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."

More Questions then Answers

[Shakrai (717556)]

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 (101759)]

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

[by Anonymous Coward]

...reliece...

WOW.

That took my breath away.

Re:More Questions then Answers

[sgant (178166)]

he was modded "Interesting" not for what he had to say, but for how he spelled what he had to say.

Re:More Questions then Answers

[sadtrev (61519)]

"reliece" ?
Tut Tut - I thought everybody knew
I before E except after C

Re:More Questions then Answers

[Strokke (772031)]

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

Mr. Cruise? Is that you?

[spun (1352)]

How you doin' with those thetans, Tom? Give my regards to Xenu when your head finally explodes from all the mental dissonance.

Re:More Questions then Answers

[outsider007 (115534)]

Of course I'd return my copy for a signed bookplate in a heartbeat.

I'd try to trade mine for sex first, and if that didn't pan out, I'd take the bookplate.

Re:More Questions then Answers

[nacturation (646836)]

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! :)

Re:More Questions then Answers

[Linker3000 (626634)]

Ok, I'll stick my neck out:

My review:

Something evil threatens Harry. His friends tag along for the adventure. Malfoy is an asshat. Dumbledore says some words of wisdom. Hagrid gets into some form of trouble but comes good in the end. Ron just about cocks up every spell he trys. Hermione is a swat (but kinda cute). Someone tangles with a mythical beast. It's a fight to the death but Harry and his friends come good in the end - oh and someone is not who they seem to be ...hmmmmmm!

Either that or they all go on a nice picnic and the lemonade is especially agreeable.

At least down here

[hummassa (157160)]

This court order would be manifestly illegal, and henceforth void.
All of this shit just because Hermione finally dies in this book.

Grammar Nazi

[patio11 (857072)]

"More Questions then Answers" needs a comma in the middle, and indicates narration of events in time (first more questions, then answers). "More Questions than Answers" means the number of questions was greater than the number of answers. Always use than for comparisons, kids. Incidentally, you probably meant "preliminary injunction" rather than "protective injection".

Re:More Questions then Answers

[godders (517242)]

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.

Re:Management responsibility

[kaladorn (514293)]

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.

Everthing I learned in life

[WormholeFiend (674934)]

I learned from the **AA and SCO

You don't buy a book, you buy the permission to read it.

[;-)]

So much for the DRM

[jerw134 (409531)]

Scholastic won't be very happy about this...

Re:So much for the DRM

[grammar fascist (239789)]

Don't you mean the ARM? Analog Rights Management? Harry Potter isn't going to be released as an ebook.

Re:So much for the DRM

[RPoet (20693)]

No, actually DRM [slashdot.org]. Just old-fashioned DRM.

Re:So much for the DRM

[DrXym (126579)]

Harry Potter isn't going to be released as an ebook.

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.

Stupidity

[tymbow (725036)]

This stuff is starting to get ridiculous. It's a book FFS, not an issue of national security!

Spoilers!

[Alaren (682568)]

Indeed. I have a hard time understanding why this is such a big deal. The book is written. It's published. It's largely distributed. Sell it!

Spoilers? Hard to accidentally come across spoilers, honestly. Someone else in the world owns the book one day before you do? Cry me a river, for heaven's sake. That's just insanity.

It's like using region encoding to fix DVD prices; I'm not a strong supporter of Intellectual Property laws, but I'm comfortable giving artists certain special priveleges regarding their creations. If you don't want a book to be sold until a particular time, don't ship it to resellers. As far as I'm concerned, once you've released it to the stores, the stores should be able to sell it on their own terms.

Re:Spoilers!

[Kaboom13 (235759)]

Distributors used to hold shiping books until the release, so store got their copies and could sell them the same day. The problem is shipping problems/delays meant some stores go their copies early and some got theirs late. The stores that got them late lost out on a lot of sales, and stores that got them early quickly sold out. So the solution is the stores enter into a voluntary agreement (if they do not agree the books arent shipped until after the release date) that they recieve it early, so shipping problems/delays can be fixed before release, and they hold the books until the release date. The arrangement benefits the store more then the publisher (the publisher generally makes the same amount of money no matter which particular store sells it) and customers who can depend on their favorite store having it on release day. Of course some people break the agreement through greed or just by accident and the publisher does it's best to minimize the damage. These agreements aren't oppressive schemes by the publishers, they actually benefit everyone. Stores that don't like it can take their chances.

