Charges Dropped in 'New Moon' Incident 12/11/09

Charges dropped in 'New Moon' incident

The Hollywood Reporter

CHICAGO -- Charges have been dropped against a 22-year-old Chicago woman accused of videotaping part of "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" at a movie theater.

Cook County prosecutors on Friday announced in court that they won't pursue charges against Samantha Tumpach.

Tumpach was arrested Nov. 28 in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont and faced a felony charge of illegally copying the film.

She had about three minutes of "New Moon" on her digital camera. Tumpach has said she was taping her sister's birthday party and wasn't trying to record the movie.

The film's director, Chris Weitz, came to Tumpach's defense. He told the Chicago Sun-Times there's a difference between trying to protect a copyright and prosecuting someone who didn't mean to commit video piracy.

Summit weighs in on dropped charges against woman caught taping “New Moon”

Gossip Cop

As you probably know, the charges against 22-year-old Samantha Tumpach have been dropped for illegally videotaping “New Moon” at the Muvico Theater in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont.

She was charged with a felony, and could have faced up to three years behind bars.

Tumpach admitted that two snippets of film were caught on her camera, but said she wasn’t intentionally recording “New Moon.” Instead, she was filming her sister’s birthday.

Even director Chris Weitz was in her corner. He told the Chicago Sun-Times, “There is, needless to say, a difference between trying to protect copyright of a film and making an unfair example of someone who clearly seems not to have any intentions towards video piracy.”

Well now Summit has weighed in, too, and released the following statement:

“In regards to the situation with Samantha Tumpach, we applaud Muvico for upholding the zero tolerance policy on piracy when the incident occurred at their theater in Rosemont, IL. The pirating of films is a very serious issue and we all need to remain vigilant to protect the art of film and the myriad of businesses that the film industry supports. We believe that the attention that this incident has drawn, has served as a reminder to us all that any form of film piracy, or perceived piracy, will be treated with the utmost seriousness. Summit is pleased that all charges against Ms. Tumpach have been dropped and appreciate the efforts of the police and the prosecutors in this outcome.”

Below is an article from 2007 on the subject:

Warner Bros. filming movie theater audiences to track piracy?

Kevin Spiess - Monday, August 20th, 2007 | 12:40PM (PT)

Filmed, while filming a film?

According to one man watching the weekend opening of the movie The Invasion, Warner Brothers hired a security guard to record the audience.

In a letter, the film-goer describes turning around in his seat to see a man in a black suit semi-discreetly sweeping the audience with a camera every 5 to 10 minutes. The theater did not inform the audience that they would be filmed, and it was only after complaints to customer service that the cinema manager revealed "that Time Warner/Warner Bros had contracted a security company to film movie theater audiences around the country during the opening weekend of its movies in an effort to prevent piracy."

It is unclear what Time Warner / Warner Bros. hopes to achieve by these actions. It does not seem that this recourse would be at all effective in clamping down on the proliferation of 'cam' versions of surreptitiously recorded films, that float around in the peer-to-peer nether-regions of the InterWhat.