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Samantha Tumpach was facing three years in prison, one for each minute of the film "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" she had recorded on her camera. Samantha claims she only recorded the small clips of the film as part of her recording of her sister's surprise birthday party, which took place at the cinema. She did not have intentions to record the entire film and certainly not to distribute the recording.
And yet, she was charged with criminal use of a motion picture exhibition. After public outrage at the charge, and with even the director of "New Moon" Chris Weitz coming to her defence, the charges were dropped, but not before leaving Samantha Tumpach a traumatized woman. "This is the worst event of her life", described Samantha's attorney.
It is unknown why the charges were dropped, but it appears the MPAA did not want further bad publicity and decided not to press ahead with the case. This is further proof the one sided copyright laws being abused by content owners, as there was never any proof that Tumpach was ever going to distribute the movie, and three minutes of recording hardly constitutes even an attempt at piracy.
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And yet, she was charged with criminal use of a motion picture exhibition. After public outrage at the charge, and with even the director of "New Moon" Chris Weitz coming to her defence, the charges were dropped, but not before leaving Samantha Tumpach a traumatized woman. "This is the worst event of her life", described Samantha's attorney.
It is unknown why the charges were dropped, but it appears the MPAA did not want further bad publicity and decided not to press ahead with the case. This is further proof the one sided copyright laws being abused by content owners, as there was never any proof that Tumpach was ever going to distribute the movie, and three minutes of recording hardly constitutes even an attempt at piracy.
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