In my ongoing attempt to blog exclusively about IP issues related to Stephenie Meyer and the Twilight franchise, here’s a story I just picked up from CNN online. A 22 year old woman from Chicago faces 3 years in prison for taping 2-3 minutes of the recently released Twilight movie (New Moon) at a birthday party for a friend. Pretty stupid to be taking videos in a movie theater anyway if you ask me, but seriously criminal liability for 3 minutes of video?
UPDATE
A new report came out today noting that the director of the Twilight movie was distressed at the arrest of the woman who inadvertently video-ed a few minutes of the film along with some ads in a movie theater with no intention of distributing the video. The video was to celebrate her sister’s birthday. The director, Chris Weitz, expressed dismay at her arrest and said he had contacted Summit Entertainment (the studio behind the Twilight franchise) about his concerns, but there is little he can do because he does not own the movie himself. Ah, property rights. Gotta love ’em!