In ever more distressing news about the fifth Harry Potter book it seems that the New York Daily News has published a few details about the plot, so JK Rowling is suing them for £60m ($100m)! Methinks someone needs to calm down, they just mentioned something about the plot in a book for crying out loud!
Now let's start with a look at a few facts and figures. The allegations are that doing so has damaged Rowling's intellectual property rights and harmed Scholastic's $3m (£1.7m) worldwide marketing campaign.
Now given that most books use plotlines as publicity I don't really see it's done much damage, and surely if talking about the plot actually does damage her IP rights then it doesn't matter if we do it before or after the publication, expect either a dose of double standards our hordes of people trying to discuss a book without mentioning the plot for fear of being sued. If indeed this is damaging how much is it costing her? Well with four books and two films behind the empire The Times say she's worth £280m which was all acquired at a time when people knew plots before publication, or indeed filming even started. Has a minor plot leak really deprived her of £60m? Has it actually even cost her a penny? I very much doubt it.
Then we have her publisher's £1.7m worldwide marketing campaign which has allegedly been damaged. Given that this was headline news on the BBC and will probably get piles of coverage from other news folk, plus people like me moaning in their blogs I'd suggest this has generated far more publicity than it's cost them. In fact with my right to reply policy we may even see an entry from a JKR in the next few days. To be honest the only plot I think she needs to worry about is the one she seems to have lost.
Of course like all good pointless litigation we get the odd great quote:
A Scholastic spokesman said the company hopedthis unfortunate situation will not spoil the surprise for millions of children around the country who have been eagerly awaiting the book.
The book was embargoed [until 12:01 a.m. Saturday] so all kids would have it at the same time, and not to spoil it for the kids,Scholastic spokeswoman Judy Corman said.
Remember folks, this is all about the kids and in no way related to grabbing any publicity they can and making as much money as possible. I'm sure we know hundreds of them who read the New York Daily News avidly and I also expect scores of 7 year olds clamoring for a copy at 12:01a.m. precisely. The fact that Rowling herself has talked about the agony of writing about one of the characters getting killed hasn't in anyway spoilt the plot though, obviously it's pretty insignificant so the kids don't need to be shielded from that part. The fact that Amazon and AOL have a clip from the audio book verion on their websites which according to the reports gives away other details doesn't spoil it for the kids either. Why? Because these are adverts, they're using the plot as advertising and then moaning when they lose even the slightest control.
I'm not opposed to advertising, nor protecting things sensibly in the courts, but be realistic! I can't decide if I think Rowling is a barking mad idiot or a greedy condescending waste of space.
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