Summit Entertainment Commences Criminal Legal Action Against Twilight Fan Who Shared Images From Movie
from the photos! dept
We were somewhat stunned a few months back when notoriously overly-litigious movie studio Summit Entertainment absolutely freaked out and went legal against some fans of the Twilight movies by filing John Doe lawsuits against people for tweeting some photos from the next film in the saga. Remember: these are photos. And the reason they're getting passed around is because these people are fans. Nothing in these photos takes away from the marketability of the movie itself. If anything they do the exact opposite.Summit Entertainment simply doesn't know when to give up. It apparently went out and spent money to hire Kroll Inc., a famed corporate investigations company who is not cheap, to track someone down to Argentina, and discover that they had shared the images... and then commenced legal action against the person in both the US and Argentina, including criminal charges in Argentina (thanks to DandonTRJ for sending this in).
Remember, this is a fan who was sharing photos of a film that would only serve to get people more interested in the film. Step on up, Summit Entertainment, because you just won the award for the absolute worst entity at treating fans right.
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Filed Under: argentina, copyright, lawsuits, photos, twilight
Companies: summit entertainment
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They originally thought: an undead creature who mopes and glitters in the sun? A love story where staring balefully clinches both hearts? This has to fail spectacularly and we'll reap capital losses out the wazoo. No such luck... now we'll litigate it into failure.
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Picture thieves
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Basic lessons have still not been learned, sadly.
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Barely the worst
Disclaimer: I happen to have accounts with both Comcast and Bank of America (though not a mortgage). They have done neither of these things to me.
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Re: Barely the worst
Yet!
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(This is the part where we all say "The artists will must be obeyed" in a monotone voice, while bowing in it's [sic] general direction)
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So? Corporations have no soul or sense. They'll EAT fans alive.
On the other hand, I don't care that a fan of Twilight crap gets burned.
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PS: Because apparently companies above a certain size need to be told everything explicitly, I am not advocating illegal violence against your executives or employees. Anyone who actually does commit such violence deserves to go to jail. I'm just saying that maybe the legislature should change the law so you too spend the rest of your miserable lives in jail.
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Re: So? Corporations have no soul or sense. They'll EAT fans alive.
I really hope that is sarcasm but I can't tell. You need people who in pursuit of money to bank roll the people who want to create. If there is no return on such an investment then they won't bother and you won't have that kind of creation.
Of course, as has been shown on this website numerous times, there is nothing stopping smaller operations from financing their own productions through different means. However, the larger productions, such as Twilight, still require the money men to be involved.
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It "WAS" a fan, I doubt he will be for much longer.
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Someone has to say it
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Yup. I can see the logic here. That will really work out.
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It's like looking into the Ark of the Covenant, or viewing the VHS tape from The Ring. Summit is simply realizing that there are some unimaginable dark things that should never have existed.
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn".
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"My precious"
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Seeing as that's what's happening here. Fair use be damned.
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Your comparison makes no sense. You are mentioning rewarding people for bad behavior. This case is about free promotion from one of your biggest fans. That would be a behavior worth encouraging. Not to mention the fact that maybe this activity shouldn't even be illegal in the first place. Or maybe you are someone who assumes there are no bad laws only bad people?
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No more Summit for me
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The point of this article is that Summit is trying to make money. Going after *fans* of your work for promoting your work is not going to make you any money. Is that so hard to understand?
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summit should have sent pay-up or else letters, both to generate revenue, and to spread the word far and wide that fans WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.
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(P.S.: For people with a faulty detector for certain forms of language, not all of the above was meant entirely like it might appear (I'd suggest the "sue" part as a good candidate))
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Anyway she lives in Misiones (North Eastern Argentina) and a local paper published her picture (good looking girl bad picture). I find it hard to believe that she is an international hacker... but I thought the same about Trinity and we all know the ending of the Matrix.
http://www.territoriodigital.com/notaimpresa.aspx?c=9117915285374861
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Help Summit fight the fans!
Ok, my bias of how stupid Twilight really is aside:
I hope this kind of crap NEVER ends! It just means that smarter people who actually have good product value and are smart enough to not stab their fans will have all that much more "wiggle room" in the market and will be appreciated that much more.
