Yeah leave the legal stuff to the attorneys and shut it down about Battle Royale already. Having similar ideas/plots is not grounds for a lawsuit according to the law, that's already been determined by the gov otherwise we'd have frivolous lawsuits all day long. This is why it hasn't gone to court. Time to move on.

Oh, well, in that case the person who wrote BR is also a plagiarist since there have already been books/movies about strangers being forced to kill each other. In fact, let's not stop there. All books about vampires are plagiarism, since it's already been done; as are all soap operas, reality shows, books about romance, etc.

You're aware two people can come up with the same idea independently
I agree. There's no such thing as plagiarism. Every time there are two works that are more or less identical, it's not that the second person copied from the other; it's that by sheer coincidence, someone wrote a story, and then a few years later, someone else wrote a story that matched the first one in terms of characters, plot points and settings. Because that can totally happen.
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Did somebody leave the troll cage door open again?

So both happen to be teenagers. So what? The age isn't the relevant part; the fighting to the death stuff is. The characters' age is a minor detail. You may as well argue that both copied Saved by the Bell since that show had teenagers in it
If HG copied BR, then BR copied every other book/movie about people fighting to the death and simply changed the ages of the characters.

http://www.imdb.com/list/ls004083307/
LOL, posts a lists in which none of the movies are about TEENAGERS being forced by a dictatorial government to kill each other until one is left standing, according to the same intricate rules of the game found in both BR and THG.
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http://www.imdb.com/list/ls004083307/

This random-people-fighting-to-the-death stuff is not a new concept.
Name all the other stories in which innocent, defenseless teenagers are being forced to fight each other to the death for the benefit of a dictatorial government. That's exactly what both THG and BR are about. If you can point to at least one other novel that preceded both and matches this plot point for point, you can declare victory.
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By that logic, everyone who writes a book or movie about vampires would be sued, since someone else has already done it first
This random-people-fighting-to-the-death stuff is not a new concept. It's been done many times by many different people. If Miss Collins would be sued, then so would the person who wrote Battle Royal by whomever wrote about it before he did, and so would that person, and then that person, and so on. You can't sue someone for writing something vaguely similar to your product (I mean you can, but you'd have no case), otherwise everyone would be suing everyone.

I'm pretty sure if Battle Royale was in America, Suzanne Collins would've got sued.

I am a bit shocked that the book was ever published, when it is almost a carbon copy of Battle Royale.
And Battle Royale is quite possibly a carbon copy of something else. This evil-government-forces-strangers-to-kill-each-other thing has been done over nine thousand times.
Now I know that Battle Royale's author was japanese, but doesn't he have some sort of copyright protection in place, especially since he published in North America years before The Hunger Games?
Copyright covers character names, fictional place names, etc; not vaguely similar story lines; otherwise
nothing
would be published because it's already been done. How could this dude claim a copyright on the idea of random strangers being forced to kill each other when it's already been done fifty billion times? If Hunger Games shouldn't have been published on these grounds, Battle Royale shouldn't be either since it's already been done.
Even if Suzanne Collins swears that she came up with the idea on her own (and I do believe her), her publishers must have known about the books similarities to Battle Royale, yet they went ahead and published The Hunger Games anyway.
What makes you assume her publishers have even heard of Battle Royale? How would they have known this?
I mean, consider the following, keeping in mind Battle Royale was published in 1999 and The Hunger Games in 2008
And a crapton of similar books/movies released before 1999.