Re:Spoilers!

[gregbaker (22648)]

I have a hard time understanding why this is such a big deal. The book is written. It's published. It's largely distributed.

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 [slashdot.org], but come on. Nothing described there was magic.

Re:Stupidity

[st0rmshad0w (412661)]

Uh, I don't follow. So a few copies were sold in advance, big woop. If the series has such a high sales growth trend do you really believe a few advance copies would destroy that? And so what if it did? The most logical reason for that outcome would be that the product sucks and perhaps the creater doesn't deserve the expected returns.

But please don't let me get in the way of any cultist fanatics or anything.

Follow much? Thin the herd!

What are you talking about?

[Alaren (682568)]

You're not being clear. Why would you be steamed? Because someone sold the book you sold them so they could sell it? Wait, because they sold the book before you actually wanted them to sell it.

Wait, so, why? Just how many copies do you think will no longer sell just because someone sold a few "early!?" It's ludicrous! Think about other forms of entertainment and tell me how ridiculous this sounds:

"Well, they showed that film five days early to a couple of critics out in LA. Guess no one will go see it."

"Oops! We released our video game a few days early to a handful of dedicated fans. That ought to really eat into profits."

"Oh no, the hurricane prevented comic shipments to Florida this week! Releasing the issue in the rest of the U.S. is really going to kill sales in Florida!"

It's ludicrous. People are going to buy this book. It's going to be hugely popular. The release date doesn't matter! But as someone pointed out earlier, they blow this all out of proportion just to generate more media. No such thing as bad press. T

(As an aside, these days, seems like there's no such thing as relevant, important news, either. I can think of a lot more important things to worry about (and tie up the court systems with!) than a children's book leaking a handful of copies four days before go time.)

Re:What are you talking about?

[wibs (696528)]

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.

I'd be seriously tempted...

[FFFish (7567)]

...to publish the first and last chapters.

Using ROT13 encoding.

Somebody at GameFAQs claims to have it.

[CyricZ (887944)]

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 [gamefaqs.com]

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

Re:Somebody at GameFAQs claims to have it.

[HyperChicken (794660)]

Page 31 of that thread: "he admitted to lying."

I'll take the word of someone who is saying someone is a liar over the word of someone who is saying they are telling the truth.

For the record, you're all liars.

Frostbitten laws

[waynelorentz (662271)]

Raincoast Books managed to get an injunction prohibiting the people who recieved the books from talking about them

O.K., so from now on I'm no longer going to listen to any more crap from any of you Canadian Slashdotters criticizing free speech in America.

(Now watch the Kanucks and Newfies mod me into oblivion!)

Whatever will we do?

[nate nice (672391)]

Literature for 10 year olds is "leaked"! Now the kids will have no interest in reading! When I was 10, I never read a book that was older than 3 days. Someone has to pay for this.

The Stolen Text

[venicebeach (702856)]

Hermione grows up. [veritaserum.com]

Re:The Stolen Text

[gibodean (224873)]

You can download the .mov file without requiring the browser plugin from :
http://www.kontrabandcontent.co.uk/1/graphics/movi es/harry_potter_SNL1.mov [kontrabandcontent.co.uk]

I tried firefox, but that didn't start downloading, so I tried "net transport" and that started downloading it fine. It's 11MB.

Um...

[Ibanez (37490)]

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

Not that retarded...

[Kjella (173770)]

...let us say I (A) have an unpublished work, and someone (B) gets hold of a copy of my work, then sells it to a third party (C). While C might have acted in good faith, A can still use the courts to make sure his unpublished work isn't de facto published without consent.

