I Really Really Promise Judge

from USA Today:

"A handful of people in Canada got a sneak peak of the latest Harry Potter book, but a British Columbia Supreme Court judge ordered them to keep it a secret.

The book was sold to 14 people who snagged a copy of J.K. Rowlings' much anticipated Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, when it landed on shelves last Thursday at a local grocery store."

Maybe we all need a little perspective here. It's a book, a novel, a work of fiction. Everyone who wants to read it (which doesn't include me) is going to buy this book and read it.

There can't be anything intrinsically valuable within the covers of this book. Lawsuits and court orders to compel secrecy can have only one purpose: to secure the author and publisher's respective profit motives. Since the money to be made is going to be impressive regardless of leaks about the plot or any early viewing by 14 people in British Columbia, I fail to see the need for blood oaths and secret handshakes here.

And what exactly would be the penalty if one of these early readers slipped up and blurted out some key plot twist? Joining Judith Miller in jail perhaps? Counter-intuitive I think since she's in jail for NOT talking. So sometimes you're supposed to blab and other times, well, you're not.