The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Harry Potter, Penguin and piracy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 17, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Harry Potter, Penguin and piracy

Special Correspondent

A legal team has been hired to prevent piracy of the new Harry Potter book

Bangalore: The Harry Potter hoopla continues. At first it was the movie. And now it is the book, which is being guarded closer than the nuclear button what with pirates having that extra gleam in their eyes.

Penguin Books India and Bloomsbury are going all out to prevent the sale and distribution of pirated copies of the new marketing superstar, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final instalment of the Harry Potter series, in In dia.

J.K. Rowling’s much awaited book is being released on July 21 — at 6.30 a.m. to be precise — and the publishing phenomenon has already garnered advance bookings of 2.4 lakh copies in India alone, according to a press release from Penguin and Bloomsbury.

Precautions

A legal team has been commissioned to prevent copies of the new book being pirated on publication. The firm, Aca-law, will be working with the police closely to counter piracy.

Vigilance cells will be set up around the country and there will also be a 24-hour helpline number to ensure immediate action, should a case of piracy be reported.

In addition, the services of leading intellectual piracy investigators, IP-Boutique, have been retained to keep a watch on known offenders and pirate business locations.

Book piracy is a major malaise faced by the publishing industry in India.

Piracy robs authors of the rightful remuneration of their work and also cheats consumers who are presented with a substandard product carrying an established brand name.

Many such copies have text missing, faulty binding and defective covers.

Many copies seized recently in anti-piracy raids by Aca- law have shown that these are produced using materials that are potentially hazardous. Moreover, pirates very often employ child labour to sell books.

In the past few years, the Publishers’ Association (UK) and the Association of Publishers of India have been addressing the issue of piracy in India.

The Harry Potter anti-piracy drive is an extension of that initiative. This will be the biggest anti-piracy initiative undertaken by a publisher in the country till now, and may help towards the eventual eradication of book piracy in the country.

The anti-piracy hotlines at Penguin India are 09818010044 and 011- 26499936.

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