Quentin Tarantino Vs. Gawker: When Is Linking Illegal For Journalists? 166
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Jon Healey writes in the LA Times that a new lawsuit against the Gawker Media site Defamer for linking to an infringing copy of an unreleased screenplay should send chills down the spines of every reporter who writes about copyright issues. Tarantino had kept the script for his ensemble western The Hateful Eight unpublished, but someone obtained a copy and posted it online. In its piece, Defamer quoted only a brief excerpt and a short summary published earlier that day by the Wrap. But it also included two links to the leaked screenplay on a file-sharing site called AnonFiles. In a complaint filed in federal court in Los Angeles, Tarantino's lawyers say they repeatedly asked Gawker Media to remove the links, to no avail. John Cook, Gawker's editor, responded with a post that rebuts the complaint's most damaging allegations, saying Defamer had no involvement whatsoever in the leak or the script's posting online. Cook also quotes Tarantino's comments last week to Deadline Hollywood, in which the filmmaker said he likes having his work online for people to read and review. 'Reporters often assume that providing links to items of public interest is perfectly aboveboard, even if the items themselves aren't. If this case goes to trial, it could help clarify what links simply can't be published legally, regardless of the news value,' writes Healey. 'I'm not arguing that what Gawker did was legal — that's a judge's decision. I'm just saying that there's a journalistic reason for Gawker to do what it did, and those of us who write about copyrights struggle often with the question of how to report what seems newsworthy without crossing a line that's drawn case by case.'"
Don't know what I find more distasteful (Score:5, Funny)
That someone could consider hyper linking infringement or someone could consider gawker journalists.
Re:Let's all discuss (Score:5, Funny)
I enjoy Tarantino films as much as the next red blooded male, but really, what is a Tarantino script:
1. Introduce quirky archetypal characters.
2. Gory death scenes cast in a humorous light.
3. Lots of dialog between quirky archetypal characters.
4. Absolutely astonishing amount of blood and gore, with lots of humorous hip dialog, so you laugh as someone is shot, stabbed, torn apart, beheaded or otherwise eradicated.
5. Final dialog scenes, perhaps some gore, but inevitably leading to...
6. Over the top death and destruction on a scale that makes the mind revolt against what its seeing, with inevitably satisfying catharsis as the Tarantino-esque definition of good triumphs over the difficult to differentiate definition of evil fails.
7. Close with Morricone score or slightly obscure funky 1970s R&B song.
8. Profit!!!!!!
I only hope he doesn't sue me.
Re:Can someone please kill the fucker (Score:5, Funny)
strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt
to link his unpublished script.
Re:Can someone please kill the fucker (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Don't know what I find more distasteful (Score:5, Funny)
I know. Simply because it's Gawker, I have to side with whoever the other guy is. It's Gawker, after all. Gawker is to journalism as Slashdot is to editing.