Since I had such fun picking apart that news article yesterday, I might make it a more regular thing. This one’s not quite so nefarious, and doesn’t require to be picked apart so deeply, but it’s still interesting. J.K. Rowling, the author of “Harry Potter & the Quest to Make Millions off Books that Aren’t that Good” has issued a warning to fans not to download illegal copies of her latest book before it comes out. But the cute/clever thing is that her PR people are making it seem like she’s only trying to protect fans.

It starts out with this dynamite bit of fear-mongering:

Author JK Rowling has warned Harry Potter fans to watch out for Internet fraudsters claiming to sell electronic copies of her latest wizard saga — they are trying to steal bank and credit card details.

To me, the message here is really clear. Rowling is your friend. She’s brought you all these lovely books, and all she wants is to keep you entertained and to keep you safe. Of course, this has nothing to do with her publisher worrying that unofficial downloading will cut into sales of the book, and advance marketing plans they have.

Skipping ahead a bit. They said the publisher shut down a website claiming to sell advanced copies, blah blah, protecting their copyright, blah. Here’s something interesting:

Rowling, whose tales of a teenage wizard have turned her into a multimillionaire and revived children’s passion for reading, warned that the conmen could reappear.

“Revived children’s passion for reading?” What a bombastic claim! (Did her books also bring freedom to Iraq?) Is that something that needed to be revived? I personally don’t think so. Kids love stories and learning. It’s just fucking school that beats them out of it them. That teaches them that learning is awful and tedious and that using your mind is boring, compared to the ease of having people fill it up for you with trash.

And here is the real “money shot” of the article. They always bury the money shot about 3/4 of the way into the article at the point where people are only really scanning it anyway.

Telling fans never to trust anyone who offers downloads of Potter books, she said they could be laid open to computer viruses or hackers.

“The only genuine copies of Harry Potter remain the authorized traditional book or audio tapes/cassettes/CDs distributed through my publishers,” she added.

Bingo bango bongo! That’s what it’s all about kids. It’s a classic example of version control, and the attempts to maintain control over the canonical version of your story-system and it’s centralized distribution system. Watch out for those heretical internet pirates kids! Argh! And this is laughable:

Police suspect organized crime gangs from Eastern Europe are the main culprits.

Gangsters in Eastern Europe? Driving around in fast cars with techno blaring, toting machine guns and naked women, selling advanced copies of Harry Potter? I’m sure.

They also use the word “phishing” over and over again, to teach you that it means email fraud and attempts to illegally collect credit card data. I mean, sure, watch out for that stuff. Fine. They could have saved everybody a lot of time if they just issued this as a three sentence article instead, which says:

Time-Warner would like you to remind you that Harry Potter is a trademarked property and we are it’s authorized distributers. Also, watch out for “internet villains.” BOO!

Here’s a bit better of an article from Slate about Potter knockoffs and trademark-infringement going on around the world. Apparently, business is booming despite strict new international intellectual property laws.