Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Harry Potter and the latest copyright case

Interested as I am in Harry Potter copyright cases (see for example chapter 3 of my book), I wasn't surprised to find one about the latest book (due out in a few days, midnight on the 21st to be precise). The publishers are trying to identify the person who allegedly scanned and posted some or all pages of the new book online. From AP via CNN:

"On Tuesday, digital images of what may be the entire text of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," including 36 chapters and a seven-page epilogue, were circulating among Web users. The book was apparently photographed as it lay on a carpet speckled with green and red, a hand at the bottom holding down the pages."

From the FT:

" Bloomsbury, Ms Rowling’s UK publishers, refused to confirm or deny that the download was genuine, saying: “People go to extraordinary lengths to copy these books and they have done it before.

“There are people who spend their lives doing nothing but copying the books and maybe this is what this is.”"

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