Amsterdam, Nov 08: A Dutch court Thursday upheld a ban on any Dutch publication of a Russian children's series accused of plagiarizing the Harry Potter books, a news agency said.
The ruling could have repercussions in some 20 other countries.
Last April Dutch publisher Byblos lost its first bid to publish a translated version of the books about Tanya Grotter, a young Russian orphan with magical powers, very much like the hero of the hugely popular boy wizard Harry Potter series that has sold 200 million copies worldwide in some 50 translations.
The case was brought by British writer J.K. Rowling, author of the Potter books, and Time Warner, which holds the copyright for the two Harry Potter films and all spin-off products.
In April, the Amsterdam District Court ruled that "The Magic Double Bass", one of the Grotter books by author Dmitry Yemets which Byblos wanted to publish in Dutch translation, was an "inadmissible plagiarism" of one of Rowling's books, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone".
Yemets had argued that it was a parody, not a plagiarized version.

Byblos filed an appeal, arguing that the judge had banned publication of a work that had not yet been translated, and promised to demonstrate the difference between the two books.
Yemets' Tanya Grotter books, published by the Eksmo publishing house, have sold some 500,000 copies while a radio series has been created based on the series.

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Their popularity attracted attention abroad. They have already been translated into English and publishers in some 22 countries have negotiated with Eksmo for rights to potentially lucrative translated versions.

After Eksmo announced last year it had sold the Dutch-language rights to Byblos, Rowling's representative in London, Christopher Little Literary Agents, threatened to sue wherever Tanya Grotter is published.

Bureau Report