If Jordan Scott could ask “Twilight” author Stephenie Meyer one thing, it would be, “Why?”
“That would be my question … the thing I would have to say to her,” Scott told MTV News in her first interview since her lawyers filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Meyer on Wednesday over claims that 2008’s “Breaking Dawn,” the fourth book in the “Twilight” author’s series, plagiarizes from Scott’s 2006 novel, “The Nocturne.”
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence. This isn’t about vampires or vampire lore, it’s about the events in the book,” she said. “From the main characters getting married and the description of the ceremonies, the feelings the characters are going through, the scene on the beach, the pregnancy and the discussion about it being a boy and giving him a weird name and the husband having to cut the baby out, the wife coughing up blood … these are not things you typically see in the vampire genre.”
New York-based copyright attorney Tom J. Ferber, who is not involved in the case, said that based on his reading of the lawsuit, it’s unclear if Scott has a rock-solid argument. “You could have a lot more similarities than those alleged in the complaint and still have no infringement unless it was the product of copying,” said Ferber, who has practiced copyright law for 27 years and agreed to review the complaint at MTV News’ request.
“There must be copying, and it must be of protectable elements,” he said, pointing to a trio of allegedly similar scenes mentioned in the suit: weddings, consummation of the marriages on a beach and then pregnancies. Without the benefit of having read both books, Ferber said his reading of the complaint makes it seem as if the scenes fall under a copyright term called Scenes A Faire, which refers to elements in a work that one would logically expect to come from a certain topic or theme.
“Talking about a lot of flowers, or a beautiful dress, or sex after a wedding … those are scenes a faire, of course you would consummate after the wedding,” he said. “I don’t know what’s special about the beach, that’s kind of a romantic place. The three examples listed as similarities strike me as unremarkable. … I would expect more context and discussion of key characters and plots.”
Ferber said that one of the key questions, should the case go before a judge is if “The Nocturne” — which was available on a handful of online book stores and on Scott’s Web site — was widely disseminated, and did it reach a threshold where you could assume Meyer could reasonably have had access to it? “If there’s not enough availability to get past that threshold, then all the similarity in the world would not get you a copyright case, unless there’s proof of verbatim copying,” he said.
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Umm, TOTAL bleeping nut job in my opinion. I don’t know her motivations and I don’t really care because I think the whole thing is a big steaming pile of BS.
A lot of vampire stories have similarities, but it’s not impossible to come up with some of the same ideas when writing about vampires. And yes, sex usually follows after marriage. Try not to be too surprised.
I think it will be laughed out of court. (at least I hope so because authors shouldn’t have to go through this unless it’s clear that they copied other work, word for word.) What do you think?
