Illegal Potters abound on Web
The new Harry Potter book is leaking all over the Internet. I think that I shall decline to put in a link as to where, although I found a copy and I'm sure most people could if they looked hard enough. There are several sites publishing synopses, as well as a series of photographs of the book's pages, held out by someone's hand.
What's most interesting about this is that if any book in history should have been protected, it's this one. The publisher has used almost draconian measures with the bookstores and distributors, trying to stop even a single copy from appearing in advance of Saturday's "witching hour", when the real book will pop up simultaneously around the world in stores everywhere.
Nothing is safe anymore, IP-wise. Granted a human being had to get hold of the physical copy somewhere, but after that, it's easy to use the Web to distribute the illicit copy, regardless of it being text, video or sound. It will keep on happening and I suspect, will get much worse.
The only real solution is a new model for content sales and pricing, more liberal personal usage laws and a new and innovative approach to content encryption.
Posted on July 18, 2007
