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Woman Tapes Minutes of 'Twilight,' Faces Felony Charges

by Amar Toor on December 4, 2009 at 01:35 PM

We still haven't really wrapped our heads around the 'Twilight' phenomena, but we do at least know it's there. And that your average vampire fanatic would probably do anything to sink their fangs into the latest film in the series, even attempt bootlegging.

Samantha Tumpach, a 22-year-old Chicagoan, is facing up to three years in prison after being charged with a felony for recording four minutes' worth of footage from the latest 'Twilight' movie. Tumpach claims, though, that her intention was never to record the movie, in part or in whole, and that she was simply videotaping a group of her friends who had gathered at the Chicago theater for a surprise birthday party. As the Sun-Times reports, Tumpach acknowledges that there are snippets of the film that pop up in her videotaped footage, but maintains that most of what she shot consists of girls just having fun. Theater management has meanwhile decided to move forward with pressing charges.

She understandably plans to fight the accusations, and, at first glance, it seems like she has a good chance of avoiding jail time. Her strongest piece of evidence may turn out to be the quality of the video; it apparently includes a group performance of "Happy Birthday," and, as she says, "you can hear me talking the whole time." It depends on how closely a given judge adheres to the letter of the law, but we think it's pretty clear that any video that has that much ambient noise -- and so little of the actual film -- probably wasn't intended to be distributed broadly. Was it wise to videotape in a theater? No. Was it probably annoying to be stuck in a theater with a group of bacchanalian women photographing and singing? We'd imagine. Would we have gone with a totally different choice of venue for a birthday party? To each her own. But did she have law-breaking, malicious intent? We'd say no. [From: Chicago Sun-Times, via The Consumerist]

Tags: illegal, movies, top, twilight, videotaping

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