Warner Bros. Probing Online Leak of "Harry Potter"
Warner Bros. is investigating how the first 36 minutes of the newest “Harry Potter” film came to be posted on the Internet late Monday night, four days ahead of the movie’s world-wide theatrical debut on Friday.
A spokesman for the studio, a unit of Time Warner Inc., declined to say whether it had yet figured out the source of the leak, but said an investigation was underway. The spokesman said the early release wasn’t a promotional gambit.
The watermarked footage was made available for download on BitTorrent file-sharing sites such as IsoHunt.com and thePirateBay.org. Copies were still available Wednesday, though Warner Bros. said it was working to remove the illegal copies.
