Lindsay Lohan Playboy Spread Was Leaked by a Hacker: Report

How the Lindsay Lohan Playboy spread leaked online has been reportedly revealed.

According to FoxNews.com, the photos were either hacked or stolen from the magazine -- which was due to hit newsstands next week -- and uploaded to a file-sharing and file-storage service on the Web site Worldmags.net, a digital magazine clearinghouse based out of the Ukraine.

The entire magazine, including Lohan's 10 nude photos and an interview, was made available for download. The person who got the images on the site said via a translator that he downloaded over two hundred individual files, which he found after searching numerous peer-to-peer file sharing sites, each containing one page of the issue, and reassembled them page by page to build a complete and final digital copy of the upcoming issue.

I just pieced it together, said the individual, who asked to remain anonymous.

The man claims that he doesn't know the primary source of the leaked pages, which he said could have been stolen somewhere in the digital publishing process or hacked from a server.

All I cared about is how I got them, he said.

The hacker said what he did isn't the first time he has done it, calling it a hobby that has resulted in cease and desist letters from Playboy before.

When I've done it before, Playboy sent an e-mail to take down the links, and then I do, he said.

Playboy did not tell FoxNews.com how the spread was obtained and published, but confirmed that they were taken without its knowledge or permission.

Someone took photos of Lindsay Lohan's pictorial in an advanced copy of the January/February issue, Playboy told the site. They posted the photos online without permission. We are not releasing any official images or information until December 15.

Lohan channels her idol Marilyn Monroe in her spread, sporting similar blonde hair and posing just like Monroe in Playboy's inaugural issue decades ago. The leak comes a little less than a week before Lohan is scheduled to debut the spread on Ellen DeGeneres' talk show on Dec 15.

There's no doubt that the leak will impact sales, said Glenn Selig of Selig Multimedia to FoxNews.com. Unless there are some really killer articles in this issue, why would the public buy the magazine, when they can find the same high-quality pictures online?