Quentin Tarantino is suing Gawker for posting a link to the script of his film

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25923343

by b3n • 12 years ago

40 46 12 years ago

bbc.co.uk

b3n• 12 years ago

Here's a link to the Gawker post: http://defamer.gawker.com/here-are-plot-details-from-quentin...

and in case it gets taken down, here is the script they link to: https://anonfiles.com/file/ba77fe6f664d451a4725fbcca0846f67

I'm glad to see Gawker fighting this instead of being intimidated by Tarantino's lawyers.

Luc2• 12 years ago

It seems to me Tarantino's case is not _obviously_ without merit, unless you reject the idea of copyright altogether.

farginay2• 12 years ago

I'm still not sure what the legal rationale is for treating link publication as copyright violation. When you publish a link, you are not copying anything, the person following the link is.

By analogy, a person who told people that Tarantino's script was under a box behind a grocery store would be violating copyright.

arethuza2• 12 years ago

If you rejected the idea of copyright don't you therefore also reject the idea of open source licenses (aren't all software licenses based on the idea of copyright)?

zoul• 12 years ago

Isn’t it obvious why a director would be pissed off by his script getting public before the movie is released? Now why act like a jerk and help spreading the script? This doesn’t have to be a philosophical debate, it’s just common courtesy.

matthuggins• 12 years ago

It looks like both anonfiles.com and scribd.com have taken the script down. Good on them at least.

welly• 12 years ago

Intimidated? And rightly bloody so.

Posting the script to the film is clearly not "making people aware of news and information about which they are curious".

higherpurpose• 12 years ago

I love this because it should decide once and for all whether linking to "infringing content" is actually a crime or not. Right now it's already being treated like one, so the downside can't be any worse. But the upside could be that MPAA & friends can't get away with using DMCA to takedown links to infringing content anymore, which means Google will be able to reject all the mass-takedown of links in its search engine, too.

macspoofing3• 12 years ago

I love this because it should decide once and for all whether linking to "infringing content" is actually a crime or not.

That's already been decided, multitudes of times over many cases. Adding indirection to infringing material does not shield you from liability.

Piskvorrr• 12 years ago

Soooo...HN (or whoever posted this) is now also infringing, since it's just more indirection? And anyone now linking to HN is also infringing? I think that eventually encompasses the whole of WWW.

valleyer2• 12 years ago

Did you consider taking that position to its logical end before proposing it?

ig1• 12 years ago

The US has had rulings that linking can itself be illegal, notably in Universal v. Reimerdes and Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry.

danso• 12 years ago

The lawsuit is without merit, but it's a bummer that QT is considering dropping the film altogether:

http://www.deadline.com/2014/01/quentin-tarantino-hateful-ei...

It sounds like a good concept, and hopefully a better homage to spaghetti Westerns than Django was. I think it's amusingly ironic that he knows for sure that Tim Roth isn't the betrayer, given Roth's history with QT (mild spoiler).

Also worth noting in that Deadline piece: the agency that QT accuses of dispersing the script counters that QT did not do the basic precautionary step of watermarking the script, implying that QT wanted it to be leaked without repercussion (suing Gawker is definitely a way to bring notoriety to the project, though QT has enough notoriety to not resort to stunts)

pc86• 12 years ago

Personally I don't see how referencing Roth's history with QT is a spoiler, but isn't it kind of assumed that you should warn of a spoiler before the reader has already, you know... read it?

gaius• 12 years ago

Gawker is profiting from Tarantino's work: every page view is more advertising revenue.

Phil_Latio• 12 years ago

Anyone counted the "homages" yet? ...

I wish there would be another Jackie Brown.

coldtea• 12 years ago

Though experiment: if someone writes on his blog, "this guy's house is at this address, and he has valuables there you can get", can he be sued?

res0nat0r3• 12 years ago

I'm sure it can, but it is all about context.

Kids are getting arrested for online bullying which has driven other kids to commit suicide, so just because something is online that could incite crime doesn't give you a pass.

stusmall• 12 years ago

IANAL and this is a legit question but isn't this inciting lawless behaviour and thus not protected speech?

jarrett2• 12 years ago

As another reply said, context is everything. To elaborate:

If you phrase it exactly as you said, I can imagine a lawsuit being successful. The comment--specifically, the phrase "you can get"--evidences a reckless disregard for the possible consequences. Arguably, a break-in is a reasonably foreseeable consequence. One might even argue that the commenter intended to cause a break-in.

I suspect there could be multiple theories of liability here, with all or most being torts. Naturally, the available causes of action would be a function of whether anybody acted on the suggestion and broke into the house.

On the other hand, if you phrased it differently, you might be safe. For example, it seems grossly unjust to punish expression along the lines of: "John Smith is internationally famous for the extensive Picasso collection in his home gallery." Almost any fact could conceivably be abused in the wrong hands. If a speaker were unconditionally liable for any subsequent abuse of his/her speech, regardless of the character or intent of the speech, nearly all factual speech would entail extremely burdensome legal risks.

So what determines whether a public comment about someone's valuables is actionable? Again, context. What did you say about the valuables? (Did you suggest stealing them?) Where was the comment published? (Was it on a burglary forum?) What was said elsewhere in the same article or conversation? (Was it part of a discussion about how to become a better burglar?) These are not necessarily the only factors. They're just examples of the types of factors a court might consider.

Check out Eugene Volokh's excellent article on this fascinating topic:

http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/facilitating.pdf

jezfromfuture• 12 years ago

Go quentin!

Quentin Tarantino is suing Gawker for posting a link to the script of his film

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