Exclusive Harry Potter deal at iTunes Music Store
With all the fanfare about the iPod nano, you may not have caught Jobs' other announcement that the iTunes Music Store is now the exclusive distributor of all six Harry Potter audio books, available individually or as a boxed set (with or without a collector's iPod sporting the Hogwarts crest). Until now the Harry Potter series has been officially available in audio format only on CD and casette. According to Apple, in those formats it has been the best-selling series of audio books in history, with sales of over five million. So this should turn out to be a sweet deal for Apple.
Author J.K. Rowling says the deciding factor in making this deal was to discourage piracy. Apart from any issue of illegality, she has been concerned about fans finding unauthorized versions of the books online and believing them to be genuine when the content bears little resemblance to what she has written.
