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The Pirate Bay Accused of Distributing Harry Potter
July 19, 2007
Two days ago, TorrentFreak broke the story that “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” was leaked online. The leakage arrived in perhaps the most bizarre format ever seen in the annals of prerelease history. Someone went through the daunting trouble of photographing every last page of the book, a reported total of 759 pages.No matter which way you look at it, the determination and discipline required to photograph 380 pages (759 pages divided by 2 pages per shot), plus the inside jacket, table of contents, prologue, epilogue, and other non-story related pages is considerable. The typical digital camera takes one shot every 1-3 seconds, plus the additional 2-3 seconds required either turning the page or repositioning the camera. There’s additional time required to check the outcome of each photograph (another 2-3 seconds), which likely led to many long hours of mundane work.
The reaction to the prerelease has been nothing short of saturating. Every mainstream and backwater news organization has been covering this event, with reaction to the leak decidedly mixed. J.K. Rowlings UK publisher Bloomsbury has been publicly skeptical of the leak, neither confirming nor denying its authenticity.
“While we don't consider it appropriate to comment on the authenticity of specific spoilers, we would repeat our caution to everyone to treat such purported leaks with speculation,” a Bloomsbury spokesperson told Slyck.com. “Such rumours abound with every Harry Potter book, and we have seen countless examples of so called "spoilers" over the last 4-6 weeks. It is very easy with modern technology to mock up examples of book pages and indeed we have seen several different versions of the same chapter already - all of which look very realistic and even bear illustrations.”
Conversely, the Internet community has all but accepted the authenticity of this leak. Although it’s conceivable that someone when through the trouble of Photoshopping every page with fan fiction, then going through the addition effort to make such fiction appear in hard copy, the overwhelming working theory is that this is real deal. It reportedly cost the publishers of Harry Potter nearly 20 million dollars in security to prevent this very issue – however it seems this has gone for naught. This fact even drew the ire of MPAA president Dan Glickman.
“Reports on the theft of the latest installment of Harry Potter underscores that robbery of intellectual property extends far beyond the movies, to music, publishing, computer software and other creative outputs that are the foundation of our modern information economy.”
Since there was clearly an embargo on the distribution of this physical work, it could be argued the term “theft” aptly applies. But who was responsible for this theft? Was it the individual who broke the embargo? The BitTorrent protocol? Or perhaps The Pirate Bay can be used as the scapegoat?
There’s some debate where the book first appeared. Because of its mainstream infiltration, BitTorrent has been largely credited as the initial source of this leak. However the leak has also appeared on Usenet as well. Regardless of its initial source, the leak appeared on several BitTorrent sites such as Demonoid, Mininova and countless others. Most have removed the torrent link, as for some reason Harry Potter deserves more respect than other work.
In any case, there’s been one notable exception to the takedown frenzy occurring on the multitude of BitTorrent sites. That exception of course is the notable BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay. As a result of its renegade response, an overwhelming portion of the “blame” has been directed at The Pirate Bay, especially from the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.) In a press release issued today, the IFPI directly blamed The Pirate Bay not only for indexing the torrent, but for facilitating its distribution.
“The Pirate Bay, an international engine of illegal file-sharing, is accused of facilitating the distribution of pre-release copies of the latest Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in a move that has been criticised by publishers Bloomsbury. Author J.K. Rowling has previously asked people to respect her embargos and described those who ruin others enjoyment as “sad individuals."
“John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of IFPI, comments: “The Pirate Bay has a long history of facilitating the distribution of pirated music on the internet, harming artists, composers and record producers. It would appear that the publishing industry is now also being hurt by the operators of The Pirate Bay who show no respect for creativity or intellectual property rights.”
Welcoming the publicity, a new themed logo has appeared on the Swedish tracker, taking the form of “The Pirate Bay and the Torrents of Fire”. Like most theamed logos, the image links directly to the torrent in question. The Pirate Bay responded to this release, and expressed their exception to the IFPI’s interpretation of their operation.
“It's slander - We respect creativity as hell,” The Pirate Bay spokesperson “brokep” told Slyck.com. “Just look at our legal threats! We love creativity. I don't know how creative it is to cling on to a business model that lost its edge 10 years ago though.”
At the end of the day, there will be a lot of blame, finger pointing, rolling heads and snickering over the leak of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. However there’s one thing that’s rarely exemplified, and that’s over 2 million copies of Harry Potter have been preordered through Amazon. Very few Harry Potter fans will go through the effort of reading a poorly documented prerelease, especially those looking to complete their hard copy collection. Will the prerelease hurt sales? Likely just the opposite, as the old adage, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity…” – and indeed there’s been overwhelming publicity – is only driving the Harry Potter frenzy.
Since there was clearly an embargo on the distribution of this physical work, it could be argued the term “theft” aptly applies. But who was responsible for this theft? Was it the individual who broke the embargo? The BitTorrent protocol? Or perhaps The Pirate Bay can be used as the scapegoat?
There’s some debate where the book first appeared. Because of its mainstream infiltration, BitTorrent has been largely credited as the initial source of this leak. However the leak has also appeared on Usenet as well. Regardless of its initial source, the leak appeared on several BitTorrent sites such as Demonoid, Mininova and countless others. Most have removed the torrent link, as for some reason Harry Potter deserves more respect than other work.
In any case, there’s been one notable exception to the takedown frenzy occurring on the multitude of BitTorrent sites. That exception of course is the notable BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay. As a result of its renegade response, an overwhelming portion of the “blame” has been directed at The Pirate Bay, especially from the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.) In a press release issued today, the IFPI directly blamed The Pirate Bay not only for indexing the torrent, but for facilitating its distribution.
“The Pirate Bay, an international engine of illegal file-sharing, is accused of facilitating the distribution of pre-release copies of the latest Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in a move that has been criticised by publishers Bloomsbury. Author J.K. Rowling has previously asked people to respect her embargos and described those who ruin others enjoyment as “sad individuals."
“John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of IFPI, comments: “The Pirate Bay has a long history of facilitating the distribution of pirated music on the internet, harming artists, composers and record producers. It would appear that the publishing industry is now also being hurt by the operators of The Pirate Bay who show no respect for creativity or intellectual property rights.”
Welcoming the publicity, a new themed logo has appeared on the Swedish tracker, taking the form of “The Pirate Bay and the Torrents of Fire”. Like most theamed logos, the image links directly to the torrent in question. The Pirate Bay responded to this release, and expressed their exception to the IFPI’s interpretation of their operation.
“It's slander - We respect creativity as hell,” The Pirate Bay spokesperson “brokep” told Slyck.com. “Just look at our legal threats! We love creativity. I don't know how creative it is to cling on to a business model that lost its edge 10 years ago though.”
At the end of the day, there will be a lot of blame, finger pointing, rolling heads and snickering over the leak of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. However there’s one thing that’s rarely exemplified, and that’s over 2 million copies of Harry Potter have been preordered through Amazon. Very few Harry Potter fans will go through the effort of reading a poorly documented prerelease, especially those looking to complete their hard copy collection. Will the prerelease hurt sales? Likely just the opposite, as the old adage, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity…” – and indeed there’s been overwhelming publicity – is only driving the Harry Potter frenzy.
This story is filed in these Slyck News categories
BitTorrent :: Trackers/Indexers
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