1. Both books feature a "last boy/girl" standing "game", in which teenagers are put in an arena and expected to fight to the death, winner gets to live.
   Already been done. Battle Royale wasn't the first and it won't be the last. Strangers being forced to kill each other is not an original concept.
2. In both books, these games are conducted by fascist governments as a way to keep an unruly population under control.
   Evil government is not an original concept either.
3. The children are chosen at random in both books. In The Hunger Games its one boy and one girl per district, in Battle Royale the combatants are all from the same randomly selected highschool class.
   So? It's only logical that they would be chosen at random (or perhaps as revenge on a particular person's family). In several of these fight-to-the-death books, the participants are probably chosen at random.
4. In both books, at the end of the day the dead players are announced by loudspeaker. The Hunger Games added the detail of having the dead children's faces put up in the sky with a projector.
   Right. When a person is eliminated from a game, it is typical for that fact to be announced to the viewers in some way, both in fiction and irl.
5. In both books, characters are killed with poisonous food.
   People being poisoned is not a new concept. Happens in fiction all the time.
6. In both books, more than one character makes it out alive, and the survivors have romantic entanglements.
   Most books targeted to women do have romance, otherwise women wouldn't read them. Men's books occasionally have romance as well in order to recruit the female demo and thus get their sales up.
7. In both books, traps drive the combatants towards one another (though the way it was handled in Battle Royale was "smarter" - instead of random disasters, people knew ahead of time which zones would become dangerous, and this allowed for deeper strategy than The Hunger Games could offer, in which "random events happen as the plot demands").
   Booby traps happen in fiction all the time.
   First, Collins' success has basically shut down any sort of big budget Hollywood adaptation of Battle Royale (which I was really looking forward to!)
   Studios do what makes money. Most people have never heard of Battle Royale until all of these plagiarism accusations started popping up. It's unlikely that production studios are going to make a movie about a book that no-one has ever heard of. Hunger Games was already quite popular, which is why they made a movie in the first place. They assumed (quite correctly) that it would make money. In fact, HG has actually given a lot of publicity to this BR dude that he otherwise would not have gotten.
   second Battle Royale was the superior work
   In your subjective opinion.
   yet never got the kind of recognition it should have
   How is anyone going to give recognition to something they've never heard of, regardless of whether it's a good product or not?
   and now probably never will, because of the popularity of The Hunger Games overshadowing it
   Not her fault. She took the time to advertise her product, so people actually had the opportunity to hear about it and read it.
   likely because Koushoun Takami was japanese and therefore not seen as worth the time to pimp in North America
   There is nothing stopping a Japanese movie studio from making a BR movie. If they haven't, then it likely wasn't popular enough so it wouldn't have made a difference regardless of where it was from.
   Basically, I think that Battle Royale was the smarter work, so in my mind it deserves more credit a

Well, I am certainly not an expert on the entirety of what has been created throughout the history of literature and film.
I can think of a few other films where characters were pitted against each other in a fight to the death, but I am not personally aware of any other works besides BR and HG that specifically fit the description from my previous post so closely, which is:
"Totalitarian government sets up a tournament pitting teenagers, both boys and girls, against each other in a to the death struggle where only one will survive. The eventual victor is used as a propaganda pawn to remind the public that the government has total control."
If there are other books or movies that also have something that specific in their plots then you will have to enlighten me as to what those are.
I just kinda wish Suzanne Collins would follow Quentin Tarentino's example. He expands on things from prior works all the time but he's honest about it. He always pays respect to the original works through his interviews and commentaries.
It's fine if she adapted a portion of her story from a previous work. She certainly expanded on the idea. HG covers a lot more ground overall than BR does. I just wish she'd give a nod of respect to BR.
And heck, who am I? I'm just a guy swipe typing on a smart phone. I'm merely expressing what I think happened. I could be wrong. It might all just be an amazing coincidence.
Overall, I have read all three Hunger Games books and I have seen all four movies. Suzanne Collins pulled off a major accomplishment with this series. She is obviously immensely talented.

There are a lot of books/movies like that. For the sake of argument, let's say she did plagiarize-why BR specifically? It could've been from
any
such product. And it's just as likely that the person who wrote BR read/saw something like that in another book/movie. There have been books about evil governments forcing strangers to kill each other since forever.

