Harry Potter and The Seeds of Torrent
When the manuscript of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”– the seventh and final novel in the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling–was carried by hand from London to New York, the attorney for Scholastic, the book’s American publisher, sat on it throughout the flight. When it was bound and printed, the factory workers who oversaw its production were reportedly forced to work in near-darkness to prevent them from reading it. And when it was shipped to retailers, the vehicles carrying it were tracked by satellite to ensure that they did not deviate from their intended route.So what next?
Just after the book is released It appeared on Torrent servers. The versions include Photographed pages, Properly Compiled PDF, audio book etc. Thousands of people are sharing it See the below Picture for the number of seeds for The Torrent. A Simple search on Torrentz.com will be helpful to find the torrents.
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Right to read & Parody
Remember The Dont Buy Harry potter campaign initiated by Richard Stallman Last year during the release of “Half Blood Prince”. Some copies of this book are Mistakenly sold earlier by some canadian Bookstores. Then the Publishers obtained an Injuction from supreme court prohibiting the purchasers from reading the books before the official release date or from discussing the contents . Some points points Raised by stallman is Very Important even now
The right to read information in text that a company published “by mistake” can be very important. Suppose it’s not a work of fiction, but about the health effects of some of their products, or how to make a program that will interoperate with theirs. Suppose it gives information about corruption or government lies. The right to read is a right worth defending, and no exceptions can be tolerated
Still, is that more important than freedom of speech? More important than abortion rights? More important than preventing global warming? Why compare them? The comparison would be relevant if we had to choose to support just one, but we don’t have to choose. It is easy to support this campaign and others at the same time. Don’t buy Harry Potter books, and send the money you saved to the ACLU, NARAL, the EFF, the FSF, No2ID, or GreenPeace.
Parodies of Harry Potter books have been suppressed in many countries with copyright lawsuits. This is one more reason not to buy Harry Potter books. Meanwhile, it appears that JK Rowling is not content with her riches, but remains greedy for every last possible additional penny. In more ways than one she stands as a role model for copyright enforcers, and her status as a struggling single mother is often used as the analogy for the way copyright protects the rights of poor authors. While we are all happy for Ms Rowling, what is not convincing is how the example applies even after the publication of the fifth or sixth Harry Potter book, by which time the writer had become one of the highest paid authors in the world, with many millions of pounds in excess.
Thoughts on Piracy
When Torrent Networks creates an Excerpt sharing mechanism of peers, The copyright Industry is alarming about Piracy. Why “Piracy” is exists?
Piracy Exists in Society in the wide division between Copyright Industry & Informal Economy. Why a lot of harrypotter books are appearing on Our Roadside books stands for Rs 100 or 200? Lawrence Liang analyses this question in this Infochange India article By Comparing the Book Prices against average income. See the table below
ThisTable & Article Provides some Insights
One: absolute prices of books can be higher in the South than in the North.
Two: consumers in the South have to commit significantly higher proportions of their income to consume these books.
Three: if consumers in the USA had to pay the same proportion of their income towards these books as their counterparts in South Africa and India, the results would be luicrous
So Clearly pirates respond only to a market demand, and not every book is pirated. There is a particular popularity or price limit that has to be achieved before it enters into the piracy circuit. Presumably, if a book has achieved a certain status that leads to it being pirated, its author is no longer poor and struggling. And In second case, Piracy is also used as a Business Trick by the copyright Industry Itself. Just Think about Micro$oft. They are the the biggest corporate Pirate which uses Piracy as a market strategy to reach people.
Sharing & copy culture is embeded in Human History. “The Criminalisation of Sharing” (they dont have anything 2 do with attacking ships - the piracy) is clearly a new phenomenon. Harry poter & its 20$ Price is deciding the piracy here. I’m ending with a Quote from Derrida.
“The admiring fascination of the rebel can be understood not merely as the fascination for someone who commits a particular crime but that someone, in defying the law, bares the violence of the legal system or the juridical order.” - Jacques Derrida, The Mystical Foundation of Authority
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Harry Potter and The Seeds of Torrent…
Thoughts on Book Piracy , Right to read on the light of Torrent availability of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”…