'Avengers: Endgame' full movie has already hit piracy networks

It's been out in movie theatres for a matter of hours, but Avengers: Endgame has already been named a "masterful epic".

Where's the best place to watch a masterful epic, I ask you? On the big screen, of course, with the characters bursting out of the screen and the popcorn flowing!

But, no matter how hard movie makers try, some people will still insist on ruining the experience by pirating the film and uploading it online.

Watch a clip of Avengers: Endgame here:

Unsurprisingly, this is exactly what has already happened with the new superhero movie. In fact, Avengers: Endgame was pirated before it even had a chance to hit cinemas in the United States.

The long-awaited epic was released in China two days before America, reportedly to combat the country's now-notorious piracy problem.

No such luck though: users in China began sharing a 1.2GB file of the three-hour long film on peer-to-peer piracy networks sometime between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Chinese time on Wednesday.

According to piracy-news site TorrentFreak, the 1.2GB copy has since spread to English-language torrent networks and there are other variants around the 2GB mark.

See Mark Ruffalo take the Avengers: Endgame lie detector test:

The good news for Marvel is that the downloadable copy is said to be terrible quality, with TorrentFreak’s report stating: "It’s semi-rotated and is littered throughout with watermarks for a gambling site that spin around the screen."

Their source added that the audio on it is pretty atrocious too - but, you can bet your bottom dollar that people have been watching it!

It's perhaps no big shock that a copy of the movie has made its way to the internet, given that the film series has millions of fans in China - with a country of 1.3 billion people, there was sure to be someone in the movie theatre with a recording device, TorrentFreak notes.

The Russo Brothers, the two men responsible for gifting us with the beauty that is Avengers: Endgame, were well aware that spoilers and piracy would be a big problem when they made the film.

In fact, the film's many twists and turns have led them to give the movie the unofficial tagline '#DontSpoilTheEndgame,' with journalists not even permitted to watch it before they interviewed the cast in press junkets.

Watch the official trailer for Avengers: Endgame here:

Despite efforts from Disney to prevent anything getting out before the release, leaked footage also made its way around the internet a few weeks ago, leaving fans terrified as a consequence.

"Guys we need to get off of Twitter for the next 11 days. Massive leaks for Avengers: Endgame are on this site!!! This will be my final post for a while until the movie is out. See ya on April 27th [sic]," wrote Twitter user @IssacF194852488.

Fellow Twitter user @Steelfold10 added: "I heard someone leaked avengers endgame footage, and I’m terrified to stumble upon it here.." [sic]

Ultimately, the moral of this story is as follows: don't ruin it for yourselves and pay for that movie theatre ticket, guys. Going by the critic's opinions, yours $9 will be well worth it.