MUMBAI: In a landmark court decision, a film pirate who indulged in recording Hollywood films on his iPhone at a cinema based in Harrow has been sentenced to six months in prison today

Emmanuel Nimley becomes the first person to be sent to jail in the UK for this kind of offence after he was caught red handed using his mobile phone in the Vue Cinema in March this year.

The local Court heard how copyright theft is estimated to cost the movie industry in excess of more then half a billion pounds in the UK alone but it believed that the 22-year-old was not making any money from his crimes.

Police arrested Nimley while he was recording the Jennifer Anniston and Gerard Butler film Bounty Hunter.

The police found duplicates of The Crazies, Alice in Wonderland and Green Zone on file sharing network quicksilverscreen.com and found that they were filmed at the Harrow cinema.

Officers from Harrow police and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) then looked back through CCTV footage at the cinema that showed Nimley entering screenings of the films on the day of their release.

The court heard how the copies were posted just hours after the screenings but were of poor quality and that Nimley himself could be heard eating and drinking during the filming.

It was also said that rather than benefiting financially he had uploaded them in a bid to gain ‘kudos‘ from people visiting the site.