So I heard about a new book series about Nicholas Flamel. You could download a free ebook for the first book in the series from Amazon for the Kindle. But the interesting thing is I remembered that Flamel was mentioned in Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. Turns out a quick Google search showed me that he is, or was, (depending on who you ask) a real person. He supposedly came into possession of a book that allowed him to turn things into gold, and make the Elixir of Life which allowed him to live forever.
Turns out what I thought was intellectual property theft is just smart authors taking real historical characters and using them in their stories.