Dr. Richard Stallman’s Tirade Against Harry Potter
Dr. Richard Stallman's latest tirade is against Harry Potter's publishers. As you might know HP publishers in Canada acquired a court order to prevent reading of Harry Potter books before the official release date.
To punish the publisher's (in what he thinks violation of "right to read") he implores people not to buy Harry Potter books.
He says:
Everyone who participated in requesting, issuing, enforcing, or trying to excuse this injunction is the enemy of human rights in Canada, and they all deserve to pay for their part in it. Not buying these books will at least make the publisher pay.
If you just translate the environment and settings it will sound like a fatwa and maybe it is.
Isn't he in the process violating the publisher's right to sell and right to profit and more importantly the right of HP fans to read the book fresh and early?
What about the millions of fans who want to read the latest release ( Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince ) today and not wait for months to borrow it from others as he suggests. I am sure he didn't think about them.
In fact I was thinking whether I should make the long trip and hassle to buy a copy of HBP today. Now I am definitely going to buy it.
Why do I get the feeling that here is a revolutionary looking for a cause?
I think this tirade was totally uncalled for. Yes the publisher's may have gone overboard in their eagerness to prevent the story from leaking before scheduled time but they did it within the bounds of law and common sense. The book material is copyrighted by Mrs. Rowling. So she or her authorized agents can rightfully restrict distribution of the content and media within the bounds of law. In fact one of the owners of the book actually tried to sell it on ebay before being slapped by an injunction.
I wonder if he is angry because Harry Potter books are not free or are not available in public domain. Come to think of it why doesn't he suggest Mrs. J.K. Rowling to give out his book for free and charge for "services"? That will be a laugh.
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July 18th, 2005 at 11:52 am
I wonder, though, if the rights inherent in copyright include the prohibition of reading the copyrighted work. Isn’t this going a bit far? Indeed, the court injunction went even further, requiring the 14 copies of the book to be returned to the publisher. I thought merely requiring the people who had acquired the book before the release date not to engage in any distribution of the book’s content would have been more than enough.
I think here is a case where property rights and the voice of big money have overruled common sense.
July 18th, 2005 at 12:04 pm
> I think here is a case where property rights and the voice of big money have overruled common sense.
I have been thinking a lot over this issue today. I realized when you buy a book you buy the right to read and the right to the copy of the book from the common sense point of view.
I have to say such judgement is unprecedented AFAIK.
However I am sure the judge ruled within the bounds of law.
In any case it doesn’t make sense to take it on the publishers or on Mrs. Rowling and declare a fatwa prohibiting everyone from buying the book. That too is taking it a bit too far. Where I stand it isn’t much different to me than Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa of Salman Rusdie. Khomeini wanted Moslems to hurt and possibly kill Rusdie. Dr. Stallman is much softer and wants to deprive Mrs. Rowling of the legitimate sale of her book by calling for boycott. The difference between these two fatwas are in degree but not in kind.
November 21st, 2005 at 6:37 pm
There is a huge difference between a “fatwa” and a suggestion, howsoever strongly worded, to boycott a book.
A fatwa carries a lot of implications to the author of the book. It encourages religious people to attempt to harm the author. Not so this boycott call.
I think it is you who have overreacted by comparing Stallman’s words to a fatwa.
A simple request by the court to ask the readers not to divulge the contents of the book would have sufficed. Threattening violators of this request with contempt of court would have added teeth to the request.
Requesting that all copies be returned was definitely a victory for big business over free speech and common sense.