In response to the lawsuit, Gawker attacked Tarantino’s lawsuit as shallow. According to the motion to dismiss, “Because plaintiff did not allege any facts showing that an infringing act actually was undertaken by a third party — merely accessing the script by clicking on the link is legally insufficient — plaintiff did not state a claim for contributory infringement.”
Is that really true – Is accessing a script not an infringing act? Tarantino’s lawyers are challenging. The lawsuit is no longer just about a news site’s linking.
“Anyone who sought to read or obtain the Screenplay from the Screenplay Download URL necessarily had to first download a PDF copy of the work onto their own computer,” says the amended complaint. “On January 23, 2014, after Gawker obtained the Screenplay Download URL in response to its request for leak of an unauthorized infringing copy of the Screenplay, Gawker itself illegally downloaded to its computers an unauthorized infringing PDF copy of the Screenplay — read it and learned that the PDF download document was 146 pages — directly infringing Tarantino’s copyright.”