Jeremy Herbal:
I agree that this is real news.
On the takedown issue:
I am an attorney, so I guess I’m not a “normal human” hahahah LOL. But in all seriousness, it’s an issue of incitement and encouragement. TC told readers how to infringe the copyright possibly making them a contributory infringer. It’s not the strongest case in the world, but it has some legitimacy in my mind. Telling someone how to commit a crime can be seen as incitement or encouragement. If not for TC, many people would not know how to get the infringing material.

I don’t see why Scholastic is trying so hard to silence people. If they are concerned about their book being leaked, go after the source, not the messenger. There is no reason for hostile litigation against a news outlet for reporting the news. I don’t see why TechCrunch wouldn’t be protected by freedom of the press, their news was not offensive or slander.

The picture they have of the copyrighted work should be considered fair use.

If I were TechCrunch, I would just move my servers off-shore.

I think that is where everything is going.

SoundExchange wants absurd royalties for Internet Radio; Internet Radio is moving out of the USA to servers where SoundExchange wont get royalties.

RIAA wants DRM on all of their music preventing fair use; people will get non-drm music outside of the USA.

HD-DVD wanted to silence the news about its code being broken; now everyone knows the code.

The point is, stop pissing people off. I am not going to buy the Harry Potter book just on the principle of not giving scholastic business because of how childish they are acting. Who is really going to read an entire book from jpegs . I know I for one wouldn’t.

@Ben
Thanks for the response. You confirmed my guess about where the infringement could be. It is one of those cases where I personally don’t agree with it, but I can understand where they are coming from.

Oh, and I stand by what I said. I’ve got enough lawyer friends to know you people aren’t normal.

A bunch of MORONS on this thread who seem to want to play LAWYER on TV. Christ! Do any of you have a clue about Copyright law? A page of a protected work was displayed on the site. There was no right to display it… it was stolen!

Get a clue or get a JD… but shut up already.

Although I agree with the fact that companies need to try and evolve WITH the internet it is totally asinine to honestly believe that companies should just deal with piracy because they can’t stop it. That is the worst logic I have ever heard.

“Everybody is going to steal it anyways, and if you fight to stop it they will try even harder to steal it!” That is ridiculous.

Ben:

For an attorney, your basic spelling skills are pretty “week” hahahahaha.

Moving on to more substantive matters, your characterization of copyright infringement as “stealing” and your equation of “IP” and real property have more to do with content industry PR than with actual law. Your claim that citizens have no free speech rights in the face of corporate attacks is simply repellent and inaccurate. I refer you to Post 73 above. You can sniffle all you want that people need to “grow up” and accept your interpretation of the law. but every day on the Internet your copyright maximalist views are being diminished, and there is little you can do about it except sniffle.

Doug:

I make typos from time to time … shocking.

Copyright infringement is stealing. There is no difference; you are taking something away that belongs to someone else.
Furthermore, the similarities between IP and real property are many. Although there are significant differences in some aspects, they have been equated for as long as IP rights have existed. Many judges (most notably Judge Learned Hand) made this similarity in their decisions.

Quoting you “Your claim that citizens have no free speech rights in the face of corporate attacks is simply repellent and inaccurate.” I stand by my posts. A private citizen or another corporation has rights to stop a corporation from muzzling them, but they are rarely based in free speech. I may have been a bit strong earlier with my statement that “Free Speech has a strict legal definition,” however this situation is clearly not one of the exceptions to the general principle that the government has to be the actor restricting speech.

Post 73 is mostly correct in their statements of law, but applying it to this situation is incorrect: “If the government has laws in place which make it possible for me to silence you, the government is involved. Private entities cannot coerce one another into silence without either the use of force, or the backing of government (which provides the force).” This is a fair interpretation, but in the current situation, this does not apply. If it was there would be no copyright laws because all copyright laws do is allow one private entity to stop another private entity from speaking (or publishing). So in this scenario it is misplaced.

“A free press is the primary goal of the 1st amendment, and our absurd copyright laws surely fly in the face of that goal.” This is also true, but irrelevant to the current situation. What absurd copyright laws? My problem with TC is telling the public WHERE to get it, not announcing that it is available.

Ben:

>> Copyright infringement is stealing. There is no difference; you are taking something away that belongs to someone else.

