I'm familiar with the term "piracy" as it relates to eBooks - either genuine eBook files being distributed online, or regular books where someone has sliced off the binding and fed the whole thing into an automated scanner.  These things are bad, agreed, but they seem so… pedestrian… compared to the Chinese unauthorized Harry Potter books!

Turns out, Harry Potter is as popular in China as he is here in the United States.  And Chinese publishing companies are not about to waste that opportunity!  This hilarious article looks at 11 different Harry Potter pirate manuscripts.

The worst of these is literally The Hobbit, but with Harry Potter.  As in, someone took a file of The Hobbit and then just did a find and replace on some of the names.  (Except for Gandalf, who is left intact.)

The best of these are basically novel length works of fanfic.  With a strong pro-Chinese message, of course.  Like Harry Potter and the Chinese Overseas Students at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in which six Chinese exchange students who are sent to Hogwarts at Dumbledore's request.  Unsurprisingly, the Chinese students do an amazing job, and save the day.

This is a common example of self insertion, which is where the author writes themselves into the story.  (I remember a certain prolific fanfic author who placed herself on the bridge of the Enterprise, and wrote fanfic stories about how awesome she was.  I wonder what she's up to these days?)

Other works are more sophisticated.  I have to admit having some curiosity about Harry Potter and the Half Blooded Relative Prince (which has nothing to do with the genuine novel of a similar name).  Harry is bored with Hogwarts so he transfers to a magic school in China, where he BECOMES EVIL.  Do the Chinese students at the school defeat Harry?  You know the answer to that one.

Unlike the other Harry Potter knock-offs, this is one that has a lot of real promise.  My biggest problem with the Harry Potter books was that Harry Potter could do no wrong.  He was handsome, and smart, and good at sports, and if he didn't always get the best grades it only added to his charm.  I really started to hate that guy, who I could never see as anything other than a cardboard cut-out of himself.

But an evil Harry?  Yes, I would pay money for that!

Fanfic has been a hot topic lately.  John Scalzi, one of my favorite authors, wrote a work of fanfic and then successfully sold it to Tor.  Has that ever happened in the history of ever?  I'm not really sure how to feel about it.

And I would be remiss if I politely overlooked the _annoyingly formatted_ screed posted by Diana Gabaldon (author of the Outlander series) to her blog.  "I think it's immoral, I _know_ it's illegal, and it makes me want to barf whenever I've inadvertently encountered some of it involving my characters."  Pretty strong words from a woman who, as those clever kids at Metafilter point out, basically makes a living writing poorly-disguised fanfic herself.

I'm totally not crediting the image on this post, just for the humor value.