I recently discovered another author who... â€� Rick Riordan Q&A

MJ asked Rick Riordan:

I recently discovered another author who does mythology series along with some other series, but this author rips off other people's works, how do you feel when you see works that are clearly rip offs of your own works? I'm an artist myself and I do see people stealing my art.

Rick Riordan It's a tricky thing to determine, much less prove, whether someone has plagiarized your art. For one thing, you cannot copyright ideas, only the specific ways in which you explore and relate those ideas. Just because someone writes about mythology, or even demigods in the modern world, does not mean they could legally be charged with stealing from me, for example. They would have to do something really egregious, like naming their character 'Percy Jackson' or having their characters go to 'Camp Half-Blood' in Long Island. You cannot even copyright titles of books, so someone else could technically write a book called The Lightning Thief and there's not much I could do, unless the content and delivery was so similar to mine it was obvious. Add to this that Greek mythology itself is thousands of years old and thus public domain. Anyone can write about it, legally speaking.

All that said, occasionally we will find someone trying to sell blatant Percy Jackson merch online without permission, or content that is based on Percy's world. In such cases, we notify Disney Publishing and let them handle it.

Generally speaking, I try not to focus on things that might or might not be plagiarism, because again, it's often a gray area where I can't do much. It's best for me just to focus on telling the best story I can tell, and hoping it's good enough to rise to the top! I suppose every artist has to decide how to handle these issues in the way that makes most sense to them and causes them the least angst!

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