Schoolboys face legal action over Harry Potter translation
July 7, 2003 at 11:01 AM ET
Cheeser
HPANA (via Ananova)
From Ananova:
Four Czech schoolboys could face legal action after they posted an unofficial translation of the new Harry Potter book on the Internet.
Marek Mojzik said he and his friends decided to post the translation so Czech fans did not have to wait to read the story in Czech. The official translation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is not due to appear in shops in the Czech Republic until next January.
Most of the translation was done by Marek's friend, who only gave his name as Lukas, while two other schoolfriends helped out too. The friends, all aged 14, have already posted the first 19 chapters on their website and plan to post the rest soon.
While the Czech publisher is trying to stop the teens from continuing to publish translations on the Web, he wasn't surprised. "We warned them that we should release the official Czech translation at the same time as the English language books because this could happen but they took no notice," he said. "I don't see why readers here should have to wait such a long time."