Gawker Issues Response To Quentin Tarantino’s Hateful Eight Lawsuit

Earlier today, my FilmDrunkian overlord Vince brought us the news that Quentin Tarantino is suing Gawker Media and its “predatory journalism” because the website Defamer linked to another site called AnonFile that allowed people to download the entire script for the now-shelved Western, The Hateful Eight. In case you’re late to the party, Tarantino gave an exclusive hissy fit to Deadline last week after one of the six people that he gave a copy of the script to leaked it to an agent, who then started showing it to actors and actresses who might fit the descriptions of the supporting characters.

Ultimately, Tarantino decided that this betrayal – committed by either Michael Madsen or Bruce Dern, but we’ll apparently never know the truth – was too much, and he said that he’d either just rewrite the screenplay as a book, or he’d come back to The Hateful Eight at another time, once he calmed down and stopped being the only person who sees this as a bad thing. In the meantime, Tarantino’s lawyer is pressing hard at Gawker and Defamer for “contributory copyright infringement,” and naturally the website is calling BS on all of this.

Defamer covers what people in Hollywood are talking about. Thanks to Tarantino’s shrewd publicity strategy, the leak of The Hateful Eight—and the content of the script—had been widely dissected online and was a topic of heated conversation among Defamer readers. 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.

Contributory infringement is a legal theory that has traditionally been deployed against file-sharing sites and search engines—venues that explicitly exist as directories to copyrighted content. Gawker and Defamer are news sites, and our publication of the link was clearly connected to our goal of informing readers about things they care about. As far as I can tell (but I’m no lawyer!), no claim of contributory infringement has prevailed in the U.S. over a news story. We’ll be fighting this one. (Via Gawker)

Quentin Tarantino is mad......and suing Gawker

Gawker’s being sued by Quentin Tarantino for leaking a copy of his script for The Hateful Eight. Ain’t no legal complaint like a Tarantino legal complaint because a Tarantino legal complaint has BITE:

Gawker Media has made a business of predatory journalism, violating people’s right to make a buck. This time they’ve gone too far. Rather than merely publishing a news story reporting that Plaintiff’s screenplay may have been circulating in Hollywood without his permission, Gawker Media crossed the journalistic line by promoting itself to the public as the first source to read the entire screenplay illegally. Their headline boasts, ‘Here is the leaked Quentin Tarantino Hateful Eight Script’ — here, not someplace else, but ‘here’ on the Gawker website. The article then contains multiple direct links for downloading the entire screenplay through a conveniently anonymous URL by simply clicking button-links on the Gawker page, and brazenly encourages Gawker visitors to read the screenplay illegally with an invitation to ‘enjoy’ it. There was nothing newsworthy or journalistic about Gawker Media facilitating and encouraging the public’s violation of Plaintiff’s copyright in the screenplay, and its conduct will not shield Gawker Media from liability for their unlawful activity.

The real victim in all of this, of course, is those of us who really love Tarantino movies and know that The Hateful Eight will never see the light of day now.

Via pajiba

Quentin Tarantino scraps upcoming film Hateful Eight after screenplay leaked to Hollywood agents

Quentin Tarantino has said he is “very very depressed” at having to cancel filming on his upcoming project Hateful Eight after a copy of the film’s script found itself in the hands of several Hollywood agents against his wishes.

Tarantino told Deadline he only gave the script to six people, one of whom then gave it to his agent – a move that he has called “malicious.”

“I finished a script, a first draft, and I didn’t mean to shoot it until next winter, a year from now,” said Tarantino, who discovered the film had been leaked after his own agent, Mike Simpson, started getting calls from agents in Hollywood looking to cast their clients in the ensemble Western.

Tarantino has named a few names, listing actors Bruce Dern, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen, as well as Django Unchained producer Reggie Hudlin among those who had access to Hateful Eight’s script. “Hudlin … let an agent come to his house and read it,” Tarantino told Deadline. “That’s a betrayal, but not crippling because the agent didn’t end up with the script. There is an ugly maliciousness to the rest of it.”

The Pulp Fiction director said he knows Roth is the person behind the leak, but hasn’t ruled out any of the others. “It’s got to be either the agents of Dern or Madsen,” he said, adding that the calls were coming from the Creative Artists Agency, which represents Dern.

Tarantino now has plans to publish the film’s script – he’s currently scheduling meetings with publishers – and will be moving on to another project next. “I give it out to six people, and if I can’t trust them to that degree, then I have no desire to make it,” Tarantino said. “I’ll move on to the next thing. I’ve got 10 more where that came from.”

Tarantino’s last film, Django Unchained, won the award for best original screenplay at the 2013 Academy Awards. The film also earned Christoph Waltz an Oscar for his supporting role in the film – the German actor’s second such award for his work in a Tarantino movie (he won his first three years prior, for Inglourious Basterds.)

More  Via National Post