Bad Scene

Sigh. Mere minutes after I finished the previous entry, I was reading good old Boing Boing (yes, I still read it despite my disillusionment) and saw a fourth open secret: the plot of the next Harry Potter book, coming out tomorrow. Apparently RMS is divulging plot elements on his website. Admittedly, when someone says, “There is no human right to read,” it’s a good thing to call them on it. But sheesh, posting spoilers for anything at all is simply not OK in my book.

Don’t get me wrong — I am a big fan of RMS’ “Right to Read”, and I think he’s way more right-headed than wrong-headed in things he’s said in public, which is more than I can say for most people. But I bet you if RMS had been a fan of Harry Potter, he wouldn’t have posted any spoilers, and that’s what peeves me.

Update: I tentatively clicked through the link with my eyes all squinted shut so I could find the original article with that charming quote. I didn’t see any plot details, so either RMS is innocent or he took them down (due to a legal injunction? *ducks*) I think an even better phrase is, “Property rights often trump civil liberties.” It’s interesting that in this case, “property rights” mean intellectual property, and “civil liberties” apparently means “the right to read a book you bought”.

Update 2: RMS links to the plot details (or at least a page he claims to contain plot details named “harry1.html”) on his main page. Feh.