'Harry Potter' publisher goes to court over print, online leaks

Scholastic, the publisher of the popular Harry Potter series of children's books, is taking unspecified legal action against several peer-to-peer sites, a book distributor and an online retailer over the unauthorized release of digital and print versions of the latest book, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh book in the series, is scheduled to go on sale on Saturday, but already there are pirated versions available for download from file-sharing sites, and as many as 1,200 print copies were mailed to eager fans beginning on Tuesday, the newspaper reported.

Scholastic has taken legal action against several Web sites asking the court to force them to remove the pirated electronic versions from their service, the paper said. Now, the company is taking legal action against book distributor Levy Home Entertainment and one of its customers, online retailer DeepDiscount.com, which it says breached the on-sale agreement by mailing the print copies out to people, Scholastic confirmed in a statement.

"The number of copies shipped is around one one-hundredth of one percent of the total U.S. copies to go on sale at 12:01 a.m. on July 21," the statement said, without disclosing an exact number.

A spokesman at Scholastic declined to comment further.

A receptionist at Levy Home Entertainment said executives were in a meeting out of the office and unavailable to comment. A representative at DeepDiscount.com could not be reached for comment.

[krushyou]

Yeah.

If its on the internet its over, even if they do get them off of file sharing sites the damage has already been done, its on practically any general discussion msg board.

My friend at work was going around telling everyone the ending, they gave him evil looks.

[GadgetDon]

Your brother is the problem

If he wants to read it early himself, then that's his business.
Spoilling the story for others is the reason for the security.

[dmm]

Why are you still friends...

with someone who would go around telling people the ending? What a total jerk.

[ethana2]

You can't stop it.

One of the things that goes along with the property of infinite replicability is freedom. It will escape. Period.

I prefer to stick to creative commons stuff myself. If only it was a little easier to find en masse...

[cmaxo]

Weak show of force

This seems like the publisher doesn't know what to do so let's sue somebody so we can act like we are really in charge and can handle the situation. The problem is not with the online torrent sites nor the people downloading the content. The problem is that security was weak. The problem is that someone actually obtained a copy and was able to take pictures of every single page. Punish that guy / gal. Punish the people that let the book get out in the first place. Don't punish sites that provide a legitimate service to the world. Don't punish people that are being opportunistic in getting a copy early because you couldn't secure your merchandise. Sounds like a muggle is in control at Scholastic.