Quentin Tarantino sues gossip site for link to leaked script

Managing IP is part of Legal Benchmarking Limited, 1-2 Paris Gardens, London, SE1 8ND

Copyright © Legal Benchmarking Limited and its affiliated companies 2025

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

Quentin Tarantino sues gossip site for link to leaked script

Director and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino is suing gossip website Gawker for contributory copyright infringement, after the website linked to a copy of his unproduced script The Hateful Eight.

Tarantino filed a complaint with a Los Angeles district court on Monday, claiming Gawker was “promoting itself to the public as the first source to read the entire screenplay illegally.” According to the lawsuit, Gawker posted an article titled, “Here Is the Leaked Quentin Tarantino Hateful Eight Script”, which included links to copies of the script for the western at a “conveniently anonymous” URL.

“Gawker Media has made a business of predatory journalism, violating people’s rights to make a buck,” said the complaint. “This time they went 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.”

The complaint also claims that Gawker solicited its readers to provide it with a copy of the work by stating, “If anyone would like to... leak the script to us, please do so at [email address].”

In a response posted on Monday afternoon, Gawker writer John Cook said the website will fight the case. He claimed that the copies of the script were leaked by unknown people and Gawker merely linked to it. Cook also claimed that Tarantino turned the leak into a news story by talking to it at length to another gossip site, Deadline Hollywood, and that Gawker was just reporting on the events.

“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 that to his knowledge, no claim of contributory copyright infringement has succeeded in the US against a news source.

more from across site and SHARED ros bottom lb

More from across our site

Alston & Bird acted for InterDigital, while Samsung was represented by Fish & Richardson, during the arbitration process
Powell Gilbert lawyers reveal how they navigated parallel EPO proceedings and collaborated with European peers to come out on top in the Nordic-Baltic Division’s first judgment
The firms posted increases in revenue and profit per equity partner, with both giving a nod to their IP expertise
EasyGroup, the owner of the easyJet airline, said in a press release that UK-based first-instance judges are “less experienced”, bringing a long-running debate back to the fore
A cross-practice team from Mayer Brown, which included members of the firm’s IP practice, advised on the deal
María Cecilia Romoleroux discusses the challenges she has faced in her career in IP and how she hopes to improve things for the next generation of women
Value-added services give in-house counsel the satisfaction that they are getting more value for money, while law firms get the opportunity to win more work
A team at Boies Schiller Flexner is advising shoe company Kizik and parent company HandsFree Labs in the dispute
Nokia’s latest enforcement actions against Geely and Transsion joining Via LA’s AAC pool were also among the top talking points
Benjamin Kelly, the firm’s fifth IP partner hire in a little over one year, has experience in patent and trade secret disputes involving complex technologies
Gift this article