Scholastic Trying to Plug Web Leaks  

by Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 7/17/2007 2:55:00 PM

As hard as it is trying to keep the conclusion to Harry Potter a secret, Scholastic is being confronted by various Web sites posting what they claim is a digital copy of the book. Scholastic spokesperson Kyle Good said the publisher has obtained subpoenas to gather information quickly “to try to keep spoilers, real or unreal, off of Internet sites that fans might be on.” Although Good wouldn’t provide details, Bloomberg reported that after receiving a subpoena from Scholastic, Gaia Interactive took down a posting of the book from its gaiaonline.com site. And links posted by other sites to what they said were copies of the book have gone dead over the course of the afternoon.

Scholastic has adopted a policy of not commenting directly on the content that has appeared on the Web, and Good continued along that line. “There is a lot of material on the Internet that claims to come from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but anyone can post anything on the Internet and you can’t believe everything you see online,” Good said.  “We all have our theories on how the series will end, but the only way we’ll know for sure is to read the book ourselves at 12:01 a.m. on July 21st.”