When the last installment of the Harry Potter book series was released on July 21, many people around the world worked to translate the book. With officially translated versions not scheduled for release until later this year, they seek to share the text with eager readers.
However, regardless of intentions, this sort of action is illegal, and French authorities took the first step in shutting it down.
According to the French media, a 16-year-old student from Aix-en-Provence was arrested on Monday after allegedly posting a pirated translation of the latest J.K. Rowling book on the Internet.
The fan was apparently too impatient to wait for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to be published in French, so he decided to translate all 784 pages by himself. According to Le Parisien, Rowling alerted her French publishers, Gallimard, to the unofficial version. Police were "particularly surprised" by its quality, which they said was "semi-professional.”
J.K. Rowling's lawyers said networks of other illegal Potter translators span the world, seeking to profit from the boy wizard's global appeal, and growing more sophisticated with every new book.
The French teenager, whose name was not released because he is a minor, was picked up Monday following a complaint from police in Paris and was released Tuesday after questioning. The boy could face charges for violating intellectual property rights.
The same problem exists in China as well. Fans who couldn't wait another three months for the Chinese version of the Deathly Hallows, decided to organize groups to translate the tome, despite the fact that translation rights and publishing rights for the Harry Potter series were exclusively obtained by China's People's Literature Publishing House.
Chinese fans managed to translate the entire book in less than a week, and put it online for sharing. After alerted about the French case, however, many Chinese translators started to worry.
A fan surnamed Gao told Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post yesterday that he was notified of the case by his friends. He is a passionate translator and worked on some parts of Harry Potter in his spare time.
"I will possibly withdraw my translation text from the Internet," he said. But he also said that there are so many pirate translators in China, J.K. Rowling's reps are unlikely to sue him next. "They'll at most sue some business websites that posted the translation."
A Fudan University student surnamed Xiao is a member of the campus Harry Potter Association. He recalled that when the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released in 2005, his association was the first to do a translation. "But Ms. Rowling knew about it, and her reps protested against our university, which created a big controversy. So we decided not to do this kind of translation this year."
Another enthusiastic Potter fan, now working at Shanghai Dragon TV, thought the online translation was sub-par. "Many pieces are flat, even just plot instructions," she said. Regarding the French case, she said that if that was for financial gain and caused damage to the publishing house, then the man should be held legally responsible.
People's Literature Publishing House is going to release the Chinese version of the
Deathly Hallows on October 28 of this year. As the biggest victim of the pirated translation, the publishing house's official said even though they tried to stop the netizens' conduct, it was a failure.
"We have been saying for years that we are going to take some netizens and websites to court, but actually we cannot do anything to prevent the pirated online translation. We don't have the online publishing rights in our hands, because Ms. Rowling holds all the Internet publishing rights."
Sun Shunlin, a director for People's Literature Publishing House, said the French case should be a warning to Chinese fans. "It is illegal to post private translations of the book online," he said. Though he understands netizens' love and passion for the book, the pirate book speculators and various websites have made use of their work for profit.
According to Chinese law, translators must first obtain the permission from an author and then pay the author afterwards if they made profits from translation.
The Chinese search giant Baidu.com, which was been constantly sued by music companies for copyright infringement, now hosts the widest range of pirated and private translations of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on its Bulletin Board System. Its reps equivocally said they would ask for lawyers' advice before starting to delete posts.
Hogwarts Translation College, the very popular Harry Potter fanclub website that finished translating in a week, has already taken down all its own download pages. The members of the club said they did the translation just for sharing and exchanges among English-learners and Potter fans.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Rui, August 10, 2007)
