Knowing Snape makes it to page 600-something is a spoiler, as another poster pointed out.

Rowling could have started her book with the death of Snape, or had it happen in Chapter 2, using the death and its circumstances to fully unwind the mystery of whose side Snape was really on.

Now I know that he remains a live, critical figure throughout the book, before I read the book.

THAT is a spoiler, and you should have known better.

I cannot believe Salon published these lines:

To get the book, go to the Pirate Bay and search for "Harry Potter." You'll see several links to versions offered through Bittorrent, as well as some links to various sites on the Web that offer a PDF of all the pictures. (That's the sort I got.) Have fun!

I have never read a word of Harry Potter, but as a professional writer who feeds his children from the sale of books, I know that today is the last day my computer will ever be soiled by Salon.com and its staff of criminals. That Mr. Manjoo (and Salon.com) would defend the above paragraph because it doesn't include an actual link is beyond sickening.

I can only hope that Farhad Manjoo is prosecuted to the full extent of the law for aiding a crime in progess.

(And, if Glenn Greenwald has one ounce of integrity, he will cease his association with Salon.com today.)

Please! Please! Please! Somebody please help me! I want to read it beforehand, but i can't figure out how to download it! PLEASE!!!! HELP!!!!

i cant believe it.

if u want to noe wat i mean, (which u dont) look at rakhia's posting (guess what?)

i dont noe if its true, but it ttly ruined it for me if it is. i think that if someone wants to do this, fine, but dont go posting all this crap all over the internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it is not right!!!

-katira

"please give me any reason to stamp my little feet and get angry, or hold my breath or stomp off in a snit."

"Please take down your post, which contains no spoilers, but has the name Harry Potter in it, and if I read that sacred name before Friday I will implode."

Salon has clearly attracted some very sad, lonely people. Reading a book does not spoil the book...

I found this interesting: a survey on Harry Potter readers found that only 1/3 of them think Harry will survive the Deathly Hallows! A quarter of readers said they would seek the spoilers that have cropped up everywhere to find out before they actually read the book. I think it's a shame that avid fans would ruin the ending for themselves. But I guess people don’t think it’s really the ending: Almost half said they think Rowling will write MORE Potter books. We can only hope!

Check out the survey results here: http://www.gmi-mr.com/gmipoll/release.php?p=20070717

OMG! This article has spoiled the final HP book for me in exactly the same way that gay marriage has completely befouled the Institution of Christian Marriage. I'm totally canceling my three pre-ordered copies in protest, and I call upon all Salon readers to do the same. That'll show 'em!

Let's see:

1. People are anxiously awaiting the final Harry Potter book? Not news.

2. People like to post fakes of things like this online? Not news.

3. People like to leak the real thing online ahead of the release dates? Not news.

4. Deathly Hallows now exists as a physical book? Not news, at least not to anyone who has ever worked in the book industry.

5. Digital cameras exist? Not news.

So whether this is real or fake, it's not news simply because every aspect of it is perfectly ordinary. Dog bites man. We know this. All that writing it up does is give the perpetrator emotional wank material.

In any case, I see no point in this whole thing. It's two days. I have better things to do with two days than spend them pouring over somebody's crappy digital photos. So somebody found a way to leak the book? So what else is new? This kind of thing is expected, and the best thing to do is draw attention elsewhere.

I can imagine no bigger letdown for the poor moron who did it. Imagine if you leaked Harry Potter and nobody downloaded it!

It looks as though someone may have faked this. Amazon lists the page number as 784, and this pirated version advertises a 795 page book. fingers crossed?

To me its fairly obvious. To prevent the real book from leaking the publisher has spread several false copies containing bogus storylines.

The copy shown here is just a deliberate way of giving pirates no chance.

The publisher themselves acknowledged they spent over 20 million to prevent leaking, and spreading false copies (even going through the trouble of writing and printing those) would be an awesome way to surprise everyone.

In the chaos of the multitude of versions, the really leaked copies (if there even are ones) will be hardly recognizable and therefore are safe from publicity.

I expect that anyone who doesn't want to know the ending will avoid this letters page anyway ... but do you have to put spoilers in the subject line?

What are you, twelve?

mad-eye moody dies, voldemort dies, wormtail dies, snape dies, fred dies, dobby dies, even the fuking owl dies (hedwig), and ron marries hermione and harry marries ginny and has 3 kids...

I JUST FINISH READING THE LAST PAGE OF THE BOOK...

I need someone to explain to me how to find the downloadable file of the new harry potter book. I want to read it before it comes out but i cant figure out how to download or even find it for that matter. I tryed to follow the instructions on the original article but i came up with nothing. I'm not technical inclined so thats why i coulndn't figure it out so somebody please help me.

Some posters seem to think that Scholastic et all will now be losing lots of money because photos of the books' pages are available for download. Do you think that anyone who cares enough about this book to "read" photos of it on a computer screen will not be buying a copy? Do you think that anyone who wants to read the book but for whom the purchase price is too steep has not considered a LIBRARY?

Is Farhad maybe a little overly excited about having a bitmap copy of the full final Harry Potter three days before he could buy an actual book? Well, I think so, but it's a free country. But the folks who think he's a moral degenerate really need to get out more.