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."

Comments

More Questions then Answers

[Shakrai]

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.

Are they actually tracking people down or is this just a protective injection? TFI says "The Court Order also requires anyone who has a copy or copies of the book to return them to Raincoast immediately." That doesn't seem very enforceable.

Of course I'd return my copy for a signed bookplate in a heartbeat. Still the paranoid part of me thinks this is yet another reason to pay for everything with cash and ditch the debit card. I wonder what the legal/financial repercussions for the store will be? TFI/TFA didn't dwell on that. Will the store be sued for breach of contract or will Raincoast consider it an honest mistake? How many poor bastards will be fired by the store in an attempt to cover managements ass?

Re:More Questions then Answers

[mobets]

Looks like a publisity stunt to me. They are making a show of protecting the reliece date, while at the same time demonstrating how genorous they are. They look nice and fair and get their names and the date plastered all over the media and web for little to no money.

Re:More Questions then Answers

[nacturation]

Personally, if I had a copy (assuming that there really were copies sold, which I doubt) I'd be sorely tempted to skim through the damn thing to glean the plot, then write and publish a review of the book. What's the government going to do? Arrest me for free speech? I purchased the book legitimately and I'm writing a legitimate review. It's not as if this is a stolen item -- the fact that it was sold early is a contractual dispute between the publisher and the retailer and is absolutely no concern to me.

If someone really wanted to, they could give the book to a friend in the US where they're free to publish all the plot details. Let's see the BC Supreme Court enforce its rights-bashing injunction on a US citizen.

Of course, I probably wouldn't do that myself -- the legal bills would be quite hefty and I wouldn't relish the ensuing hassle. Plus selling that signed copy and t-shirt on eBay would net a small fortune! :)

Somebody at GameFAQs claims to have it.

[CyricZ]

Somebody at the GameFAQs.com forum claims to already have the book, and has supposedly posted content from it.

http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?bo ard=245&topic=22104343&page=0

This leak would lend credence to his claims that he does already have access to the book.

Re:Um...

[servognome]

By its actions clearly the bookstore intended a sale to take place. The customers didn't steal the books.

It's a stretch, but by breaching the contract, it could be argued the store sold "stolen" goods. The consumer then would have no right to such goods even if purchased in good faith. The publisher can require the book to be returned, or at least have a temporary injunction issued until the legal status of the books can be determined.

Of course there is absolutely no argument for the courts to prevent somebody from talking about the book. I'm a believer in copyrights, but there are limits when it comes to restricting free speech. The court should not be in a position of prior restriant. At best the publisher can sue for libel later on and have the burden of proof to show that the person's words had a quantifiable and unfounded (almost impossible to prove) impact on sales.

Market Magic

[Tom]

Witness the other side of the coin of free markets. While they create wealth and provide incentives for creativity and business sense, they also create some artifical and nonsensical rules. Time-to-market is one of those. We've seen it in the warez scene 15 years ago, when 0-day cracks were magically more valued even though the usual communication channels (disks copied on the school yard) were too slow to make an actual difference between a 0-day and a +3-day. And due to availability and timezones, it wasn't much of an indicator for skill, either (not to mention that a good portion of the 0-day cracks sucked and needed to be fixed with a later release).

Forward to 2005. Movie release dates have been crucial for a few years already, even though for all practical purposes it makes no difference. Now book release dates enter the picture. Again, no difference except for the marketing pressure that the free market has created, where immediacy is somehow a value, even where it has no actual usefulness.

So why does it matter? Because the market says it does. No other reason at all. If the king doesn't like red then you don't dress in red. If the market says (via marketing people, its inofficial spokespersons) that it's important, then you obey and the ridiculousness of it all will not become aparent until the king has fallen and our children all wonder why their ancestors didn't see that he wasn't really a god.