French Harry Potter publisher lets teen translator off the hook
Last Updated: Monday, August 13, 2007 | 10:51 AM ET
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The French publisher of the Harry Potter books has decided not to sue the overeager high school student who posted segments from his own French-language translation of the highly anticipated final novel.
A spokeswoman for Paris-based publisher Gallimard said that, in agreement with author J.K. Rowling, the unnamed 16-year-old from Aix en Provence will not be sued, nor will the company seek compensation from him.
On July 21, the English-language version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hit stores from Peterborough, Ont., to New Delhi, India, where this young fan flipped through the seventh and final Potter book.
(Manish Swarup/Associated Press)
"The aim [of the initial police complaint] was never financial, it is only aimed to protect authors' rights," the spokeswoman said over the weekend.
French anti-piracy investigators came across what they described as the teen's "near-professional" translations of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on the internet during their probe of organized pirating networks shortly after the book's English-language release worldwide on July 21.
The teen, who was arrested and briefly detained, said that he had not sought to profit from his unauthorized translation, which has been taken offline.
Gallimard's official French translation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter et les reliques de la mort) is set to hit stores Oct. 26.
The seventh and final instalment of Rowling's blockbuster Harry Potter series sold more than 11 million copies in North America and the U.K. in the first weekend of sales.
The previous six books about the teen wizard have sold more than 325 million copies around the globe and been translated into more than 60 languages, turning Rowling into one of the world's best-known authors.
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