Things are about to get ugly for the folks over at Gawker.
Quentin Tarantino has served the gossip and news website with a lawsuit for a post that linked readers to a leaked copy of the screenwriter’s latest film project, The Hateful Eight, the Associated Press reports.
The lawsuit accuses Gawker Media LLC of contributory copyright infringement for linking to the script of the yet-to-come film last week. The link is still active, despite calls from Tarantino’s lawyers to remove it, the suit said.
"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 argues that Gawker linking to the site allowed more people to find the script and infringe the Oscar winner’s copyright.
However, Editor-in-Chief John Cook said that the company is going to fight the suit, pointing out that they were being sued for posting a link to the 146-page script, and not the actual script itself.
"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," Cook said.
The file-sharing site that was linked in Gawker’s post is also being sued for copyright infringement.
Tarantino, obviously upset about the leak, announced that he was dumping the project as a film, in an interview last week with Deadline.com. He had planned to publish the screenplay, a practice that in the past has earned him handsome royalties and advances, the AP notes. The damages as a result of Gawker’s post are more than $1 million, the lawsuit claims.
Read more at the Associated Press.