April 2003
Harry Potter triumphs over Russians
Following our report at the end of last year that a Russian author, Dmitry Yemets, had released books about a magical character called Tanya Grotter, the case has reached the courts resulting in triumph for JK Rowling.
Whilst Yemets has continued to write books based around the character that he admits to be a parody of Harry Potter, (she goes to wizard school, her parents were killed by a big evil wizard and she has a strange marking on her face) his character has spawned into somewhat of a phenomenon in Russia leading to comics, plays and merchandise. However his attempts to get the books translated and therefore launched to a Western audience, have been thwarted by the Dutch courts. An injunction hearing in Amsterdam agreed that Yemets is infringing Rowling's copyright and therefore his publishers cannot sell translated books in Holland.
In some bizarre twist of opinion Yemets saw this as a moral victory saying that he had managed to show Rowling to be scared of competition and that now the world knows that "Harry Potter had to run away from a little girl". Alternatively it could be seen that a Russian author has been prevented from unlawfully making a quick buck from someone else's ideas.