BEIJING - A plagiarism case against Hollywood director James Cameron has been accepted by a Beijing court, setting up a confrontation between the movie mogul and an amateur Beijing writer.

"I was told to go to court next Monday to provide more material," writer Zhou Shaomou told China Daily on Friday.

Zhou, the general manager of a Beijing-based hi-tech business, said he spent more than seven years writing Tale of the Blue Crows, a novel which recounts the epic journey of six astronauts to a distant planet, home to a race of blue-skinned beings. He said 80 percent of the plot and key elements of the movie Avatar are similar to his story, which he finished in 1997.

Zhou said he was prepared for a possible "long march" lawsuit.

"I don't mind. I'm OK if it takes a long time in court. And I'm even prepared that I may lose," he said.

Lu Yao, with the Beijing No1 Intermediate Court, said that it could take at least half a year for the case to be heard in court.

"Due to the fact that some accused parties are foreigners or foreign companies, it takes time to send the indictment through diplomatic channels. And if they have Chinese agents, the communication with them is also time consuming," Lu said.

This is the second time that Zhou has filed his lawsuit against Avatar. He went to the people's court in Haidian district on March 7 and asked for as much as 1 billion yuan ($147 million) in compensation, but he was turned down for providing insufficient material in his indictment.

Zhou also complained that nobody took him seriously.

But on this second attempt, he erased the sum of the compensation and reserved the right to seek economic compensation before any sentence is announced. 
                                                                                                       Source:China Daily