The film industry is alarmed about this latest bootlegging trend. But with the poor quality of cell phone copies, moviegoers (and potential pirates) may as well leave home without it.

Movie-pirating technology is getting better and better.

Australia now holds the dubious distinction of being the first country in the world where The Simpsons Movie was pirated, using a cell phone to record the film at a cinema. According to the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), an illegal Internet copy of the blockbuster was traced to a 21-year-old man from Sydney, who was arrested in relation to its unauthorized recording and uploading. He was charged with copyright theft and faces up to five years jail. AFACT also said that police responded to four incidents of cell phone recording this summer.

Thanks to cell phone technology, movie pirates no longer have to use heavy and conspicuous professional-caliber video cameras and handheld camcorders to illegally capture films. Today, the easy-to-carry, easy-to-hide cell phones (with its long battery life and increasingly powerful imaging) are the movie pirating tool of choice – and Hollywood is taking notice.

"I'm seeing more reports about people taking out their cell phones at the movies," said Patrick Corcoran, a spokesman for the National Association of Theater Owners.

"Generally, as technology gets better, people are using more than camcorders," said Elizabeth Kaltman, a Motion Picture Association of America spokeswoman. "They are using cell phones to capture movies. We're being more vigilant about them."

At the Warner Bros. Pictures pre-release screenings of Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, the invitation included this request: "Please note that mobile phones and other handheld devices will not be permitted in the theater..."

Despite all the fuss, however, the picture and sound quality of cell-phone captured movies leave a lot to be desired and make them unpopular among downloaders. They complained that the bootlegged Simpsons movie was the worst they've ever seen with dark, grainy footage and poor out-of-synch sound.

Meanwhile, back in Australia, close international cooperation among the Australian Federal Police, AFACT and distributor 20th Century Fox resulted in the removal of the unauthorized recording within 72 hours of its posting. But during that time-frame, the movie was uploaded to a U.S.-based global streaming site where it was viewed or downloaded more than 3,000 times. It was also tracked it to other streaming sites and P2P systems where it had been illegally downloaded more than 110,000 times.

Investigators even found a French-dubbed version of the film and copies are already widely available on the street in China, though it is unclear if the Chinese copies came from the Australian upload.

AFACT executive director Adrianne Pecotic, said, "The speed and spread of illegal copies across the global Internet as a result of this camcord copy being made from a mobile phone in a Sydney cinema is staggering."

Unauthorized recording of films in cinemas is on the rise in Australia, with police answering seven reported incidents of camcording in as many weeks, more than half using mobile phones, AFACT said.