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

Indian smartphone maker Lava must pay $2.3 million as a security deposit for past sales, as its dispute with Dolby over audio coding SEPs plays out
Powell Gilbert’s opening in Düsseldorf, complete with a new partner hire, continues this summer’s trend of UPC-related lateral movement
IP leaders at Brandsmiths and Bird & Bird, who were on opposing sides at the UK Supreme Court in Iconix v Dream Pairs, unpick the landmark case and its ramifications
Magdalena Bonde discusses Abion’s AI experiments and reveals why an entrepreneurial mindset and a willingness to learn about a business are essential skills
Partner Ginevra Righini explains how she secured victory for the Comité Champagne in its fight against an EUTM application for ‘Nero Champagne’
Volkan Hamamcıoğlu joins us for our ‘Five minutes with’ series to discuss meditation, tackling deadlines, and taking inspiration from Hamlet
A $110 million US verdict against Apple and an appellate order staying a $39 million trademark infringement finding against Amazon were also among the top talking points
Attorneys are watching how AI affects trademark registrations and whether a SCOTUS ruling from last year will have broader free speech implications
Patent lawyers explain why they will be keeping an eye on the implications of a pharma case and on changes at the USPTO in the second half of 2025
The insensitive reaction to a UK politician crying on TV proves we have a long way to go before we can say we are tackling workplace wellbeing
Gift this article