Harry Potter Leaked Via Handheld Camera

owlgorithm writes "Salon reports that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been leaked four days before it hits bookstores. It turns out that someone with access to the American edition of the book has taken a photograph of every one of the pages and made them available via bittorrent. Publishers may well be quaking in their boots, but in some places the quality is barely legible. On many pages the pirateer's hands are in the pictures with other pages needing a bit of Photoshopping just to make out the words. It appears many of the sites have been removing the content, naturally enough."

Comments

So?

[Macgruder]

so? it's not like it's worth anything. Labor intensive, to boot

and it won't cost them

[geekoid]

a single sale.

Re:and it won't cost them

[seaturnip]

By now the book has been distributed widely in preparation for the release, coming into contact with large numbers of people many of which are Harry Potter fans who don't take corporate secrecy particularly seriously. This was likely to leak just as critics' movie screeners, and published-submitted videogames commonly leak.

There's no cause to believe the PR people did anything intentionally -- any marketer would have to be a total fool to attempt such a risky trick on a book guaranteed to sell millions anyway. If it backfired, his ass is fired.

Re:and it won't cost them

[seaturnip]

The sales could be a few million less than predicted by analysts -- for whatever reason, it doesn't even have to be due to the leak -- then the publisher's stock would go down, and the guy who decided to implement the wildly unconventional marketing technique would be the scapegoat. Your conspiracy theory just doesn't jibe with the cover-your-ass mentality in large corporations.

Great marketing

[future assassin]

This could be a marketing strategy. Just make sure the readable pages don't expose much of the story and make the unreadable pages contain bits of juicy writing. Just enough to make book worms salivate for more Potter action.

I should pattent this method of advertising.

Unexpectedly ruined?

[lecithin]

So, somebody MADE you read the spoilers?

Re:Unexpectedly ruined?

[scott_karana]

You don't know they're spoilers until you read them, hence "unexpected".
Christ. Pedants.

I will never understand...

[rhiafaery]

...what possible perverse pleasure anyone could get out of spoiling something wonderful for other people. I sometimes go looking for spoilers, but for something I am really, really looking forward to, I won't do it. I LIKE to anticipate, be surprised, feel the "magic," however you wish to put it. I know, so don't look, but I just can't help feeling sorry for people who walk through life with all the wonder ripped out, and feel that everyone else deserves to have theirs ripped out, as well. Whatever anyone thinks of Harry Potter, anything that encourages reading, imagination, excitement, and wonder is something worth preserving intact.

I have a Sorting Hat replica I won from hollywood.com years ago, and yes, I will be wearing it to the midnight Harry Potter party, looking ridiculous, embarrassing my kids, and loving every minute of it. LoL. Enjoy life, you only go around once.

In other Harry Potter news...

[toby]

An Insightful Guardian columnist has finally come out and said what literate people have known all along. J.K. Rowling's writing is RUBBISH.

... I don't think I'm going out on a limb here. Of course, if she has turned into a first-class writer with her forthcoming Potter book, I will happily, no, joyously, eat my words.

But until then, we have to swallow hers. ...

... Do I need to explain why that is such second-rate writing?

If I do, then that means you're one of the many adults who don't have a problem with the retreat into infantilism that your willing immersion in the Potter books represents. It doesn't make you a bad or silly person. But if you have the patience to read it without noticing how plodding it is, then you are self-evidently someone on whom the possibilities of the English language are largely lost.

This is the kind of prose that reasonably intelligent nine-year-olds consider pretty hot stuff, if they're producing it themselves; for a highly-educated woman like Rowling to knock out the same kind of material is, shall we say, somewhat disappointing.

(If you find that revelation shocking, just don't ask about Dan Brown, ok?)

Predictably, a chorus of twit commenters felt driven to argue that the Potter Phenomenon's sheer Scale and Success makes it self-evidently Valuable to Society (much like B. Gates must be an Important and Clever Person because he's Really Rich.) Uh-uh. Crappy writing is not good for anyone, just like crappy food (this may also come as a surprise to some), and on this point I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Lezard:

Children exposed to this kind of writing aren't learning anything new about words, or being stretched in any way; as Harold Bloom said, they're not going to be inspired to go off and read the Alice books, or any other enduring classic.

All the Potter franchise does, like 99% of TV and Hollywood output, is entrench the hold of pointless and mediocre culture. The only thing unusual this time, is it's Made in Britain.

Re:In other Harry Potter news...

[argStyopa]

There are two kinds of fiction readers.

1) people who enjoy tales of all sorts, and just have a good time escaping into an engaging story.

2) people who read books so that they can either be seen reading them, or can wave the experience about as some sort of intellectualist validation.

Reading - and the pleasure therefrom - is an intensely personal experience. While I can even agree with the critic's comments regarding Ms. Rowling's predictable, repetitive plotting, farcically two-dimensional characters, and generally unchallenging language, I take great exception to his second-level conclusion: that any respectably intelligent person must not enjoy the book. I agree, JK Rowlings' writing IS rubbish; that doesn't mean it cannot be enjoyable. Not every meal needs to be nutritionally constructive either.

And, it must also be said, for him to dismiss categorically the value of getting children INTO reading - getting them to understand that the words on the pages can convey a story as rousing, fascinating, or frightening as any movie or video game - is simply ignorant. I rather suspect that Mr. Lezard has no children nor really any interaction with same, except perhaps as frightening little beasts underfoot that must be tolerated when the family comes over for holidays.

Re:In other Harry Potter news...

[argStyopa]

Perhaps you missed the part where I said "Reading - and the pleasure therefrom - is an intensely personal experience"?

