Harry Potter In The Chamber Of The BitTorrent

One notable quality of the Internet is that it has a tendency to spoil things – movies, books, television shows…most anything really. It doesn’t matter if it hasn't come out yet “officially.” You can find it on the Internet, guaranteed.

Sure enough, the final Harry Potter book has been leaked to BitTorrent, four days before it was set to be released in stores. It started on PirateBay, but its spread to a number of other BitTorrent sites already.

I actually knew some friends who were placing bets on how soon the final Harry Potter book was going to be leaked onto the Internet. No one was naïve enough to believe that it would survive until its official release date – we knew what age we lived in, and knew that someone out there would find a way to leak it.

Stuff like this simultaneously makes me a little bit happy and then very sad. Happy, because I know that the Internet is such a resource that I can always find what I need. Sad, because I hate the feeling of things being spoiled. And the second thing that occurs right after things like this happen is that some doosh-nozzle goes around and makes it a personal mission to spoil the book for everyone possible. Does everybody remember the YouTube video of the guy driving past the line waiting for the previous Harry Potter book and screaming out the window a massive spoiler for the book, since he had found it out online? Stuff like that saddens me.

I suppose it may have been a bit hypocritical for me to use lines like “we knew what age we lived in,” but still feel remorse over things like this. The world will always be filled with assholes, and the Internet gives them so many opportunities to flex their sphincters.

My only request is that if you do read the book before its official release date, keep it to yourself. Don’t be a dick.