diff --git a/libavformat/wc3movie.c b/libavformat/wc3movie.c
index 27f5eb1962..6577007777 100644
--- a/libavformat/wc3movie.c
+++ b/libavformat/wc3movie.c
@@ -130,8 +130,10 @@ static int wc3_read_header(AVFormatContext *s)
             buffer = av_malloc(size+1);
             if (!buffer)
                 return AVERROR(ENOMEM);
-            if ((ret = avio_read(pb, buffer, size)) != size)
+            if ((ret = avio_read(pb, buffer, size)) != size) {
+                av_freep(&buffer);
                 return AVERROR(EIO);
+            }
             buffer[size] = 0;
             av_dict_set(&s->metadata, "title", buffer,
                                    AV_DICT_DONT_STRDUP_VAL);