NEW YORK (AP):

A moviegoer caught secretly recording the science-fiction blockbuster Transformers has been charged with unauthorised use of a video camera in a theatre in the first arrest under a new New York City law that stiffened penalties for pirating films.

A criminal complaint accuses Kalidou Diallo of slipping a video recorder, video player and remote control into a sneak preview of the film at a theatre in the borough of the Bronx on Monday night.

"This is the first time someone has been arrested and charged with the new illegal camcording law," City Hall spokesman Jason Post said Thursday.

In May, Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed legislation that upgraded film piracy from a violation with a $250 fine to a misdemeanour that carries up to six months in jail and penalties of up to $5,000.

The Motion Picture Association of America says more than 40 per cent of the bootlegged films in the U.S. are secretly videotaped in New York City theatres. The copies typically are sold for mass reproduction or posted on the Internet, sometimes just hours after the movie has opened.

Pirated movies cost major U.S. film studios more than $6 billion in 2005, according to the trade association.

Video recorder

Police arrested Diallo, 48, after a plain clothes officer seated behind him while staking out the theatre saw him raise his right arm after the film began, court papers said. During a search shortly after the movie ended, police found a video recorder "strapped underneath his right arm via a body harness" and a video player and remote control in his jacket pockets, the papers added.

Diallo was released on Tuesday without bail and ordered to return to court on Sept. 20. No telephone number was listed for his Bronx address, and the name of his lawyer was not immediately available.