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Yes, readers can stay away.
This is about authors and publishers whose rights get violated. Doesn't matter if the author is someone as wildly successful as Rowling. Wrong is wrong.
Is this newsworthy? Even if it is, a story on illegal filesharing did not need to actually mention the name of the site - that makes me suspicious of Manjoo's intentions. Oh yes, of course, he didn't do anything illegal - he didn't link, after all.