14 Biggest Harry Potter Scandals of All Time

Prior to the 2001 film release of The Philosopher’s Stone (released as The Sorcerer’s Stone in the U.S.), Warner Bros. began a crackdown on hundreds of Harry Potter fan sites, demanding webmasters relinquish their domain names due to intellectual property right infringement. One such letter was sent to 15-year-old Claire Field, who ran the Harry Potter Guide (harrypotterguide.co.uk), a site about as threatening as an AOL Hometown homepage. Field and her father contacted a British tabloid, which reported that Field was “in tears” over the debacle, and a media brouhaha followed. Warner Bros. soon completely reversed its position and announced it would tolerate any fan site that didn’t seek to pass itself off as official.

A fake Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Chinese Porcelain Doll, made the rounds in China. More bogus books followed, many of which were passed off as being written by Rowling, including 2007’s Harry Potter and Leopard Walk Up to Dragon. Porcelain Doll lifted plot points from Tolkien’s The Hobbit, and in the story, Harry becomes a dwarf, loses the ability to perform magic, then morphs into a dragon: “Harry doesn’t know how long it will take to wash the sticky cake off his face,” the text read. “For a civilized young man, it is disgusting to have dirty on any part of his body. He lies in the elegant bathtub, keeps wiping his face, and thinks about Dudley’s face, which is as fat as Aunt Petunia’s bottom.” Rowling and her lawyers sued, winning a monetary award and a published apology, but copies were widely distributed and are still believed to be in circulation.

Rowling and her U.K. publisher Bloomsbury threatened to sue several major publications, including USA Today and the Daily News, for running reviews of The Order of the Phoenix prior to the official release date. Wal-Mart and other stores also began selling copies a week in advance. Two years later, Rowling and Bloomsbury sought a court order from the British Columbia Supreme Court to stop advanced bookstore sales of The Half-Blood Prince, which sparked free speech and “right to read” controversies.

Preventive Maintenance Monthly, a 60-year-old U.S. Army publication, printed a comic strip spoofing Harry Potter. The issue featured a character named Topper, a fellow who resided at Mogmarts School, which was run by one Professor Rumbledore. “At Mogmarts, wands need a light coating of LC40 once a week,” stated one adorable panel that featured a McGonagall doppelganger. “Wizards who do battle with death-eaters need to polish their wands daily … Using a dry wand in high capacity spells can lead to spontaneous combustion. Inflamousignitious! FROOSH!” PMM editor Ken Crunk claimed the characters bore no resemblance to the HP gang. (They did.) After Rowling’s lawyers began investigating possible copyright infringement, the paper agreed not to use the characters again.

Warner Bros. tried to pay the Canadian folk trio the Wyrd Sisters for the right to use their name in The Goblet of Fire. Rowling writes that a pop outfit called the Weird Sisters played a live set at a titular Hogwarts school dance. The original Sisters rejected the $50,000 Warner Bros. offered and sued for $39 million instead, trying to block the release of the film in Canada. They were later ordered to pay Warner Bros. $140,000 in court fees. The film featured Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker as band members.

Six weeks before the release of The Half-Blood Prince, Aaron Lambert, a security guard at a British book distribution center, stole two copies. He tried to sell the novels to two British tabloids, the Sun and the Daily Mirror. During negotiations with the Sun reporter, who attempted to carry out a sting and flee with the book, Lambert took out a gun and fired it. After he was arrested and out on bail, he attempted to blackmail Bloomsbury by phone. Lambert was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.