I respect your right to your own moral views, but legally what you’re saying is hogwash and you should know it. Infringement is dealt with almost entirely as a civil matter; stealing is almost always a criminal matter.

>> Furthermore, the similarities between IP and real property are many.

And the differences are many. For you to blithely talk about Scholastic’s “property” as if it were real estate, and on the other hand to insist on a “strict legal definition” of free speech indicates to me that you are more interested in propagandizing than in putting forth a consistent view of the truth.

>> If it was there would be no copyright laws because all copyright laws do is allow one private entity to stop another private entity from speaking (or publishing).

And if the other private entity refuses to stop what does the first entity do? They bring government coercion into the picture through litigation, injunctions, damages, etc. Which makes Post 73 most relevant, I think.

>> My problem with TC is telling the public WHERE to get it, not announcing that it is available.

If you have newsworthy activity, the location of the activity is part of the story. Is a local newspaper breaking the law if they publish the locations of the five most notorious open-air drug markets in the city?

TC has some level of legal expertise at their disposal. Clearly they assessed their risk level and decided the risk of your view (or the even more far-fetched view that posting a photo of a title page constitutes theft) carring the day was small enough to make it worthwhile to stand up for their principles. I expect that will probably be the end of it, except for the commentary from the peanut gallery (that would be you and me both) receding inexorably into the background….

Doug:

I will be brief since no one wants to read our bickering but:
a copyright is property, just not real property (Intellectual property). You are correct on the civil v. criminal matter, I meant stealing as a civil matter, I should have been more clear, but theft is separately both civil and criminal. I specifically backed off of the “Strict legal definition previously. I’ll defer to my earlier statements on Post 73 and the location, I’m happy agreeing to disagree there.
More plays into TC’s and Scholastics views than strict legal outcomes (as we both know) … Either way, the debate was good fun.

All the people should be protected not only a selected few. Why should some publisher be allowed to use some copyrighted excuse to ruin other people’s lives. A copyrighted excuse of some insignificant book should not be allowed to be used to trash other people’s lives. The publisher is forcing everybody to adopt and buy the format of paper and ink and book covers that they decided is more convenient to them to publish in. There are other formats out there that cost zero dollars , because it costs close to nothing to multiply a file on a computer but the publisher decided that a format like a computer file would pass too many savings to the people and the addicted customers and that would be very bad for their bussiness. We are talking about a story , a fairytale , that was inspired and converted and transposed and modified and compiled from other copyrighted stories that existed before it. It’s a story that is a copyright violation in itself and the format used it’s a format that should get no protection from any copyright laws to begin with. The way i understand it copyright laws very created to make people lives better and offer all people everywhere more options more choices more innovation and more inventions and lower prices. When some copyright excuse is being used to trash a person’s life and make it alot worse and not better just to favor some insignificant book it becomes clear that copyright laws have failed to serve the people properly. The publisher should be forced to offer that copyrighted matterial in other formats too and allow the people to pick whichever format they preffer to buy not to mention that most of the people who download files are not even interested in whatever they are downloading. The publisher deserves copyright protection only if they can prove that the format they adopted is the most beneficial for the people. A file on the computer that replicates at virtualy no cost would be more beneficial for the people and way less expensive. Of course the publisher can publish whatever they want in whatever format they want but they have no right to force/drag people to participate in their decisions or sponsor and promote those products or bussiness decisions. I want a book that costs 25 cents and is distributed over the internet. Maybe you preffer paper and plastic and you are willing to pay 25 dollars for it. Things should be way more flexible and people should be presented with happy options not court orders and copyrighted excuses.

Whatever file is spread over P2P networks has absolutely nothing in common with the original owner. The original owner of the matterial did nothing to convert the book to a different format that is way more cost effective or to deliver it to whoever or pass some savings to the people.

Here is another copyright violation for you. That book , that everybody is talking is precisely like this:
- It’s not that good …. it’s good but it’s worth only a penny ….

I just told you the entire story of the book but in a very very time compressed format. It’s still a copyright violation but it’s in a different format. Very very compressed format.

I hope you enjoyed the story and you didn’t pay too much for it.

Here is another copyright violation for all of you. That book is precisely like this:

- It’s not that good , it’s not that original , it’s only worth more than a penny and it’s a copyright violation in itself.