All I am suspicious of is Suzanne Collins' claim that she had never encountered either the Battle Royale book or movie before writing the first Hunger Games book.
The parts of the first Hunger Games book that specifically deal with the 74th Hunger Games have much in common with the full Battle Royale story.
Totalitarian government sets up a tournament pitting teenagers, both boys and girls, against each other in a to the death struggle where only one will survive. The eventual victor is used as a propaganda pawn to remind the public that the government has total control.
Look, you may be right, maybe Collins hit on an extremely similar setup to Battle Royale all on her own. I accept that it is possible. I have no way of knowing for certain.

Why are you suspicious? This strangers-fight-to-the-death stuff is not new. It's been done a million times before.

Short Answer: I think that The Hunger Games stands on its own two feet.
So did I.
Then I saw Battle Royale 2: Requiem

Short Answer: I think that The Hunger Games stands on its own two feet.
Longer Answer: I do find it surprising that Suzanne Collins maintains that she did not have any previous knowledge of Battle Royale. Maybe she's sincere but I am suspicious. The 74th Hunger Games sure has a lot in common with the entire Battle Royale movie.
Basically though, Hollywood has been building off of previous ideas and adaptations of foreign films since practically the dawn of the industry. I don't see the probability that the arena scenes in THG are an adaptation of BR as a shocking thing. That's what movie studios do.
Where THG breaks from BR is that it spends more time on the politics surrounding the event. In BR we're given a quick setup and then it's time to watch the kids fight. In THG the dynamics between the Capitol and the Districts play a significant role in the story along with watching the kids fight.
My gut feeling is that Suzanne Collins was well aware of BR and she set out to adapt it for American audiences while expanding on the premise. I do not see it as a scene for scene steal.

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I am a bit shocked that the book was ever published, when it is almost a carbon copy of Battle Royale. Now I know that Battle Royale's author was japanese, but doesn't he have some sort of copyright protection in place, especially since he published in North America years before The Hunger Games? Even if Suzanne Collins swears that she came up with the idea on her own (and I do believe her), her publishers must have known about the books similarities to Battle Royale, yet they went ahead and published The Hunger Games anyway.
I mean, consider the following, keeping in mind Battle Royale was published in 1999 and The Hunger Games in 2008:

1. Both books feature a "last boy/girl" standing "game", in which teenagers are put in an arena and expected to fight to the death, winner gets to live.
2. In both books, these games are conducted by fascist governments as a way to keep an unruly population under control.
3. The children are chosen at random in both books. In The Hunger Games its one boy and one girl per district, in Battle Royale the combatants are all from the same randomly selected highschool class.
4. In both books, at the end of the day the dead players are announced by loudspeaker. The Hunger Games added the detail of having the dead children's faces put up in the sky with a projector.
5. In both books, characters are killed with poisonous food.
6. In both books, more than one character makes it out alive, and the survivors have romantic entanglements.
7. In both books, traps drive the combatants towards one another (though the way it was handled in Battle Royale was "smarter" - instead of random disasters, people knew ahead of time which zones would become dangerous, and this allowed for deeper strategy than The Hunger Games could offer, in which "random events happen as the plot demands").
   And I'm upset about it, for a variety of reasons. First, Collins' success has basically shut down any sort of big budget Hollywood adaptation of Battle Royale (which I was really looking forward to!), second Battle Royale was the superior work yet never got the kind of recognition it should have (and now probably never will, because of the popularity of The Hunger Games overshadowing it), likely because Koushoun Takami was japanese and therefore not seen as worth the time to pimp in North America.
   Basically, I think that Battle Royale was the smarter work, so in my mind it deserves more credit and the author deserves all those big royalties from a hollywood blockbuster - Not Suzzane Collins, whose The Hunger Games is filled with contrivances to advance the plot for example, mutant zombie werewolves come out of nowhere to save Katniss the trouble of finishing off Cato in his battle armor, a stupid love triangle, and a shallow Mary Sue character as the lead. It's just not fair, dammit!
   Anyways, don't want to rant forever, and I've said my piece, but what do you all think? Is The Hunger Games too similar to Battle Royale? Or does The Hunger Games stand on its own two feet and deserves the praise it has received?