It’s amusing, in a sad and cynical kind of way, how readily newspaper men have lapped up the stories of piracy surrounding today’s release of the final Harry Potter installment Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Of course it’s possible that someone who had access to the book took individual photos of each page and published the entire thing on the Internet just to spoil the “surprise” ending of the story (by the way, if you want to know the ending prior to tonight’s midnight release, just read this Washington Post article and it will tell you exactly where to look.
The Potter Empire was certainly taking a risk trying to protect the “secret” ending of a book that’s a part of such an enormous franchise. In fact, isn’t it, well… predictable that it would be pirated and published in some way to the Web? And is it possible that like many recording artists who now “bootleg” their own material and then use it to market their releases, that feeding this information to the Internet on the very eve of the book’s publication is actually part of an Internet marketing campaign?Is it cynical at all to believe that the 36-chapter conclusion to the Potter saga was deliberately released to the Internet audience immediately prior to the release of the book in order to whip up the “will Harry die?” marketing ploy that’s being used to sell the book? Do you really know any Harry Potter fans who will *not* buy the last book because it’s been pirated on the Internet? …Something that virtually anybody who buys the book can do tomorrow anyway?
Sure I’m cynical, but I get a little tired of the traditional media always labeling the Internet as a spoiler, or as being a vast network of pirates and thieves conspiring at all times to undermine their somehow-more-legitimate publishing efforts. In this case, I believe we are seeing the effects of a coordinated marketing campaign, not the dark magic of the Internet.