Replace A with Mrs. Rowling, B with the bookstore and C with the lucky buyer. I imagine the bookstore does not have authorization to sell it until the release date, and so the book is in legal terms still considered unpublished. Unpublished works have great protection in copyright law, as they should have.

Kjella

Re:It's actually more stupid than that...

[Kjella (173770)]

You may want to check your own law [cornell.edu]. A work is not considered published until it has been published in some form. That it has been printed with the intent to publish is not sufficient. You may also want to read Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. The Nation Enters [findlaw.com] for a ruling by the Supreme court where the Nation obtained a printed copy of Ford's memoairs before release, much like this case.

You may note that a) it is considered unpublished, despite having changed hands because it was not officially published and b) the Supreme courts holds that the "right of first publication" counts extremely strongly against fair use. That means that the people who have recieved the book have no right to quote even small bits. The Nation used 300 to 400 words. So I wouldn't be so cocky if I were you.

Kjella

Re:Um...

[Thanatopsis (29786)]

Um sorry that's not quite right. By selling the book, receiving funds for it and providing the goods for the funds, a sale has taken place. By its actions clearly the bookstore intended a sale to take place. The customers didn't steal the books. The goods are the consumers. The publisher can certainly sue the retailer for breaking the street date but that's something entirely different.

Re:Um...

[servognome (738846)]

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.

how did this happen?

[colton cummings (887877)]

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?

Good Lord, Have Mercy...

[dominion (3153)]

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?

Re:Good Lord, Have Mercy...

[by Anonymous Coward]

Harry Potter's coming out? About freakin' time! I mean, it's been pretty obvious since day one that he's got a thing for Ron, so it's now a big deal anyways... Oh wait, "Harry Potter books"!

Can't ... help myself... must make obvious joke

[by Anonymous Coward]

"Harry Potter's 'Half Blood Prince' Leaked"

Which explains why he had only half his blood....

Yes, yes I'll be here all week...

Re:Can't ... help myself... must make obvious joke

[EvilMidnightBomber (778018)]

Yes, yes I'll be here all week...

You misspelled "I'll get my coat"

At least

[NitsujTPU (19263)]

this one wasn't listed under IT and Security

I have the book in possesion

[gulfan (524955)]

This comment contained copyrighted text and was removed at the request of the copyright owner under the terms of the DMCA.

To bad..

[alfrin (858861)]

Its a real shame, there doesn't seem to be a bittorrent for physical objects...

Harry Potter Good

[miyako (632510)]

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.

Market Magic

[Tom (822)]

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.

injunction?

[v1 (525388)]

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?)

Re:Here are the 32 Chapter titles

[pegasustonans (589396)]

Oh! Oh! Me too! Here goes:

1. Pupkins and the Warblesnarker
2. Pupkins meets his DOOOM!
3. Pupkins and the snupkins
3. Harry meets Pupkins
4. Pupkins meets his DOOOM! revisited
5. Harry meets his DOOOM!
6. Hermione meets Harry's DOOOM!
7. Hagrid gets Sloshed
8. Hagrid meets his parents
9. Hagrid meets his DOOOM!
10. Pupkins strikes back
11. Flubugern drives the hollyhock
12. Herk smacks Hagrid with a fish
13. The Verisimilator
14. The lint remover
15. Hagrid beats Harry with a smock
16. Hagrid apologizes in the nude
17. Harry kisses Hagrid accidentally
18. Frumpalorn engorges Dundathor with an Archaeopteryx
19. Bimballon disgorges an Apteryx into Harry's Christmas stocking
20. No More Wimbledoots!
21. The Wozzlies get Trashed
22. Harry and the evil menace of badness and evil
23. Harry and the evilorn menacorn of baddnessalorn
24. Death to the smilies
25. Reflective Slapping Contest
26. Tournament of the Snail Lord
27. The Final Finality of DOOOM!
28. Pupkins gets beaten with a tire iron
29. Hermione gets sloshed
30. Froophthet and Znoosed
31. Harry goes on the rampage
32. Happy Iron Kettle and the Twisted Wrench