Stephenie Meyer Vindicated: Lawsuit Dismissed!

A few months back we covered the story of Jordan Scott (aspiring singer,songwriter, screen writer, model, novelist, actress) who claimed that Stephenie Meyer plagiarized Breaking Dawn from Jordan Scott’s novel The Nocturne.  We posted a case by case analysis as to how (aside from the obvious fact that the texts bore little resemblance to each other) that this was impossible based on copyright dates and other factors.

This was the second story regarding plagiarism in 2009. The first story about Stephenie plagiarizing a college roommate’s story was an Internet hoax completely without merit.

Well it looks like a judge agrees as to what we thought all along about Jordan Scott’s claim. Hachette Books, the parent company of Little Brown that publishes the Twilight Saga novels, released this statement:

“The Honorable Otis D. Wright II of the United States District Court has ruled in favor of Stephenie Meyer and Hachette Book Group and has dismissed with prejudice Jordan Scott’s claim of copyright infringement.

In his ruling, Judge Wright stated that the two works have little in common and that the “characters in the two works are vastly different.” The decision admonishes Scott for “the deceptive presentation of the alleged similarities” and notes that she “has twice manipulated aspects of the subject works in order to create the appearance of similarity.”

While an attempt to ride on someone else’s success may not be surprising, it is encouraging that the courts and the public are not so easily misled.

This judgment confirms what we have known all along – Breaking Dawn is a wholly original work by Stephenie Meyer and this was a frivolous lawsuit brought for the purposes of publicizing the plaintiff’s personal publishing aspirations.  Hachette Book Group and Stephenie Meyer are pleased to be able to put this case behind us.”

Breaking Dawn Plagerism Claim Disputed

Today various gossip sites published a story that an author named Jordan Scott is accusing Stephenie Meyer of plagiarizing Breaking Dawn. A quick Google search reveals Ms. Scott’s website and her modeling aspirations.

Ms Scott’s bio states:

As a musician and singer, I have worked in the entertainment industry since I can remember, but I became serious about my writing when I graduated high school at age 14.

When I was 15 I began writing The Nocturne Trilogy, after I took some time away from writing music and working in film and television. I wanted to write a character-driven story with characters who seem to “live and breathe” on the pages. I wrote The Nocturne with the intent of bringing readers into a completely new world of the fantasy and romance genres. And now I have completed it, after more than three years of intense research, character development, writing, rewriting, editing, and writing a little more! I hope you guys enjoy it.

I commenced studies in a Harvard University Psychology program when I was 17, after which I wanted to major in Film and Theater, and transferred to UCLA. So these days I divide my time between music, college, and writing.

I have an award winning script, and three other scripts in various stages.  Wow

I love school, writing, music, and of course Boys.

In response, Stephenie Meyer’s representatives have released the following, unedited statement:

“The claim that Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer somehow infringes on an alleged book by someone named Jordan Scott is completely without merit.  Neither Stephenie Meyer nor her representatives had any knowledge of this writer or her supposed book prior to this claim.  Ms. Scott’s attorney has yet to furnish us with a copy of the book to support this claim as requested.  The world of The Twilight Saga and the stories within it are entirely the creation of Ms. Meyer.  Her books have been a phenomenal sensation, and perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising to hear that other people may seek to ride the coattails of such success. This claim is frivolous and any lawsuit will be defended vigorously.”

Loose fantasy ideas are not copyrightable, otherwise all vampire fiction would have stopped at Bram Stoker. Neither are loose romance plots copyrightable, or Harlequin would not be a leader in romance.  Part of the book in question is viewable on Ms Scott’s website as a Google document. Upon examination, in our clearly biased and in our non legal opinion, the type of word-for-word lifting and exact modeling of character and circumstance that need to be present for a copyright case to have merit is simply not there.