Harry Potter and the Leaked Conundrum

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Wil's column this week dealt with a subject that has been at the forefront of my mind all week: Going off the internet. However in this case, it's not to get away and relax. Oh no, it's to boycott and shelter my poor eyes from the inevitable Harry Potter spoilers coming our way. Initially I was excited! A weekend offline out of harm's reach with a fine bottle of wine and an exceptionally full bodied book of fantasy, magic and my favorite almost legal wizard!

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And then some douche stole the book, proceeded to take photos of every single page and post them to the internet. 3 entire unprotected days before this madness was supposed to begin. With this being the very last and final book in the Potter vs. Voldemort series, after years of waiting, excitement and tenseness are at an all time high. And that only makes the others even more enthusiastic to ruin it.

At the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince release, the spoilers were everywhere, barely unavoidable, waiting to attack the innocent. In Dallas, Texas, as fans awaited the midnight release, there was a drive-by spoilering. An action very deserving of a Dolores Umbridge lapdance.

Online it was even worse. Players in World of Warcraft couldn't step into major cities without seeing yells calling out the major plot points. One player that goes by the name "Kikajar" retells his story:

"It happened while I was in Orgrimmar" he said, glancing down as his feet. "I hadn't trained in a few levels, and I needed some new armor before I logged off to start reading my new HP book. On my way to the Auction House, standing by the bank was an almost naked undead female with the name Pwngaywizardz. I had no idea. Seconds later there it was in bright red caps: ' ______ kills ______! Hahahaha Noob! Harry Potter is a fag!' I ran to the top of the wyvern tower, took off my clothes and leaped... "

5331 damage taken.

Forums were polluted with Potter spoiler threads. As soon as one was deleted, another was made, progressively getting worse until the spoilers were the thread titles. When those were instantly deleted, tinyurls in random threads were used to send unsuspecting people to YTMND pages splattered with the end of the book. This was where it happened to me. I was there for something else entirely when I finally wondered what the shit is YTMND and went to the homepage. There on the side was the top 5 most popular pages... with the main spoiler being #1.

So what are we to do? Apart from completely avoiding the internet and all media for a week surrounding the release date, there's really not much. Though I wouldn't mind invoking vigilante justice on their asses. In the case of the the Deathly Hallows early book leak, ramifications could actually occur. Possibly unknown to the leaker, images are embedded with handy Exif data containing everything from the innocuous focus mode, right down to the personally indentifiable camera serial number. While there is obviously nothing legally actionable in enabling a book's spoilage, there is however in having an authorized copy of the book! Uh oh!

This could mean trouble for not only the picture taker. Scholastic feels our spoiler pain and enforces very serious regulation as far as street dates go. Book sellers are made sign an affidavit stating they will not touch the books before that date. This counts for every book, for everyone. So if the picture taker is traced back to a book store, that particular branch may never receive another Scholastic title again. Well played!

That said, I wish all the Potter fans out there good luck in getting through their copies of the Deathly Hallows without anything being ruined. To all the joyless twats out there excitedly sending out their spoiling links: Avada Kedavra, Muggle Fucka!

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