I had heard about the fake Harry Potter phenonomanon before, but read about it again in today’s New York Times’ article, “Chinese Market Awash in Fake Potter Books” :
“The iterations of Potter fraud and imitation here are, in fact, so copious they must be peeled back layer by
layer. There are the books, like the phony seventh novel, that masquerade as works written by Ms. Rowling. There are the copies of the genuine items, in both English and Chinese, scanned, reprinted, bound and sold for a fraction of the authorized texts. As in some other countries, there are the unauthorized translations of real Harry Potter books, as well as books published under the imprint of major Chinese publishing houses, about which the publishers themselves say they have no knowledge. And there are the novels by budding Chinese writers hoping to piggyback on the success of the series — sometimes only to have their fake Potters copied by underground publishers who, naturally, pay them no royalties.”
Not everything made or sold in China is fake or pirated, but the Chinese government and Chinese society is going to have to figure out that short-cuts in the long-run will hurt China, even fake books.
About John
I'm a Taiwanese-American and was born & raised in Western Massachusetts, went to college in upstate New York, worked in Connecticut, went to grad school in North Carolina and then moved out to the Bay Area in 1999 and have been living here ever since - love the weather and almost everything about the area (except the high cost of housing...)
