A Missouri man was sentenced Friday to two years in federal prison for illegally recording The Dark Knight in a theater and selling the movie on DVD.

U.S. District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan also ordered the defendant, Robert Henderson of Grandview, Missouri, to pay $24,738. The prison sentence will be followed by three years probation.

Henderson pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement for using a digital camera to record The Dark Knight on July 18, 2008 -- opening day for the Warner Bros. blockbuster. He was caught as part of an investigation by the Motion Picture Association of America.

“This is an appropriate sentence for a very serious crime, and we hope it will serve as a warning to would-be movie thieves that they will face severe consequences for engaging in these activities,” Mike Robinson, the MPAA's senior vice president of content protection, said in a press release.

In December, the FBI arrested a New York man suspected of uploading an unfinished edit of X-Men Origins: Wolverine to a file-sharing website for the film's release. Earlier this month 20th Century Fox filed six lawsuits against several dozen people the studio claims sold DVDs containing unfinished versions of the movie.

(via The Wrap)