Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the sixth and penultimate novel in the "Harry Potter" series. Set during protagonist Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts, the novel explores the past of Harry's nemesis, Lord Voldemort, and Harry's preparations for the final battle against Voldemort alongside his headmaster and mentor Albus Dumbledore. The book was published in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury, and in the United States by Scholastic on 16 July 2005, as well as in several other countries. It sold nine
Legal disputes over the Harry Potter series Legal disputes over the Harry Potter series Since first coming to wide notice in the late 1990s, the "Harry Potter" book series by J. K. Rowling has engendered a number of legal disputes. Rowling, her various publishers and Time Warner, the owner of the rights to the "Harry Potter" films, have taken numerous legal actions to protect their copyrights, and also have fielded accusations of copyright theft themselves. The worldwide popularity of the "Harry Potter" series has led to the appearance of a number of locally produced, unauthorised sequels and other derivative works, sparking efforts to ban or contain them.