Harry Potter and the Pre-Release Leaks

It's a good month to be Harry Potter but not a good time to be one of the many book and movie execs trying to protect the boy wizard from media pirates. Just days before the much-awaited release of the seventh, and final, book in J.K. Rowling's Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will hit bookstore shelves, the tome has apparently been leaked all across the Internet. And for those who doubt the validity of the many websites purporting to reveal who lives and who dies in the Potter universe, there are sites that even offer up pages that, allegedly, were photocopied from actual copies of the book. And Potter book publishers aren't the only ones feeling the sting of illegal copiers. Anne Thompson reports at her Variety blog that illegal copies of the fifth Potter flick, and current box office champ, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, are already available for illegal download online, as are downloads of the remake of the John Waters musical Hairspray, which doesn't even hit theaters until Friday. Both movies have popped up this week at Google Video.

Source:
Harry Potter Watch: It's on Google Video, Along with Hairspray
New Potter Book May Have Made Its Way to Web