sepia
06-19-2005, 01:46 AM
Source; Quad City Times (http://www.qctimes.net)
Associated Press
June 19, 2005, 2:44 a.m.
When "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" comes out in July, children from around the world will line up at stores or wait anxiously at home or summer camp for their copy to arrive by mail.
But anyone looking to read the book online, at least legally, should not even try.
J.K. Rowling has not permitted any of the six Potter books to be released in electronic form, not even during the peak of the e-book craze a few years ago. Neil Blair, a lawyer with Rowling's literary agency, would only say that "this has not been an area that we have sought to license" and did not comment directly on whether pirated e-books, a common phenomena for Potter titles, were hurting sales.
"We monitor the Internet and take appropriate action," Blair says.
Rowling's choice follows an industry trend. Young people are supposedly more open to new technology, but the e-book market works in an opposite way. Adult best sellers such as Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" and David McCullough's "1776" are available electronically, but not books by Rowling and many other popular children's authors.
Read More (http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2005/06/19/features/arts_leisure/doc42b4e4aebf5bf301843672.txt)
Associated Press
June 19, 2005, 2:44 a.m.
When "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" comes out in July, children from around the world will line up at stores or wait anxiously at home or summer camp for their copy to arrive by mail.
But anyone looking to read the book online, at least legally, should not even try.
J.K. Rowling has not permitted any of the six Potter books to be released in electronic form, not even during the peak of the e-book craze a few years ago. Neil Blair, a lawyer with Rowling's literary agency, would only say that "this has not been an area that we have sought to license" and did not comment directly on whether pirated e-books, a common phenomena for Potter titles, were hurting sales.
"We monitor the Internet and take appropriate action," Blair says.
Rowling's choice follows an industry trend. Young people are supposedly more open to new technology, but the e-book market works in an opposite way. Adult best sellers such as Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" and David McCullough's "1776" are available electronically, but not books by Rowling and many other popular children's authors.
Read More (http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2005/06/19/features/arts_leisure/doc42b4e4aebf5bf301843672.txt)