whodawannahuh?

Yesterday there seemed to be a flurry of news over the accidental early release of the new Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince book. I was really hoping that the book would make its way into the hands of a technologically savvy person. Even though there was a court injunction dealing with the release of any information pertaining to the new book, it wouldn't be that hard for someone, with a little know how, posting the book as a bit torrent file on the net. When I got home last night I search for a torrent and was able to find one of the new book (or at least said it was, you can never be certain). I started the download and headed to bed. In the morning I woke up and unzipped the file to see if the PDF contained the new book. The file seemed to contain the book, although after reading a paragraph it was obvious this wasn't written by J.K. Rowling. You could tell easily because the characters didn't act like themselves, Dudley was being nice to Harry for example. I was a bit disappointed but I wasn't expecting much, plus I have the book pre-ordered and set to be delivered this Saturday (wohoo amazon.com!) What really struck me about this book was that it was almost 300 pages long! That means some one took the time to write a 300 page fake Harry Potter book. What could make so one go to such great lengths to have written it? Are they hoping to gain something from it, or is the knowledge that people are reading you work good enough? It would actually be a good way to get some publicity and your name out there. Around the time a highly anticipated book is about to be released write a knock off of it and post it around the internet. After the real book has finally been realized people will realize your book is fake, then you can tell people it was you. If they liked reading the fake book they may realize you are a good writer and wish to read more of your stuff. Obviously this is a risky plan, people could get angry for wasting their time reading a fake book, although technically it was their own fault =p Has anyone heard of something like this happening in the past?