Charges have been dropped against the 22-year old Chicago woman accused of videotaping part of The Twilight Saga: New Moon at a movie theater, reported the Associated Press. Cook County prosecutors announced in court Friday that they won’t pursue charges against Samantha Tumpach, who was arrested on Nov. 28 and faced a felony charge of illegally copying the film. She had only three minutes of the movie on her digital camera. Tumpach said she was taping her sister’s birthday party and wasn’t trying to record the movie. Summit Entertainment, the studio behind New Moon, released this statement:
“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.”
EW almost made it an entire day without posting something about Twilight.
I guess you almost made it an entire day without being condescending.
wow bad idea for ew to put on this site of hollywood stars
…what?
Summit’s statement doesn’t make any sense. So they’re glad that people are taking piracy seriously (both real and *perceived*), but are equally glad that the charges were dropped? I guess they’re just glad that the police were on top of it at all, but it seems like they’re talking out of both sides of their mouth.
I’m glad they let her off. While what she was doing was beyond stupid and rude, it didn’t merit jail time.
Yes, I can’t believe she spent 2 days in jail for this.
yeah – should have been at least a week – why would you record a birthday party scene with the hottest movie in world on in the background – where was the party – in front of the movie screen – lame-O excuse
They want to investigate all ‘accusations’ of piracy, but if the investigation turns out to be unfounded, they would like the charges dropped quickly. They want to stop “real” pirating, discourage people from borderline cases, and avoid bad PR situations like going after people for frivolous reasons. There is a difference between arresting every “suspect” and charging every “suspect”. It’s possible to be in favor of the former without being in favor of the latter.
They probably felt that watching New Moon was punishment enough.
So true.
They certainly taught me a lesson. I’ll never setfoot in amoive theater again. IF I breathe the wrong way, i could lose threee years of my life.
From now on, I wait for DVD no matter what.
It a zilion times safer.
It’s dangerous fascist world outside my door
Hopefully that’s not the end of it. She needs to get the arrest expunged from her record and enough people need to stand up and boycott Muvico to put a serious dent in their business.