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TOS
Shouldn't Summit Entertainment be suing Twitter as well? But..but... isn't Twitter the actual copyright holder? Wait... Shouldn't Twitter be suing these people for sharing images Twitter owns? Or should Twitter be suing Summit Entertainment because Twitter is the copyright holder of the pics? WTF?? This whole copyright thing is just confusing.
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whats the point in pirating something you don't want.
other then the thrill of letting them know their number one.
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All these things are against the law! All these things hurt people! Obviously they are one and the same and can be used interchangeably while I ignore the fact that some "piracy" actually has some positive value (such as promoting a movie, even if without permission from the producers of that movie).
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if you are paraphrasing it's not necessary... (and you might as well use correct grammar)
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There are bad laws. There are bad people. This is a bad person, even if they are a "fan".
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Legal? Yes. Smart? Well....
When Mr. Summit awakens to see what has happened, he...
...immediately sues Ms. Fan for Breaking and Entering, Trespassing, Destruction of Property, and Kidnapping.
Even though Ms. Fan's actions were done for the right reasons and were beneficial to Mr. Summit, she did not secure prior permission before taking them; therefore Mr. Summit is fully within his rights to sue.
That said, Mr. Summit is incredibly stupid.
Remember, just because you can do something, does not always mean that you should.
What do you think Ms. Fan will do next time she's walking by and sees Mr. Summit's house on fire?
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How does one murder money along with working hours?
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Besides, what about punishment fitting the crime. How could jailing this guy be good for society?
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Free publicity and the proceeds of litigation - win, win.
This is the sick mind set of the plutocrats and the really do not give a shit.
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Yes, we know that it's not the 'proper' way using [sic]... but it has been coopted to replace the writing equivalent of a knowing chuckle and finger-quotes when talking about things accepted by the mainstream we disagree with.
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So... jailing fans of any Twilight movie is not good for society? I beg to differ.
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Setting the bar in orbit
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Well then shouldn't it be "it's[sic][sic]"?
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Who took the photos?
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Re: Legal? Yes. Smart? Well....
Take a video of the fire and death of Mr. Summit, and since she personally took the video and owns the complete and total copyright on it, she'll sell it for a tidy profit to the highest bidder of some news organization.
When asked by reporters if she had anything to say about the incident, Ms. Fan replied: "Thanks Mr. Summit for putting my kids through college with the footage of your untimely death, and thanks also for the earlier lesson in copyright law. Now if you' all excuse me, I'm going to Disneyland!"
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The business of Holywood...
Why risk funds investing in an unproven concept, when you have vaults of successful proven ideas that with a little update, can be marketed and sold to a whole new audience. If the regurgitated concept is one where he original author can be screwed out of royalties or the like, again, even better.
While "creative works" come out of Hollywood, these things are not the work of the executives who would see kids and fans in general face criminal prosecution for things like shooting a 20 second clip of a movie to share with you sick sister who could not attend your birthday outing, or sending 4 or 5 low resolution stills from a cell phone to friends as you excitedly tell them you are at the Vampire movie you have been waiting months to see.
The people who make this stuff and do the real hands-on work, get paid at the time it is made.
The executives are just the leeches trying to figure out how to squeeze the most money out of the work of others.
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But then again, there are some parts of proper[sic] grammar I could care less about... some of it, like "don't end a sentence with a preposition" makes me [sick]. (sorry, couldn't resist).
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Re: Legal? Yes. Smart? Well....
Make sure she hides the gas can and matches before the cops show up?
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They know it will only cost society, not them, in the short or long term. If the government raises taxes on businesses to pay for incarceration of "fans", then who will pay the increased costs? Certainly not the business as they can just increase the cost of their products, move production to another cheaper country, find a better tax shelter, sue more and more people for alleged file sharing (but let you "opt-out" for a nominal "we won't sue you" donation), get mandatory fees passed on all blank media (whether you put your own self produced material on it or not) to support their perceived "you must be guilty, as you obviously bought blank media to copyright infringe" verdict, and so on.
