If it's fake, why did you post that Salon was in violation of copyright law? Or is it fake but still copyrighted? Or, perhaps, are you just a pain in everybody's tuchus?

My god you can tell the people complaining about this article are the same ones who think children's books are good reading. People, JK Rowling is already a millionaire, hell probably a billionaire. Her publishers too. If you were intrepid enough you could probably get her book for FREE at the library! GASP! In a socialist society they probably wouldn't even charge you for books at all! Because they're, like, cultural and stuff. So get over it. If I didn't think Harry Potter was for thumbsuckers I would download it a million times and distribute it for free.

And if you think those lines in the article are spoilers, you have regressed to the point of complete and utter infant drooling.

Kudos, Farhad...

it is tech, and it is 'Salon-worthy.' the amount of negative ninnies in this world, wow.. tho i feel for JK, there's a gajillion fans that will still purchase. all pieces of the pie and right in line w/ the flow of info in this modern world.

SPOILER! -

And the ending is:

Dark Helmet is Harry's father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate!!!

word up. ;)

but all of the Deathly Hallows on the P2P networks are fakes . . .

nothing to see, move along...

I went to the site to do a download and wound up going down the rathole downloading some other crap that was wigging out my virus detection. After all that, I still couldn't get it to work.

Can you write an article on how to use that infernal bittorrent format and how to download a safe copy of the executables that won't send my Norton antivirus into a snit?

This story isn't news, at least to me. Months beforehand, there were posters in cyberspace claiming to know what was going to happen. And yeah, I read a couple. But that's my own business. Surely, the average person is smart enough to scout around on the Net and find this info - true or not - out for himself. How do we really know this is a legit set-up? We can't for sure. Even before computers, there were people claiming to know the ending to the next Star Wars sequel. There will always be people who do these things. It's not news.

I agree that you didn't do a lot *directly* or *personally*, but that really dodges your real responsibility. The threat of spoilers does not only come from my choice (in this case, choice NOT) to go look at the material myself. It also comes from other people's desire--oblivious or malicious--to go look and then tell me what happens when I am not prepared and don't expect it. That's why I said you may already have done damage.

The "change the channel" argument works with TV censorship. It really doesn't work in a commons dilemma, which is what we have here. I can make all the spoiler-free choices I want, but I'm at the mercy of those who choose otherwise. Reporting news is different from enabling mischief.

Maybe this is a fraud. That would be pretty funny. I admit it's hard to imagine somebody faking an entire 700+ page novel, but I remember a news story about Harry Potter knock-offs being published in Russia. Rowling is not the only one who can write books of this size; she's just one of the few who manage to get them published.

If it's not a complete fraud, there is no reason to assume it's the final copy or that it hasn't been tampered with. Just because it apparently looks like photos of a book doesn't guarantee that it is unaltered photos of the book that will go on sale in a few days.

Eh, it's probably real. I admit I just wanted an excuse to write "Deathly Galley Proofs"

I work in a library and have also seen multiple scans of book 7 on the internet. These scans appear to be library copies of the book. The dust jackets of a sheen to them which indicates that they have been cloth protected and from past experience there seems to be no limit on what libraries do when they get the Harry Potter books. Bookstores and large libraries receive there copies at about the same time. However, bookstores deal with profits and want to keep momentum building until the day of release. They also suffer deep penalties from book publishers from breaking street dates and Harry Pooter books are, of course, no exception. I have worked in libraries for the last two Harry Potter books and from my experience and the experience of my friends around the country libraries will adhere to the street date, but this does not stop them from opening the boxes early to prep them for checkout. Some libraries even let employees read the books without checking them out. This is unfortunate and something I beleive leads to the best path to leaking the books early. I have been amazed that Scholastic has not held back on offering large libraries to receive their shipments until after the street date for something they try so desperatley to protect.

But i'm already on chapter five... and lovin' it! 'Course, I'll still buy the book when I can, since the photos are a BEAR to read (fuzzy, out-of-focus) but HELL! This be some yummy forbidden fruit.

Signed,

I Has A Bootleg Harry Potter Book/Nooo They Be Stealin' My Bootleg Harry Potter Book

That's all. Bye.

Simply have Farhad Manjoo tell you the name of websites where we can go and the procedures we can thereupon use to download music we'd otherwise have to pay for. Farhad: I really want the new Smashing Pumpkins cd but I don't want to pay for it. What's a good site?

this is a kids book, wtf dont you read some adult literature? yeah the author of the article is probably going to get salon sued, but its insane that grown adults are worried they might accidentally read some spoiler for a kids book.