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Harry Potter's 'Half Blood Prince' Leaked
darkonc writes "The CBC is reporting that about 15 copies of "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" were accidently sold at a 'Great Canadien Superstore' in a suburb of Vancouver BC. The Canadian Distributor, Raincoast Books managed to get
an injunction prohibiting the people who recieved the books from talking about them and demanding that they return the books to Raincoast until Friday. To add a carrot to the stick, raincoast is offering various goodies including a signed bookplate."
This stuff is starting to get ridiculous. It's a book FFS, not an issue of national security!
So "Real Canadian Superstore" (CBC article) is the same as "Great Canadien Superstore" (/. submission)? No, really. I'm not being sarcastic. I'm curious.
Don't you mean the ARM? Analog Rights Management? Harry Potter isn't going to be released as an ebook.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
I'm sorry, but how do you prohibit the sale or providing information about a book that you PURCHASED, regardless of the date it's supposed to be released?
Am I missing something, or does that seem even more retarded than something our court systems would do?
Blake
How do you think a book store "accidentally" sold 15 copies of a book that was widely publicized to be released at a later date? And if they accidentally released it early, why did only 15 copies sell?
XaNk: now I remember why I hated the girls in high school
XaNk: because none of them would talk to me
Seriously, if I were the employee who screwed this up, I'd sleep with a pistol underneath my pillow. Everybody knows the big boss man isn't too forgiving of fuck ups like this.
Oh, wait... Harry Potter books? I thought we were talking about an international shipment of premium grade heroin.
Who the fuck cares about some Harry Potter books coming out a little early?
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Does this strike anybody else as more than a bit creepy? Ok, fine, the kiddies don't get to hang on to their precious prerelease copies, whatever. But, a court imposed gag order? They sell me something, in error. They then have an injunction put out ordering me to return it and forbidding me to talk about any part of it, presumably under some sort of penalty? WTF?
It'll be a lovely day indeed when the DRM enthusiasts we know and love from the electronics world start doing this. Hey kid, is that PSP hackable? Report to the distribution center for immediate impound of noncompliant device; a compliance officer(courtesy of Uncle Sam) will be along to assist you shortly.
I can't fathom why anyone would think these are the first 15 copies that have been taken.
These books are sitting in the back of thousands of stores across the world. Does anybody seriously believe that not a single stockboy managed to get into the box? No bookstore owners or managers thought they'd get a head start on the book?
Yeah, I know steps were taken, but come on. Nothing described there was magic.
I've read a lot of negative comments about the Harry Potter series here, and even more 12 hours ago when the story was on fark, but for all of you who haven't had a chance or desire to read one of the books, stop by the local library and give one a chance.
The stories are not high-brow literature, nor are they intended to be. They are, however, good fantasy. The storylines are entertaining, and they have a fair bit of depth to them. The world is also deep, and pretty self-consistent. The books are humerous on many levels, and also at times a bit more insiteful than they are perhaps given credit for. A lot of the themes that started to emerge in Order of the Phoenix, and that will likely escellate in Half-blood Prince are especially pertinent today. (Although perhaps the death-eater/nazi comparison is more obvious, there are subtle but interesting parallels between the situation with voldamot and his followers and more modern things such as terrorism.) The books contain interesting moral delimas and gray areas (the position of the house elves, S.P.E.W and the take of the other characters offers interesting parallels to the philosophy of neitzsche for example) and are also just plain a lot of fun.
I think the biggest problem with the Harry Potter series is that a lot of people will overlook it BECAUSE it's so popular. I know that I avoid things that are fairly popular because I think that in general the masses have terrible taste, and if most people like something, then I'll probably think it's crap. Luckily I did check out Harry Potter and found that in this case, the public was right, the books are good, and maybe other people who have avoided it for the same reason might find that they too enjoy the stories.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
I don't think Raincoat or Rowling has much concern about some individual fan reading the book couple of days early. But the injunction will help in preventing media getting hold of a copy and printing spoilers all over the place.
Regardless of whether or not this was done on purpose, the publishers are going to milk this as long as they can. They are the publishers after all. That means that it is their profession to make as much money as they can on books. This book, although having amazing presale numbers, has had a lot of its marketing power stolen by the recent bombings in London. Such a tragic event has taken away any idle news coverage which would have instead been directed at Harry Potter. The people in charge of marketing are doing whatever they can do get the public's attention back on the books.
Its pretty simple psychology they are using. Humans desire that which cannot be had, and if this book is being protected by the CIA, FBI, and Mafia, then it must be the greatest book ever.
Oh and I'll be @ my local barnes and noble 10 pm friday night waiting in line, and then will have a contest with a few friends to see who can finish it first. No joke. People who make fun of the books as childish simply cannot appreciate a simple fun story
Most of this is going to sound redundant, but I'm something of an insider for Barnes & Noble at least so maybe someone will find this enlightening.
