Illegal copies of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" have already begun appearing on the Internet, days before the film is scheduled to hit theaters.

Warner Bros., the studio that produced and distributes the movie, confirmed Wednesday that pirated copies of the movie have popped up on Internet sites that regularly offer illegal copies of first-run films.

"The illegal copying and distribution of movies is theft," the studio said in a statement issued late Tuesday. "Warner Bros. takes the threat of Internet piracy very seriously and employs all legal means to contain the unauthorized copying and distribution of our films on the Internet."

Pirated copies of films, often grainy, jumpy versions taped using a handheld camera at a pre-premiere screening, regularly show up on the Internet before a movie hits theaters.

"As long as they are showing premiers and as long as post-production have access to the film, it's very hard to prevent this from happening," said Andrew Frank, vice president for an Internet software and services firm.

That may be the case with "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," which was shown to the public in a special "sneak preview" screening last weekend in New York and in London earlier this month. The movie opens nationally on Friday.

The early, inferior copies often are soon replaced by better versions that pirates make by bribing a theater projectionist and mounting a camera on a tripod in a projection booth.

Other high-quality versions, called "screeners," are sneaked from post-production houses, where final production work is regularly done on prints of films destined for theaters.

(Agencies)