Quentin Tarantino’s lawsuit against Gawker has been dismissed.
The award-winning director was furious when the website posted a link to a leaked copy of his ‘Hateful Eight’ script, forcing him to scrap plans for the Western, but the site maintains there is no case and says directing people to an online version of the script was fair use as it hadn’t "reproduced" the material.
A federal judge in California has granted the website’s motion to dismiss the director’s copyright infringement lawsuit since Tarantino failed to display particular details regarding the infringement facilitated by Gawker’s actions.
However, the filmmaker can re-file the case if he makes key changes.
In an order obtained by Deadline.com – titled ‘Quentin Tarantino -v- Gawker Media’ – Judge John Walter said: "The Court grants Defendant’s Motion on the grounds that Plaintiff has failed to adequately plead facts establishing direct infringement by a third party or facts that would demonstrate Defendant either caused, induced, or materially contributed to the alleged direct infringement of those third party infringers.
"Plaintiff merely speculates that some direct infringement must have taken place.
"For example, Plaintiff’s Complaint fails to allege the identity of a single third-party infringer, the date, the time, or the details of a single instance of third-party infringement, or, more importantly, how Defendant allegedly caused, induced, or materially contributed to the infringement by those third parties."
Tarantino claims he only gave the script for ‘The Hateful Eight’ to six people and believes one of them must have let their agent see it, who subsequently sent it on.
Quentin Tarantino’s Gawker lawsuit dismissed
