An amateur Beijing writer alleges Avatar director James Cameron plagiarized his work and said he plans to file a lawsuit, seeking 1 billion yuan in compensation.

Zhou Shaomou is a writer who claims that his book Tale of the Blue Crows, pictured above, was plagiarized in Avatar.

"Eighty percent of the plot and the key elements of the story are similar to my 1997 science fiction novel, Tale of the Blue Crows.

The obvious similarities definitely cannot be coincidence, said Zhou Shaomou, general manager of a Beijing-based hi-tech business, who also writes fiction in his spare time.

Zhou, said he spent more than seven years composing the 1.2-million-word novel, which recounts the epic journey of six astronauts to a distant planet, home to a race of blue skinned beings.

"I wrote in my novel that their space journey took them six years, but in Cameron's movie, the journey takes them five years, nine months and 22 days," said Zhou. "I was shocked when I first saw that. It is too close." 
                                                                                                       Source:China Daily