Scholastic gets subpoena to identify spoiler

by · July 17, 2007

The LA Times is reporting that the US Harry Potter publisher obtained a subpoena to learn the identity of a user who allegedly posted copies of Deathly Hallows on a California website.

Scholastic said in a court filing Monday that “materials hosted on Photobucket.com's system” contain materials that infringe copyrights owned by Scholastic and J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books. Photobucket.com, a News Corp. unit, is a website for sharing photos and videos on social networks such as MySpace.

The subpoena was sent to Gaia Interactive Inc. in San Jose seeking the identity of a user on gaiaonline.com, a social network, according to the filing in San Francisco federal court.

Gaia complied with the subpoena, removed the material and temporarily banned the user from the site, said Gaia spokesman Bill Danon.