged similarities between her book and "Breaking Dawn," Scott — who said she's never read any of the "Twilight" books or seen the movie — said she looked at "Dawn" and thought the similarities were too numerous to be a coincidence.

She's basing this claim on quoted portions of a book she's never read, yet saying the similarity is in the unpublished version of the book Meyer wrote in '03/'04. Isn't that kind of a bait and switch?

(And again... they're not at all alike.)

I'm wondering if this book of hers wasn't posted somewhere like Fanfiction.net's sister site for original fiction (fictionpress.com, I think). If she posted it there and took it down, there'd be no online record of it because those sites don't cache their posts.

jodiodi · Aug 24, 2009

Cyia said:
I'm wondering if this book of hers wasn't posted somewhere like Fanfiction.net's sister site for original fiction (fictionpress.com, I think). If she posted it there and took it down, there'd be no online record of it because those sites don't cache their posts.

Thank God! I think I took all my embarassing craptastic stuff down a long time ago, but in case I didn't, I can only hope no one remembers it since I can't remember my username or password.

brainstorm77 · Aug 25, 2009

jodiodi said:
Thank God! I think I took all my embarassing craptastic stuff down a long time ago, but in case I didn't, I can only hope no one remembers it since I can't remember my username or password.

Meyer Sued

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