French copyright cops nick Harry Potter pirate

A TEEN PIRATE has been arrested by French coppers for posting his own translation of the latest Harry Potter book on the Internet weeks ahead of the official French release date.

French Potter fans were apparently sitting waiting for publishers to release a French translation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows so the 16 year-old started translating the book for them and posted it on the Interweb.

He only got as far as the first three chapters before his house was surrounded by Dementors and he was carted off to the cop shop before he could fire off a Patronus.

French newspaper Le Parisien reckons the anti-counterfeiting police discovered his translation work and contacted JK Rowling's lawyer. It is not clear if Rowling is going to throw the book at him as, at five hundred pages or so, it is a bit heavy.

However, the fact that the teen was motivated to do more English-to-French translation than he probably did in his high school English classes should mean that his sentence should be based on the number of words he translated correctly, rather than just sending him to Azkaban.

More here. µ