ADMIN: AOL snippet of OOP (NO SPOILERS in this ADMIN)

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 60201

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tom Wall" <thomasmwall at y...> 
wrote:
> Pippy Elf wrote, for the Administration team:
> <snip previous>
> The snippet of Book Five has now been restored to AOL and 
> Amazon.com.
> 
> However, there is still a legal injunction banning any publication 
> of Book V before midnight BST June 21 2003.
> 
> Listmembers are reminded that transcribing or quoting any part of 
> Book V on this board could be legally defined as publication. 
> Therefore, all posts quoting the text of this snippet have been 
> deleted by the Administration Team. Any further posts quoting  
> parts of this snippet will also be deleted.
> 
> Our legal understanding is that you are allowed to discuss the 
> snippet, providing you can work out how to do so without quoting 
> even one word from it.
> <snip rest>
> 
> Tom asks several questions:
> 
> One, are you referring to the spoiler information with text-
> citations that appeared in the Scholastic Catalogue?
> 
> Two, is it allowed to quote from citations that, as in the above 
> example, Scholastic (or Bloomsbury) have provided previously?
> 
<Snip>

And Pippy Elf replies:

Frankly, the situation is horribly confusing. As we understand it, 
we can only quote any part of Book V *with permission*. The publicly 
released excerpt of two paragraphs *was* released publicly, and thus 
permission to re-quote is assumed. 

The AOL/Amazon clip is different. Firstly, they allegedly didn't get 
permission in advance, landing everyone who re-quoted it in 
(potentially) deep doo-doo. Secondly, while they do now have 
permission to use the clip, no permission to *transcribe* it appears 
to have been granted. Just to play the audio clip. So we're in this 
weird situation - it seems to be fine to discuss it; but we can't 
*quote* it. Because that's transcribing it. In writing. Which we 
don't have permission for.

So the Scholastic excerpt is fine (no injunction against quoting 
their publicity material). The released paragraphs are fine. 
Listening to the audio clip on the Amazon.com home page is fine. 
Transcribing or quoting the audio clip is NOT fine. Transcribing or 
quoting any material leaked without permission in the next nine days 
is NOT fine.

On the bright side, in 8 days, 1 hour, we'll be able to read the 
entire book. Whee!

Pippy Elf