The whole point of the matter is "they don't care" about anything, except their profit margin. Anything that gets in the way of that (real or imagined) will be squashed like a bug with any available hammer they can find. I agree that it's shortsighted to alienate fans, but it's what many overbloated, overbearing and overlawyered companies do best, attempt to sue their way to a bigger piece of the pie, regardless of the outcome.
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i figured it would go in that direction, it always does with you copytard shills
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The Real Problem
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Merely being curious about how systems operate is hacking, and isn't wrong.
Testing security on certain products isn't wrong and that too is hacking.
Social engineering, which is also a form of hacking, has its uses, and isn't necessarily wrong either.
Most of the acts attributed to Anon isn't hacking per se. I mean, it doesn't take a genius to DDOS a website. All you need is a large amount of computers. And isn't really hacking.
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"Ah don't bother with any of Summit's movies, they screwed me over royally, by suing the hell out of me. Now I don't have money to go to the cinema to watch the latest Twilight film, nor will I be able to in the near future. Screw them, I don't need them! If I were you, I'd go spend that money on something else. If you must watch that movie, just download it, Summit doesn't deserve your money."
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Now, let's say it's a critical image from the movie that entirely reveals the major plot twist. Let's say all the marketing is played against that previously unknown plot twist. Now everyone knows the twist (infinite distribution, everyone has access), and as a result, the marketing campaign is no longer relevant.
Millions spent, lost because someone revealed the "truth".
Oh yeah,I am not a shill. But you are being a Tardian asshole. Enjoy.
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Would the people designing the secret be pissed that they worked their butts off for 'nothing'? Probably. Will that adversely affect the box-office results? Probably not... at least, a lot less than you seem to be implying.
In closing, your example is a rather silly and ungrounded ‘what-if’. While such rhetorical discussions are fun around the coffee table, they really don’t do much for reality.
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On the one hand, you have a person sharing an image of a movie they're really looking forward to on Twitter. Most people who are interested in this movie have probably read the novel or at least its major plot points (I despise the series and have only seen 2 of them (damn women), yet I still have a rough idea of Bella's fate, for example).
On the other hand, you have a corporation who are trying to kill this speech. You excuse this on the off chance that not only does the image reveal important information (which you don't know), but that the entire marketing campaign revolves around this point (which is unlikely).
If you're correct, then the person in charge of marketing should be fired. If their entire multi-million dollar campaign can be undermined by a single photo, they're stupid. After the first previews, any spoilers will be out there, and they probably already are considering the fan base for the source novels.
It's just yet another stupid example of millions being wasted on ineffective marketing, when a single Twitter user is apparently more effective. Of course, that's just assuming you're correct. More likely, we have an overbearing use of the law that kills free advertising for the movie and produces no positive results in turn.
Sorry, your hypothetical situation doesn't hold water.
"Oh yeah,I am not a shill. But you are being a Tardian asshole. Enjoy."
There's certainly an asshole here, but I don't think it's TDR...
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Damaged
I am all for punishing copyright infringement when it prevents theft for copy written materials in this case, however, I cannot see how a court will award damages or for that matter criminal prosecution
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Collier, you are wrong
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Re: Collier, you are wrong
Let's clear a couple of things up. I do not go to movies anymore because my only option to protest the absurd policies of the MPAA and the like, is to vote with my dollar and NOT partake of their offerings. Does this mean I pirate movies, no, I either wait for them to appear on TV, netflix, hulu and failing that, I read. You know, books. Ah, you do read don't you? I am guessing you fall more into the category of non-readers based on your complete lack of comprehension after reading my post.
Numerous studies have consistently shown, that "piracy" leads to more sales AND greater profits by exposing more people to the "content". Attacking your customer base and treating them like criminals, engaging in the promotion of legislation that makes us all less free and generally being idiots plays a substantial role in your falling profits.
When an industry is perceived to act like ass-hats by the public, the public will simply stop buying their product.
Contrary to popular belief, I do not need to go to the theater or rent a dvd for my life to be complete, fortunately, many other options for aesthetic enrichment are available. So please kiss my rosy red a**! And, please understand the reason I will never see your movies, is entirely your own doing!
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