Woman Arrested For Filming Snippets Of 'New Moon' May Sue Theater

from the but-probably-won't-win dept

The latest in the saga of the young woman, Samantha Tumpach, who was arrested and jailed for two nights because her attempt to film some of her sister's birthday party at the movies happened to catch a few snippets of the film New Moon, is that Tumpach is now considering suing the theater, even though the charges against her have been dropped. Unfortunately, thanks to the draconian anti-camera laws pushed by the MPAA to punish people for these sorts of things, she might not get very far with such a lawsuit. As Copycense points out, the Illinois law in question basically lets the theater do exactly what it did, even if the circumstances are ridiculous. So, any lawsuit is unlikely to last, though it should lead us to questioning why legislators around the globe have passed similar laws at the behest of the movie industry. There are already perfectly good copyright laws to be used against anyone actually filming a movie for "piracy" purposes. These anti-camcorder laws go above and beyond that, and lead to ridiculous scenarios like this one.

Filed Under: copyright, felony, movies, new moon, piracy, samantha tumpach

Prosecutors Come To Their Senses; Drop Charges Against Girl Arrested For Incidental 'New Moon' Filming

from the took-'em-long-enough dept

There has been a ton of publicity about the young woman who was jailed and facing felony charges, because she caught snippets of the film New Moon while filming parts of her sister's birthday party. The outrage over this has been loud and widespread -- causing backlash against the movie theater and the movie studio that put out the movie. Even the director of the movie was complaining about the arrest and prosecution. Realizing that this was a bad situation all around, it looks like prosecutors have come to their senses and dropped the charges against the young woman, though we still have the same ridiculous law in place that made this situation possible. Shouldn't we also be looking to change that right about now?

Filed Under: felony, new moon, piracy

Director Of New Moon Says Jailing Of Girl For Snippets Of Video Of His Movie Is 'Terribly Unfair'

from the it-is,-isn't-it? dept

While he has no official say in the matter, it is still worth noting that Chris Weitz, the director of the movie New Moon has said that he thinks it's "terribly unfair" that a 22-year-old girl was jailed and now faces felony charges because her attempt to film some of her sister's birthday celebration caught less than four minutes of New Moon on her video camera (found via Copycense). Weitz is not the copyright holder and has no real say in what happens, but he does note that he's talking to Summit Entertainment, the studio who made the film, to let them know of his concerns, to see if there's anything that can be done.

Of course, what should be done is that the law should be changed so we don't have these ridiculous situations at all. And hopefully he would stand behind such a proposal. In the meantime, it's just yet another in a long line of examples of the law creating punishment that is way out of proportion with the "crime" when it comes to copyright and copying of content.

Filed Under: camcording, chris weitz, copyright, felony, jailing, new moon
Companies: summit entertainment