I just told you the entire story in a very very compressed format and that of course it’s just another form of copyright violation. Now go rape the publisher with lots of claims and force them to pay your medical bills cause you really need therapy for your addiction and your addiction is just gonna get worse if you keep reading these kind of books for too long. You can thank the publisher later.

The publisher should also be forced to release their precious in other formats that are way less expensive than paper.

@ Dawn:

I’m curious exactly -how- you got anything sexist out of ’suck it up and move on with your life.’

Congratulations. You’ve had some unpleasant stuff in the past little while, and I’m sorry to hear about it. However, he didn’t make any relative judgements on the emotional impact of a mastectomy or the loss of a spouse here … he just told you to suck it up. Get over it. Get on with your life. And what he told you to get over was not the loss of a husband or a breast. It was the utterly stupid attitude you displayed here.

Maybe you’ll find this sexist. I don’t know. I’ll cop a plea to first degree insensitivity, though. Maybe even a charge of second degree not giving a crap as well.

@ Ben, et al. :

So, then, will DMCA takedown notices be sent to the Wall Street Journal and MSN? After all, MSN actually showed the page from the Pirate Bay, as well as pages from the book …

I admit, I did read the book from the pirated website. However, I still plan to buy the book! I DL’d it to check if it was a fake, and as I read, I found myself at the end before I realized I spoiled it for myself and ruined the anticipation

I wonder, what are they giving for perjury these days?

This reminds me of the lawyer’s letter that http://www.tucows.com published on their website that they received from Gateway’s lawyer(s). They wanted the Tucows people to “immediate cease and desist” using two spotted Holstein cows on their logo because Gateway’s boxes, logos, Etc. all use the spotted cow pattern. Tucows published the letter for everyone to read just as you’ve done. Lawyers, gotta love ‘em.
– Don

Will comsume us all. shows they only care about the profits , again the bottom line is the winner. also be nice if the so called highly paid liars could use proper englisha!

Harry, the invisible hand leaves us all better off.

This whole copyright infringment crap needs to stop. First they try saying that downloading music is illegal even though you can just as easily make a copy of the cd and give it to somebody and than they say that downloading movies illegal.
Now books!!!!???? WTF?? So if you read the book to somebody without them paying are they going to be arrested for “downloading” the book (through their ears)?? And will you be in violation for “uploading” it to them. When is this going to end.
Once you buy something it’s yours to with what you want.

The whole leaks issue has threatened to overshadow the entire launch. This is something that goes far beyond Harry Potter. However, there may be a solution at hand. Check out: http://sneakybusiness.typepad......rry-p.html

Just got an “infringement notice” from them for a parody post which wasn’t even a spoiler: http://hownow.brownpau.com/arc.....nt_notice/

My summary opinion and my proposed solution:
http://dawnkey.wordpress.com/2.....next-time/

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -New Ebook -Download

This is the Original Copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
http://depositfiles.com/en/files/1280891

i have downloaded the ebook in bittorent (no i didnt find out about it here) but i also know for sure that i’m going to buy the WHOLE 7-book SET albeit discounted when it becomes available. HP is the kind that you would want in your collection so they shouldn’t really worry.

I think you were incredibly stupid
this was one woman’s LIFE and work for 17 years
she worked so hard creating a magical world & you spoiled it for her AND her true fans
don’t you realize that after you posted this, news reports online started to give away the ending. people could have ran across it accidentily and will NEVER have the joy of discovering the story through the book..
just because some books were delivered early is NO REASON to take advantage of the situation

and jacob, this was put out BEFORE the book release and is copyrighted to be kept underwraps until 12:01, july 21st

this has nothing to do with ” freedom of speech”
freedom of speech, is saying YOUR own opinion on something freely
putting a book online before its slated to be let out is STEALING and PIRACY

it is a BOOK
written by a talented AUTHOR, who has been working on this for !& YEARS
and wanted it to be SPECIAL
this is HERS, not yours!

this has been a long awaited book and we were all willing to wait for the magic and the joy of reading the final installment
at least, SOME of us
this was the last one
& someone just couldn’t wait and be respectful of other people

j.k.rowling said herself that it felt like the magic was diminished and that all the time and effort she put into it was not being respected

do you realize thatwhile she was writing:

her mother died?
she was supporting a child?
she was broke?
she juggled a job while writing?

bittorrent should be ashamed
i know i am of whoever it is
they are no true harry potter fan and millions of peoples joy was lessend
think about that