So you find her world cliche (I do too). While I'd agree that her writing level is extremely low (even granted she's writing mainly for children) I'd hardly call her technically illiterate. Clearly she can read, and has a modicum of writing ability - how many books have you written that have sold over a million copies?

Read my post again, and perhaps a 3rd time. There IS nothing wrong with saying a book is good or bad. The fallacy is the prescriptive conclusion: "you should/shouldn't like this ipso facto because I did/didn't".

It's really my fault: maybe I should have phrased my post to a lower reading level, and placed it in a cliche setting - then maybe it would have been clearer.

Re:The main problem...

[Ironica]

It won't be ruined. I think it's a bit of a myth that the feeling of suspense really has anything to do with not knowing a few small facts that are revealed at the end. I can't give a definition of suspense, but I know from experience that it's something you feel in pretty much the same way whether or not you've seen some spoilers, and even when you've read a book before.

Having something "spoiled" is not simply a matter of having the suspense taken away. Yes, you can still enjoy the story if you know how certain things are going to be... but you don't enjoy it *as much* as if you're figuring out things as you go along. Ever watch a movie or read a book a second time? Ever notice things you didn't notice before... certain foreshadowings, links, etc.? It's a different experience when you know what happens than when you don't.

I accidentally got the books out of order in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy; read 2/3rds of the way through Blue Mars before I read Green Mars. Then, realizing the mistake, stopped Blue and read Green. It wasn't nearly as much fun, knowing how the war would turn out and who would die and who would get captured and have a personality transplant and whatnot. (It's not nearly as interesting as it sounds; I wish I had those dozens of hours I spent slogging through the series back.) Reading the remainder of Blue Mars was much more diverting (the first 2/3rds was sort of confusing, for obvious reasons).

In fact, my husband and I have started avoiding trailers for much-anticipated movies, because even that spoils our enjoyment some. There are some movies or books that are better if you "know what to expect," but most of my favorite media experiences have been when I went in cold, knowing nothing about what to expect or what would happen.

Don't be a pretentious ass

[ChaosDiscord]

I'm re-reading the Potter books for the first time, and yes, Rowlings weaknesses as a writer do shine through.

So what?

It's still a fun series. Not every movie needs to be Casablanca; the occasional plot light, special effects heavy movie can be fun sometimes. Not every song needs to be the Ode to Joy, sometimes it's fun to just sing along to some mindless, repetitive pop. We should eat our veggies, but the occasional candy is just fine for our health and a pleasant treat. Not every novel needs to be Brave New World, sometimes I want to enjoy some light fantasy about a kid exploring a magical world.

As for the claim that Potter is somehow bad for kids, that is utter nonsense. The reality is that most American kids really don't like reading. Hell, most American adults don't like reading. Forcing them to read "good" books (for just about any definition of "good") will just make them resentful and believe that books are something unpleasant to be avoided. I believe that's why so many Americans don't read; their emotional response to books linked mandatory book lists full of books that don't interest them. I can assure you that absent the Potter series those kids aren't going to magically start reading the Alice books. Books that the kids enjoy, even bad ones, encourage kids to read, convince them that books and other long form reading can be good. They may not enjoy any given "enduring classic" (for whatever definition you like), but any kid whose made it through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix isn't going to be terribly daunted when facing 1984. Indeed, during my childhood I was strongly encouraged to read, but given wide freedom in what I read. I chose to read trashy fantasy. When I grew up and was assigned, say Madame Bovary in translation*, I blew through it while my classmates were bitching about how long and hard it was. After reading the first few Shannara novels in grade school, it was nothing. Reading begets reading. People who become serious readers tend to devour anything they can get their hands on. Maybe the bulk of their reading diet is romance novels, technothrillers, or fantasy, but they do occasionally read branch out and read other things. The people who fear books never do.

You and the Guardian writer are not enlightening all us ignorant savages that Rowling is a bad writer. No, you're just being a pretentious ass. It's not enough for you to enjoy the books you enjoy, you need to reach out and actively piss on the books other people enjoy. You're not changing anyone's mind. You're just enjoying being superior by your own tortured definition of superior. That makes you an ass.

* (Unless your goal is to make kids resent books as a source of long, boring, completely pointless crap, don't assign them Madame Bovary. I promise you that high school students will not appreciate it on any level.)

Re:And who saw that ending coming?

[harlows_monkeys]

That raises an interesting question. Is the Vader thing still a spoiler?

On the one hand, it's something like 20 years old.

On the other hand, the Star Wars movies have become pop classics, and cultural icons. Thus, it is safe to assume that many people of each generation will want to watch them, and so we should try not to spoil it.

But wait...what order will they watch them? If they start with TPM, then they are going to already know about Vader when they get to the "I am your father" scene. It is no spoiler.

However, many of them will be lucky enough to have someone tell them the right way to watch the movies. (Start with ANH, and go forward until "I am your father", then gosub to TPM, AotC, and RotS to get the story behind Vader, then return and finish the series). It would be a spoiler for these people.

I think the Harry Potter books and/or films might end up in a similar position.

The rule should probably be that for any story (whether book, movie, comic, erotic flip book, whatever), you don't give away story details that might be spoilers unless you are sure you have an audience that already knows, or won't care.

Re:And who saw that ending coming?

[bint]

However, many of them will be lucky enough to have someone tell them the right way to watch the movies. (Start with ANH, and go forward until "I am your father", then gosub to TPM, AotC, and RotS to get the story behind Vader, then return and finish the series). It would be a spoiler for these people.

No, the right way is obviously not to watch TPM, AtoC and RotS at all. And live happily ever after.