Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Aix-en-Provence

I usually support intellectual property rights, but in this case I'm not so sure:

Police arrested a teenager suspected of posting his own translation of the latest Harry Potter novel on the Internet weeks before the official French release, the book's publishers said on Wednesday.

The 16-year-old schoolboy, from the Aix-en-Provence region in southern France, was taken into custody by a police anti-counterfeiting unit and later released, said a spokeswoman for the Gallimard publishing house, which handles the French editions of the novels.

Hell, most American kids can't even write about books in their own language, let alone translating one into French. (It doesn't excuse it, I'm just sayin'…)

"It is not a young person or a fan we are talking about here -- these are organized networks that use young people," [Gallimard spokeswoman Marie Leroy-Lena ] told Reuters by telephone.

Then arrest them, not him.

The article doesn't mention how good or accurate the translation is. If the translation is not the same quality or better than theirs, Gallimard needs to drop the charges. If it is, they should probably offer him a job.

More from reason on the young wizard here.