A 21-year-old man from the western Sydney suburb of Prairiewood faces up to five years' imprisonment after he was charged with uploading a pirated copy of The Simpsons Movie on the internet.

Police alleged the man illegally filmed the movie via a mobile phone on July 26, the first day of release, and within hours had uploaded the footage onto the internet.

Adrianne Pecotic, executive director of the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, said it was the first illegal copy of the hit movie to be intercepted anywhere in the world.

The file quickly spread to BitTorrent sites and other file sharing networks and within 72 hours had been downloaded by another 110,000 people.

Over 90 per cent of newly released movies that illegally appeared on the internet originated from a camcorder and pirates were increasingly ditching handycams for smaller mobile phones.

A single illegal recording could spread around the world within hours because organised piracy groups were constantly scouring the web for the first versions of films to become available after which they re-format it to facilitate file sharing and copying to CD or DVD.

On a totally unrelated note, as a long time Simpsons fan, I thought the movie was just okay. I will probably not buy the DVD or watch it again in theatres.

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