Olswang takes the Harry Potter brand to a new world of publishing

The launch of the Pottermore website has achieved incredible results and sent the publishing world into a spin as J.K. Rowling takes digital publishing into new levels. Olswang's leading technology team supported Pottermore's in-house counsel to develop this revolutionary eBook reading and shopping experience.

From data protection to developing partnerships with Amazon and some of the world's most sophisticated technology providers, Olswang's team helped launch J.K. Rowling's much loved books and characters into a revolutionary platform of publishing independence. Uniquely for such a successful author, J.K. Rowling has retained the eBook rights to the Harry Potter books. For most writers, publishers own the print and digital rights to the author's works meaning that the publisher has control over ebook exploitation.

Anouska Spiers, lead in-house counsel to Pottermore comments: "The Pottermore Shop is more than just an online bookshop. J.K. Rowling was incredibly astute to reserve the digital rights in the Harry Potter series. This brilliant decision, together with the huge popularity of the series, have enabled her to make this unprecedented move in the publishing world."

Anouska continues, "Pottermore is the exclusive place to buy the Harry Potter series; J.K. Rowling is therefore able to sell at the right price and with watermarking rather than DRM. This has been incredibly well received by the public - as demonstrated by our sales figures - and has also had the positive effect of reducing piracy.  And this is only month three!" 

As well as providing enhanced editions of the book series, Pottermore is expanding the Harry Potter digital footprint with audio books, merchandising, gifts and other materials to a direct international membership based audience.  

Clive Gringras, Head of Technology at Olswang comments: "As a massive Harry Potter fan and a technophile this was one of the most exciting projects I could have the privilege to work on. Technology continues to disrupt the media industries and here Pottermore has created its own platform - and given something back to the Harry Potter readers at the same time. What made this work even more enjoyable was working again with Anouska and her team. "

The Olswang team was led by Clive Gringras with assistance from Elle Todd and Kimberleigh Tucker.