Is Tania Grotter thieving on Harry Potter? Verdict upcoming

The Amsterdam magistrate's court is to make a verdict today on Dmitri Yemets' controversial book, "Tania Grotter and the Magic Double Bass".

Dutch-based Byblos Publishers appealed to court against a ban on its Dutch-language version, which the company intends to put out in seven thousand copies, Baudouin Reschel, company manager, said to Novosti.

A first-instance court banned the translation, April last, after Joanne Rowlings' lawyers accused the Russian author of plagiarising on her Harry Potter bestsellers.

Tania Grotter books parody Harry Potter stories and are to be regarded as independent literary endeavours, argues Byblos. It supplemented September's appeal with a copy of the disputable book for court experts to have firsthand impression of it, while the April verdict was made without judges ever opening it.

The Yemets travesty ridicules purely Russian situations, and Western readers will be hard put appreciating the Grotter humour. It was real hard to explain its specificity to the court, complain Byblos experts.