Plagiarism!

If he was named before Harry Potter hit the big time, then the "lad" must be closing in on 20,

Actually that would make a good license plate.

50 Shades itself started life as a Twilight fanfic, so it can't really say too much about the idea of plagiarism. I don't think you can trademark names, especially when it's a common one like Harry Potter. There's a news reporter down here and that's his name, he's in his 50's, so is older than Rowlings herself. Diana Gabaldon, who herself is an opponent of fanfic, got the name and basci background of her most popular character from Dr Who's assistant Jamie and she's also pinched the Brig's name and title from that show.

How is it there's no "mobile_carrot" in the list of authors? I wish she/he would give us the name of her/his story too.

You can't get a blanket trademark on it, but you can trademark it in regards to action figures and other toys, and any other spinoff merchandise you can picture.

It's like how McDonald is a common name, but you even if your name is McDonald you can't open a restaurant called McDonald's because someone else has already trademark that name in regards to restaurants. For that matter, you can't serve McSwill or any food starting with "Mc" because McDonald's lawyers will (and often do) argue that you doing that may confuse a consumer into thinking that you are somehow connected to the McDonald's chain.

Personally, when I reread that book the name Harry Potter jumped out at me - even though I had barely noticed it the first time I read it. Because Harry Potter is a household name, any book that uses that name will jar the reader.

Maybe 10 years from now it will be different.

Goodgulf

If you view the list of members and look for 'mobile_carrot' within the M's you'll see his author name is 'Neil'.

Thanks Febs, I'm sort of stuck with "Mobile Carrot" as a user name from Bottomlines but I call myself "Neil" (my real name) in the library and "Neil Dominik" (not quite my real name) on the Ebooks.

The story of mine I referred to is called "Summer Vacation".

Maybe I've been around too long but I get disappointed with these BDSM type novels written by vanillas - sooner or later one or both participants appear twisted, damaged, overwhelmed by dark desires, etc - yes there's lots of intense multi-orgasmic stuff but nobody ever seems to have FUN.

Of course not. They're all too busy satisfying their dark desires. Yawn.

E.L. James says she did lots of online research when writing SOG, yet it seems she never really understood it.

What is really sad is that she is now working on a writing guide.

Send me your title, too MC
islandcarol