While pirates are readying their photocopiers in India and China for the publication of the final Harry Potter book this weekend, a digital camera has already been used as a crude photocopier here in the West to publish the book illegally online.
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows is available on file-sharing sites and has already been downloaded thousands of times.
This digital version of the book consists of a photo being taken of it two pages at a time. The book – a US edition published by Scholastic – is lying on a carpeted floor and the pirate’s hand can be seen holding the pages open, an empty coke can lies on its side next to it.
With bit-torrent technology, the more people that are downloading a file, the faster it can take place, making the two-file 75-megabyte Harry Potter download possible in a matter of a few minutes.
However, fans would probably prefer to buy the book – the images are sometimes fuzzy and likely to cause eye-strain after a while. For the curious, the download may sate their appetite a little before Saturday’s launch and there are already plot summaries online and lists of the characters who die, if you really can’t wait to find out how the saga ends.
