Harry Potter 6 e-book already being pirated!

Funny, after all this, how can Rowling or her publishers still claim that E-book business is a "niche market" not necessary to approach?

[hacker]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Only because lawyers say so. The end result is the same: You have a paper copy and an electronic copy.

Well, lawyers and Copyright Law of course.

What you have is a paper copy you paid for, and an electronic copy you did not. Its the same law that protects you from going into a public library and photocopying pages out of a book there for reference. Though thousands of people do it, it isn't allowed. The same goes for duplicating pages from a newspaper, or rewriting parts of articles found in printed media for including in your "blog", etc.

[TadW]

Interesting screenshots attached

[volwrath]

I would buy it just to give credibility to the format. I've bought about 4 DRMed MSReader books and 3 eReader format books. Nowadays I'd rather buy MSReader books

[gadgetguru]

Pirated or not, the leaked version will not make A dent in HP's sales. Most of the fans who downloaded the ebook would probably get a print version too as an ebook is not a 'collectible' and true fans just have to have the physical form of the book.

HP5 was copied, proofed, and uploaded in quick fashion too...If I'm not wrong,, it was HP5 that make distributed scan/proofread mainstream for must-have books.

I believe all six HP books exist in ebook format somewhere, but unlike movies or music, ebooks are still not as easy to read as printed books. Save for portability, printed books still gives a better reading experience (except when reading under the sheets with a flashlight). Pirated HP ebooks hasn't stop Ms. Rowling from becoming the richest person in UK (net worth $1B and increasing with every book sold), eclipsing the Queen.

Still, I will buy a printed copy this coming week. Ebook availability or not. I was just wondering if buying a printed copy will allow me to keep a electronic copy on my PDA... does fair use allow that?

[hacker]

Originally Posted by gadgetguru

Still, I will buy a printed copy this coming week. Ebook availability or not. I was just wondering if buying a printed copy will allow me to keep a electronic copy on my PDA... does fair use allow that?

No, it does not, since you did not obtain the electronic version through legal means.

[volwrath]

Originally Posted by gadgetguru

...but unlike movies or music, ebooks are still not as easy to read as printed books. Save for portability, printed books still gives a better reading experience (except when reading under the sheets with a flashlight).

That is obviously your opinion, but there are many that will disagree with you. Frankly ebooks are superior in everyway as far as I am concerned. You read HP from that big thick hardbound book, while laying on the couch. Ill read on my pocketpc.. Oh well at least you will get more exercise.

[volwrath]

For all practical purposes, Alexander, you are correct.

There is an eReader (pdb) version of hp6 posted on ***. It appears to be based on the torrent mentioned in the opening post. However it includes cover art and chapter links.

[Chaos]

It would be an interesting case in court, to say the least.

"I copied this entirely by myself." vs. "You downloaded this."

I don't know how they could actually prove one way or the other... Any ideas? Maybe if you left the ebook site in your history... But even then, it's not conclusive. "Oh, I just found that website one time... What? It's illegal?"

Some interesting quotes from the book can be found here:

http://paperlined.org/obscure/halfbloodprince.html

The interesting thing about that page, of course, is that under the recent MGM v Grokster ruling, links like this are probably illegal in some cases:

http://google.com/search?q=%22Her+in...in%22&filter=0
http://google.com/search?q=%22frogli...ig%22&filter=0

While the underlying Google data remains completely legal. This is especially notable since the vast majority of the work done here is on Google's side (eg. the URLs comprise less than 100 characters, while Google has enormous databases on a huge amount of hardware dedicated to fulfilling this request).

Some interesting eDonkey stats over at this site:
http://www.ratiatum.com/p2p.php?article=2257

[doctorow]

Is it actually true that we are allowed to make electronic copies of the hardcover books that we bought for ourselves?

[sUnShInE]

I love how copyright arguments become these overdrawn moral debates. I guess law is like that regardless... but without a full explanation of the law, no one can answer these questions and so consumers are left to make their own decision as to what is moral.

You can actually see the same craziness going on with ebooks that messed up the record industry. Because the commercial sector would not provide for consumer demand (ie, selling mp3s on the net), the public took it upon itself to distribute their own copies. Similarly, because the publisher won't release the ebook version, people are creating their own. We don't have a p2p for these small files, so we use IRC.

Will this result in major litigousness by a strong book lobby? I certainly hope not. I hope they're smarter than that and learn that consumer demand is important. The market and the public keep asking, "Who the heck wants to read a book on a device? They'll always be a need for paper books!"

Oh yea? Tell that to the newspaper industry.

Incidentally, I logged onto a nefarious IRC channel when Order of the Phoenix came out just to see how quickly they were able to produce the book online. When you think about it, all you need to do is unbind it and drop it on a good photocopier and you've got a ready-made ebook in about 5 minutes (give or take). Someone should point that out to the head of Scholastic.


.02