Harry Potter and the Internet Pirates

Harry Potter is being pirated. No, really?

Imagine that the papers are questioning whether the photographed pages of the bookare real--don't the writers understand technology? Of course they are the actual pages, you morons. Now stop giving this thing publicity.

When I was fighting the legal battle against on-line piracy, all of the HP volumes to date were up and the new one was on-line within days of publication. Now someone appears to have gotten hold of the Deadly Hallows ahead of time and put it on line.

First of all, someone has too much time on their hands if they can make photographs of each double page spread and upload them. Second, they are taking up an unfair share of bandwidth to do so. Third, what kind of a blockhead wants to spoil everyone's fun before Saturday morning?

The solution for most people is DON'T GIVE EGO-BOO by downloading this crap. Unfortunately, we now have to avoid the news giving away the ending as part of this story.

It will be hard enough for people to avoid hearing what happened when they attend my Harry Potter themed birthday party of Saturday, because my son will have spent the night reading all of book 7. I won't get a chance to start it until he is done, I am sure. I expect that several other people at the party will have finished the book as well, while most will have at least started it. I intend to set a table in the far corner of the yard for those who have finished it and want to discuss it.

I do hope they find and arrest the individual(s) who did this. No doubt, there should be people fired. I spoke to a former student of mine the other night who let me know the books had already been delivered to the store, but no one is supposed to go near the boxes. It's probably a little like knowing where your folks are hiding the Christmas presents. You want to know what you are getting, but it will spoil the surprise of Christmas morning.

I'll be at Borders on Friday night. I'll be the one wearing McGonagall's hat. I'll be wearing blinders and ear-plugs until I can read the book, over which my son has dibs.