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Events and precautions around JK Rowling's latest Harry Potter book "Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince" are close to draconic. It makes sense to protect it and there is a lot of attention towards release of the book. But make some more steps in the same direction and you would have armed guards licensed to shoot everyone who gets the book before the right time.

New 'Harry Potter' book was leaked in British Columbia, Canada when a superstore sold by mistake 15 of the new books.

What follows is a bit hard to swallow in a free and democratic society - a B.C. court has ordered people who bought the book to return it immediately AND forbids anyone from discussing the elements contained in the book that they legitimately bought in a store.
See details in this CBC article.

Michael Geist writes about this:

"While that is understandable, the remainder of the court order is a bit harder to take. People have legitimately purchased the book, yet now face violation of a court order if they fail to return it immediately, discuss it, or do anything else with the book. While a court might look skeptically on an attempt to bring an action against a purchaser who fails to return the book, why the court would grant such a broad order that reaches down to the underlying purchasers suggests that this could turn into a real horror story."

It might also be interesting to read comments on Michael Geist's blog.

BBC News has a story 'Keeping Harry under lock and key' about measures aimed to prevent leaks of Harry Potter book. Apparently court orders similar to this are a regular practice in the US:

"Publisher Bloomsbury has also taken out a "John Doe" injunction - a legal order against an as yet unnamed defendant, routinely used in the US - to stop anyone disclosing information about its contents."

P.S. While the publisher tries to keep the book under the lock, all the efforts and now this leak just make the book more popular and raises public and media attention to a new level. (We've got NEWS!) I wonder if the leak is a deliberate act of viral marketing.

via boingboing and slashdot