Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Tarantino Sues Gawker- BBC



Quentin Tarantino sues Gawker over Hateful Eight script link

This story presents an interesting problem about the boundaries of Freedom of Speech....and especially how bitter the conflict can come when the topic of money " rears its lovely head" as James Thurber once said about paid for his first stories and cartoons..

Director/Producer Quentin Tarantino speaks onstage during the 33rd annual Variety Home Entertainment Hall of Fame in Los Angeles, California 10 December 2013  
Quentin Tarantino says he will no longer produce The Hateful Eight as a film after the leak

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US director Quentin Tarantino has sued gossip website Gawker for contributory copyright infringement after it posted a link to a leaked screenplay.

A link to The Hateful Eight script remained on Gawker's Defamer blog on Monday despite demands from Tarantino's lawyers to take it down.

They argued the site had effectively cost him royalties he might earn from the eventual publication of the script.

But Gawker said posting a link was part of its job to provide information.

"News of the fact that it existed on the internet advanced a story that Tarantino himself had launched, and our publication of the link was a routine and unremarkable component of our job: making people aware of news and information about which they are curious,'' the site's editor-in-chief John Cook said.

In a post, Gawker added it would be fighting the case, adding that, to its knowledge, "no claim of contributory infringement has prevailed in the US over a news story".

The lawsuit seeks damages of $1m (£603,000) against Gawker as well as $1m against the anonymous file-sharing site where the leaked script was hosted.

'Project abandoned'
  Tarantino has previously published scripts of his films, a practice in the past has earned him hefty royalties and advances.

"There was nothing newsworthy or journalistic about Gawker Media facilitating and encouraging the public's violation of [Tarantino's] copyright in the screenplay, and its conduct will not shield Gawker Media from liability for their unlawful activity," the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit also alleges the leak was originally only limited to a few people, and The Hateful Eight script did not appear online until after Gawker posted an item encouraging anyone who had a copy to leak it to them.
The writer-director blasted the leak last week in an interview with entertainment industry website Deadline.com and said he would abandon the project as a film.

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