Harry Potter and the e-book pirates

Let me preface this by saying I've never read any of the Harry Potter books. Not because I'm a philistine or a snob, but becuase I don't read much fiction, barely any fantasy fiction, and haven't read a book about children since I was a child. It just doesn't interest me. It's not because I'm heartless.

Anyway, the sixth Harry Potter book comes out on Saturday. And, like many media products with devoted fan bases, will have many 12:01 a.m. releases around the country. But it's too late. The thing's online already. And the publisher spent about $20 million to keep it secret. Money well spent? Hmmm.

So what happened? Well, someone got a hold of it, took a photo of every page and uploaded it on a bit torrent page. Then someone else scanned it in, put it through some optical character recognition software, proofread and then put it up. Who are these people? It's simple. They're fans. And mostly, the same dedicated fans who will line up Friday night at bookstores around the country to fight for their right to take home the book and stay up all night reading it. How come the publisher didn't decide, hey, maybe this is the time to release an official e-book? How come e-books aren't nearly as popular as downloading music? I think the answer is human conditioning on intake methods.

I was born in 1981. I grew up watching television on a television, watching movies in a movie theater (or on Betamax at my rich friends' houses), listening to music on the radio or on a cassette deck or record player, and reading books, you know, out of actual books. After 25 years, really only one of these methods has changed drastically, and another has changed mildly. First, I still watch movies in movie theaters, but a DVD player has eclipsed the Betamax. And second, I listen to music on my computer mostly, but sometimes still on a record player. Most importantly, I still read actual paper-and-ink books.

Partially, I think, it's because I have easily-tired eyes, and reading on a computer screen for long periods of time makes me sleepy. Second, maybe, it's because I sit at a computer for 9 hours a day, 5 days a week and when I get home, I just don't want to sit at a computer anymore. But overall, it's conditioning. I learned to read books. If I were to read the Harry Potter book, I'd be buying it in a bookstore (or on Powells.com). But I guess, if I were desperate to read it, I might download it, print it out and read the pages that way. I feel like an official e-book could have made the Harry Potter publishers a lot of money, could have alleviated the leaking problem and could have said to fans "We appreciate you," instead of saying "We don't trust you."

News coverage of this event: LA Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com.