Summit steps up crackdown on leaked 'Eclipse' shots

By Eriq Gardner

Wanna see intimate screenshots of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in bed together from the next film in the "Twilight" series?

Neither do we, but there are millions of Twi-hards who desire nothing more than to immerse themselves in each tiny detail of the shirtless vampire franchise.

Summit Entertainment, the studio behind June's "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse," confirms to us that it has stepped up efforts to police its intellectual property after screenshots of the film leaked in the past few days.

Websites that posted the photos got cease-and-desist letters from Summit outside counsel David Caplan of Keats McFarland & Wilson. (We won't post the shots, but you can still find them via Google.) 

Summit has been especially aggressive in recent months on the intellectual property front, going after a documentary about the "Twilight" town, "Twilight" fanzines and fan-made "Twilight" merchandise.

It might seem strange to fans that the studio would try to put a clamp on photos that act as free publicity. But the studio is protecting its own highly lucrative licensing arrangements as well as its right to control the marketing of the series. We bet we'll see plenty of Pattinson and Stewart kissing before the movie comes out.