Suit Says New Harry Potter Book Heisted
The new Harry Potter book doesn’t officially debut until Saturday. But lawyers are already in court over what appears to be a bootlegged copy whizzing around on the Internet.
Photos of what appear to be actual pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—with someone’s fingers visibly holding the book open as they are taken—are at issue in a lawsuit filed yesterday, reports the New York Times.
But illicit viewers shouldn’t take the apparently bootlegged Harry Potter book as gospel. At least three different versions “look very convincing” but have “conflicting content,” says Kyle Good, a spokeswoman for the book’s U.S. publisher, Scholastic Corp.
The suit, filed in federal court in San Francisco by Scholastic over use of the Photobucket.com file-sharing site, has resulted in a subpoena. It seeks to learn from Gaia Interactive Inc. the identity of a guest who allegedly posted illicit material on the San Jose, Calif., company’s Gaia Online social network, reports the Los Angeles Times.
A Gaia spokesman says the company has complied with the subpoena, removing material from its Web site and banning a user in response.
