What exactly is illegal about posting scanned pages of Harry Potter book 7 online?

Question

Unless they stole the book itself... is there an actual law breaking crime happening here?

Answer 1

Copyright laws. Book isn't out (hasn't ben released) yet. How else can someone have a copy of a book if they haven't stolen it?

Answer 2

In most counties there is a copy-write laws that means if you copy any part of a book and publish it even on the web without permission from the writer you are committing a crime. It is the same as downloading song from the Internet without permission from the artist that did the song. All these people depend on the money of the sales of what they have worked on. The average book can take up to 3 even 4 years to write. Ask yourself would you like it if someone would give away something you worked on and gave it away for free? If not then you have answered your own question if it is illegal.

Answer 3

One clarification:

People who violate copyright are not subject to criminal penalties, but to civil ones. If you infringe on the copyright of work that has actually been registered with the Library of Congress in the U.S., U.S. law sets a minimum penalty of $100,000 that you own the copyright owner "per instance," plus you have to pay all the attorney's fees and court costs for both sides. Basically, get caught infringing once and the copyright owner gets to take away your house or whatever else you own. That $100,000 figure is a minimum for cases that go to trial. (Most pirates, when caught, are given a chance to settle for only a few thousand bucks, but that's because the copyright owners are being merciful.)

But pirates don't go to jail, at least not in the U.S. or the U.K.

It's worth noting that Iran is not a signatory to any international copyright treaties. Someone in Iran could scan a Harry Potter book and post it on the web, and there's nothing that I know of in Iranian law that would constrain them.

Answer 4

Copyright infringement (or copyright violation) is the unauthorized use of material which is covered by copyright law, in a manner that violates one of the original copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it. The slang term bootleg (derived from the use of the shank of a boot for the purposes of smuggling) is often used to describe illicitly copied material.

For electronic and audio-visual media, unauthorized reproduction and distribution is occasionally referred to as piracy or theft (an early reference was made by Alfred Tennyson in the preface to his poem "The Lover's Tale" in 1879 where he mentions that sections of this work "have of late been mercilessly pirated"). The legal basis for this usage dates from the same era, and has been consistently applied until the present time. Critics of the use of the term "piracy" to describe such practices contend that it unfairly equates copyright infringement with more sinister activity, though courts often hold that under law the two terms are interchangeable.


PIRACY!!

And i want to ask you... if you were J.K. Rowling and you spent 17 years in writing the HP books and then someone would just scan your book without buying it..

Answer 5

Aside from copyright infringement, pages that are on the internet now, claiming to be scanned pages of the actual Deathly Hallows book are fraudulent. They are not pages of the real book. Anyone buying the download of these pages in the belief that they have bought the actual book will have been cheated out of their money. That's called fraud, and it's illegal.

Answer 6

Yes there is. However I seriously doubt they are real. And if they are, the people may very well get caught. The books were delivered to stores wrapped in bank tape that registers fingerprints. That I know for a fact. I have already seen them. So if someone did it, they left physical evidence behind. You might want to take a gander at the US Copyright Laws. By the way, they are federal laws, not state laws, making it a federal offense. There is more than lawsuits involved here. There are theft charges that will be pressed if the thieves are discovered. Pax - C

Answer 7

Yes. It's called copyright infringement. No portion of the book may be duplicated without the permission of the publisher.

Answer 8

The material is copyrighted, therefore, Copyright Infringement, which is a no-no. Someon wil go to jail for copyright infringement, which is taken very seriously.
Only the writer can post his/her work online.
Otherwise the material is stolen.
Jail is serious!

Answer 9

To the person who threatened the poster with jail: you're full of feces, mate. A page or two is called "fair use" and does not violate copyright laws. Next time get your facts straight, sphincter.

Answer 10

yes it's called copyright - if you look in the front of every book it says "this book may not be reproduced without permission" or words to that effect. Otherwise they'd only sell one copy!