Over the weekend--and this is rapidly becoming a mildly embarrassing Canadian tradition--a couple of Canadian book outlets accidentally sold about a dozen copies of the forthcoming Harry Potter novel before the worldwide launch date. Raincoast Books, the Canadian publisher of the series, joined with lawyers for J.K. Rowling to obtain an extraordinary prior-restraint order against those who had purchased the book in good faith.
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The fans who innocently purchased a copy would not ordinarily be entitled to obtain the confidential information. The injunction asks them not to keep or disclose what they obtained from unauthorized copies of the Book. This includes reading, reviewing and revealing the contents because it gives an unfair advantage over all others who comply with the on-sale date.
If I went into a store, bought something with money and took it home and read it, and it was not some controlled secret document, there is not a power in the world that would prevent me from talking about it with my friends and to hell with the government. They want details about who I talked to about the book? Screw you. The government does not own me, the Book Publisher and author does not control my freedom of speech and since I did nothing illegal, you can go jump off a cliff.
Either the store where I bought the book made a mistake, or the publisher did. They can work that out themselves, but I certainly did not break any laws in my actions and to seek legal recourse against these individuals is not acceptable in my view.
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