The book IS going to be hugely popular. Nobody is denying that. And 15 leaked copies on the other side of the world aren't going to hurt any of your local bookstores.
BUT... Harry Potter is huge. Many B&N stores are receiving 4 times as many copies as are reserved, and the number of reserved copies per store is freakin' huge. Keep in mind some stores are getting considerably more than just 4 times as many. When the book goes on sale at midnight, stores will be in the midst of a whole Harry Potter festival of sorts - games and activies based on the books, other areas of the stores (music) will be closed, etc etc. The book is going at 40% off, and it's expected to sell out almost instantly regardless of the seemingly obscene number of books being shipped. We're talking multicolored wristbands designate lines that stretch outside of stores, fire marshall occupancy limits (which doesn't happen too often in the bookstore world), and full staffs working into the wee hours of the morning and starting again the next day.. The release of this book is as big as Star Wars, and I don't say that jokingly.
So back to the problem - it's been said many times already that if the strict on sale dates didn't exist, some stores would get crushed and others reap huge rewards based purely on shipping or handling that may or may not have been under their control. Imagine if Star Wars was slated for 8 theaters in your area, but only 2 of them had it for the first 2 weeks - that would have huge effects on those theaters for a long time to come. Same idea. I won't even get into the price premium that could be charged by the few stores that, by chance, got HP early.
So for those 15 leaked copies on the other side of the world, in and of themselves they are a non-issue. However, if nothing is done, it sets a precedent for the strict on sale date being unimportant, and then you've got the fiasco mentioned above, and THAT is why they can't be ignored.
Of course there are marketing and hype concerns, that's a given, but this is much about protections for stores (of all sizes) as anything else.
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
Oh yes it is. My guess is within 24 hours of the official release.
One wonders why these publishing houses don't sell their own e-book at a reasonable price and soak up most of the demand for the 'unofficial' copy.
It IS ALWAYS management's fault, that's what they're for, to be responsible for fuckups. That's why they get paid more and why they get to sit around on their fat lazy arse all day long..
They get given some work to do, delegate the work to a lower level employee, supervise them as much as required. If they lower-level employee fucks it up then it's the managers fault for not supervising enough/giving it to the wrong person/not supplying training/employing an idiot/etc/etc/etc
So shut up.
This court order would be manifestly illegal, and henceforth void.
All of this shit just because Hermione finally dies in this book.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I don't see how they can possibly do anything to the people who bought the book. (besides attempt to bribe them) It was legally sold to them, in good faith, with no agreement of any kind, other than "you give me book, I give you money." Even if they did have your name from a credit card recipt, they shouldn't be able to to jack about it, and if they tried, they should be on the receiving end of a harassment lawsuit.
The only ones legally liable are the stores that sold copies early, who have broken a written agreement with the publisher. (they should...er... get the book thrown at them?)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I learned from the **AA and SCO
You don't buy a book, you buy the permission to read it.
[;-)]
1. One should not accept responsibility without commensurate power. One is setting oneself up to fall on a sword then. Because if something you are responsible for screws up, it *is* your arse they should be hunting. Hence the word "RESPONSIBLE".
2. "...used to have a culture where management never took the heat for anything..." - I submit that we still do largely have this culture, especially in the middle and upper management (not so much as team leaders and the like). CEOs can pile-drive their company or rape it for good looking financial markets and bad long term value and then what do they get? A nice big multi-million dollar severance cheque. Not exactly sure why you figure this is 'used to' versus 'currently'?
You should never accept responsibility (which means you *should* be called to account in the event of a bad outcome) if you don't have the power to go with it, to control and influence the situation sufficient to give you every opportunity to avoid the bad outcome. Because then, if it happens, either you were lazy, had bad judgement, or otherwise failed to take appropriate steps.
I agree you shouldn't hold powerless people to account for things they could not know nor could not control. Yet at the same time, when I hear Gagliano up in front of the public saying he couldn't reasonably have known about the millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars being illegally spent in his department, when he *is* SUPPOSED to be the RESPONSIBLE person, I can't help but say 'why did you take the job under those circumstances?'. Crown Ministers, CEOs, etc. should never accept a slot that assigns them more responsibility than power to change things and direct them - responsibility should be exactly commensurate with your ability to control things. Where you haven't got that control, you shouldn't accept the responsibility. The fact that you do so should not mean you are immune to consequences - maybe you'll know better next time!
At the same time, manager who try to foist responsibility for deadlines, etc. off onto their employees who had nothing to do with creating the timelines, should not reasonably expect the employees to accept that responsibility. If the company management had actually wanted buy-in and acceptance of responsibility (you can't, in my view, be forced into responsibility - you must accept it willingly), they would have involved those who they wished to make responsible in the decision making process.
It is just this confusion about responsibility (and the attempt to disclaim it or assign it without commensurate powers) that has led to the nightmares in the private and public sector which we see grace the evening news of late.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."