5. China Published A Harry Potter Book That Was Just Tolkien's The Hobbit With Name Changes
In a hole in the ground there lived a wizard. At least it makes a change from a cupboard under the stairs€ In 2002, a Harry Potter sequel was published in China. In English, the title was something similar to Harry Potter And Leopard-Walk-Up-To-Dragon. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Exactly like something J. K. Rowling would write... The book was essentially the text of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit but with all the names changed to those of Harry Potter characters. It didn't take long for the world (and specifically Rowling and Warner Bros) to get wind of this, and they took steps to cease its publication. In the end, the Bashu Publishing House paid one-thousand, six-hundred pounds and apologised in China's Legal Times. As of 2007, it's estimated that there are around fifteen million copies of fake Harry Potter books being circulated in China. So...they're doing a great job on curbing that.
