As sales of the six novels in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series pass the 300 million mark–not counting the six copies shoplifted by a violently impatient German fan–perhaps it’s inevitable that a small gray cloud should appear on the franchise’s horizon. Canadian folksters The Wyrd Sisters are demanding $40 million from Warner Bros. because they’ve heard Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which opens next month, features a band with the same name (it was called Weird Sisters in the book). They’re also suing the band members–including Pulp frontman Jarvis Crocker and members of Radiohead–and seeking an injunction against the film’s release in Canada. According to their lawyer, “If everybody knows Harry Potter’s Wyrd Sisters, we can’t go out and find new fans because people are going to see us and go, well who are you? Some people are going to think we’re ripping them off.”
For its part, Warner told a Canadian music magazine the band in the film won’t even have a name, possibly because an early attempt to buy off the folksingers failed miserably. Funnily enough, the band didn’t seem to see a problem when an animated miniseries called Wyrd Sisters aired on British television back in 1996, or during subsequent North American airings. Maybe that’s because they knew it was based on a Terry Pratchett novel published in 1988…two years before the band started playing together. Which isn’t to say one necessarily believes the Wyrd Sisters ripped off Pratchett; after all, he was blatantly swiping from a not-exactly-obscure play.