Online sabotage

Quentin Tarantino sues Gawker over links to leaked movie script

Oscar-winning film-maker Quentin Tarantino filed a lawsuit against media outlet Gawker for copyright infringement in a U.S. district court in Los Angeles recently, after the website published links to download the script for his latest movie, entitled The Hateful Eight.
Gawker editor John Cook denied the publication had infringed on copyright in a post published on Gawker.com. He said Gawker did not leak Tarantino’s 146-page Western movie script and only published a link to a website where the script could be downloaded.
In court documents, writer-director Tarantino claimed Gawker Media promoted and disseminated unauthorised, downloadable copies of the leaked screenplay.
The film-maker is seeking more than $1 million in damages for each of two copyright infringement claims.
The lawsuit also names website AnonFiles.com, which the Gawker article linked to, and which contains downloads of Tarantino’s script.
Reuters was not immediately able to contact AnonFiles.com for comment.
Cook said Gawker had nothing to do with the appearance of The Hateful Eight script on the Internet and said it didn’t know who had uploaded the document to AnonFiles.com. Cook also said that Gawker was being sued for contributory copyright infringement, for publishing links to AnonFiles.com, which is being sued for direct copyright infringement.
AnonFiles.com allows users to upload and download files anonymously, and in its terms and conditions it says users can be held responsible for illegal and copyright infringement material. It adds that illegal files will be removed. As of last Monday, Gawker’s story, first published on January 23, was still live along with links to download the script on AnonFiles.com.
Tarantino, 50, is known for his edgy, gritty films that fuse dark humour with violence, including 1994’s Pulp Fiction and 2012’s Django Unchained, both of which earned him Oscar wins for best original screenplay.
The lawsuit details how Tarantino discovered that a copy of his latest screenplay had been leaked publicly on January 21, which he addressed in an interview with film industry website Deadline Hollywood.
Tarantino said he was “very, very depressed” at the leak and scrapped his plans to make the movie, saying that he would publish the script instead.

 

Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey to be honoured by NY museum

Award-winning actor, director and producer Kevin Spacey will be honoured for his contributions to films, television and theatre by New York’s Museum of the Moving Image at its annual salute in April. Spacey, 54, who won the best actor Oscar in 2000 for American Beauty and a best supporting actor award four years earlier for The Usual Suspects, will join the ranks of past honorees, including Tom Cruise, Robert DeNiro and Julia Roberts, the museum said.
“We’ve always wanted to honour him since he delivered these tremendous screen performances for which he won Academy Awards,” said Carl Goodman, the executive director of the museum, said in an interview.
“Since then it has only become more clear that his strength as an actor and his willingness to take risks have led him to make great performances in any medium on any screen,” he added in an interview. Spacey currently stars as a charismatic and ruthless politician in Netflix’ political drama series House of Cards, which he also produces.
For his stage work, he picked up a best supporting actor Tony award in 1991 for the Broadway production of Neil Simon’s play Lost in Yonkers. Spacey has been the artistic director of the Old Vic Theater Company in London since 2003. “The fact that we are the only museum devoted to the full sweep of media makes it more exciting for us to celebrate someone whose full work is not defined by a single medium,” said Goodman.
The three-hour, private event will bring together Spacey’s colleagues, friends and family for a tribute to his work.