Woman Jailed for 3 Minutes of 'New Moon' Footage

Woman Jailed for 3 Minutes of 'New Moon' Footage

A 22-year-old woman was arrested, jailed for two nights and faces up to three years in prison after managers at a movie theater in the Chicago suburb of Rosemount spotted her taking video of Twilight: New Moon and called police.

Samantha Tumpach of Chicago only had three minutes' worth of film snippets on her digital camera, interspersed with personal footage from her sister's surprise birthday party at the Muvico Theater in Rosemount.

“It was a big thing over nothing,” Tumpach said of her Saturday afternoon arrest. “We were just messing around. Everyone is so surprised it got this far.”

She was charged with one count of criminal use of a motion picture exhibition, a rarely evoked felony designed to prevent bootlegs of hot new movies.

Read more at the Chicago Sun-Times.

Source: The Wrap

Movie Theater, Not Studio, Pressing 'New Moon' Charges

The young woman busted for filming a few minutes of "New Moon" with her digital camera still faces felony piracy charges, but it's not rights owner Summit Entertainment pressing them -- it's the movie theater where she was arrested.

Samantha Tumpach, 22, was hauled out of the Muvico Rosemont 18 in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, Ill., on Nov. 28 when theater employees saw her wielding her digital camera during a screening of the "Twilight" sequel. She had a total of three minutes' worth of the movie on the camera, interspersed with personal footage taken during a party for her older sister's birthday, which they were celebrating at the cineplex.

Summit Entertainment had no official comment Monday on the arrest, but a person inside the studio told TheWrap that it had no intention of pressing charges.

However, the theater is listed as the complaining party on court documents filed last week in Cook County. A telephone message left with the Fort Lauderdale, Fl.-based Muvico theater chain was not immediately returned Monday.

Tumpach is listed as having an unidentified public defender, and is due in a Rolling Meadows, Ill., court on Dec. 17. The Cook County state's attorney's office said she was no longer in custody, and could not confirm reports that she had spent two nights in jail following her arrest.

She has not yet been arraigned on charges of criminal use of a motion-picture facility, a Class 4 felony that carries a sentence of up to 3 years in prison.

Source: The Wrap

I think paying money to see that movie should be a felony.

I dunno -- I think this is actually insane. If you're gonna get three years in prison for recording a movie at a movie theatre, they might as well just close all movie theatres.

The worst thing someone should get for doing this kind of thing is to be thrown out, banned, something like that -- not jail. Movie theatres weren't created around the time camcorders came out -- nobody was expecting someone to walk in with a device that can be aimed at the screen and then record what was being broadcast.

If technology is gonna throw people in jail for many years, things need to be reevaluated, I think. I know this woman ought to know better, but films like New Moon are bound to drive young women nuts. She has not murdered anyone, and also -- is she really stealing? I agree that selling bootleg copies of movies and such might be something to prosecute, if you are caught doing so, but I'd hate to think about all of the young people who are being thrown in jail because they felt the urge to record a movie in a movie theatre onto their Iphone or something.

You go into a museum, it's probably OK to take a picture of a painting or a sculpture or something. Maybe even a short video presentation. Maybe some have rules that you can't, but maybe some don't care. My point is that it's all art, and I think it's stupid to prosecute people for recording something from a movie in a movie theatre, especially after they've paid to sit there. I think the worst thing they should do is kick that person out of the movie theatre. I don't think that prosecuting someone and ruining their life for putting a little bit of a movie or whatever onto their camera or phone is really keeping up with the times.

Terrible judge, should have rewarded the woman and helped her sell copies of it.

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I'm with the theater on this one. Of course, I hope she doesn't serve jail-time, but she clearly needs to be fined. Next thing you know we'll read a story with the following quote, "But judge, I only recorded the first 1hr and 45 minutes...I didn't record the whole 1hr and 50 minutes. So like, it can't be illegal."

Idiots. If there was such a thing as a stupid fine...this would be an obvious case where it's deserved.

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

Why did she bother to record this movie

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~In the event of a Zombie Uprising, remember to sever the head or destroy the brain!~

There are hot guys running around shirtless.

Its the whole moral ideal. We are allowed to rip copies of movies that we own so we can play it in a laptop or in the back of the mini van so our kids can watch the original Buggs Bunny cartons. Did she break a law, yes. Honestly I think someone should slip her a website where she could just download the thing early (not that bootlegging is good or I do such things...)But come on, if she was so avid about making a crappy recording of a movie and taking the chance of being caught, she is obviously going to buy the damn thing when it comes out. So really it's more like she would be getting an early copy of it. Jail time is ridiculous for such an act when she would be paying for it in the long run anyway. (True Blood is all I'm going to say)

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But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet, Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. W.B. Yeats

Throw the book at her. The law is the law and must always be obeyed.

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

So this 22 year old woman (actually, age doesn't matter to me on this one - she could be 57) deserves to spend three long years in jail for attemping to record a movie with her digital camera?

Where's the sanity?

A. These movies are available all over the internet -- yes, thanks to people like her, though perhaps not.

B. There's no proof that she plans to copy and sell the movie. She could just want it for her own collection. Why is it we can record movies they show on cable TV and not get arrested? Why not make it a law that we can only own a movie if we go out and buy the DVD?

I also don't believe in putting one person in jail just "as an example of what can happen" and letting others off the hook. You're still messing with one person's life and letting tons of others get away scott free. I personally believe in fairness -- not cruelty.

I don't know, SC. I think, I think Harry was being sarcastic there. Unless that smell's something else.

Ah, well I am not sure. It did not come across that way.

Sarcastic, definitely sarcastic. I stink of it sometimes.

That's what I figured. That's how it smelt to me. I think I'll leave that whole allegory alone now.

This is so "Tigerwoodsish".

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

What is 7th? That comment's completely lost me.

It means someone is being made a example of.

And you use Tiger Woods as an example...why?

Someone has to pay, should they pay? Yes probably, but do we all need to know about it? Nah, nunya, or nunofour.