Tarantino sues website for leaking script.

LOS ANGELES, Jan 28 (Reuters) Oscar-winning filmmaker Quentin Tarantino filed a lawsuit against the American news website Gawker for copyright infringement in a Los Angeles district court on Monday, after the site published links allowing users to download the script for the director's latest film, "The Hateful Eight."

In a statement published Monday on Gawker.com, editor John Cook denied that the website had infringed copyright. He said that Gawker was not responsible for leaking the 146-page script of Tarantino's western film, and only published a link to another page where the script was available for download.

In court documents, director and screenwriter Tarantino alleges that Gawker Media promoted and disseminated unauthorized copies of the leaked script.

The filmmaker is seeking over $1 million in damages in two separate copyright infringement lawsuits.

The lawsuit also highlights the website AnonFiles.com, which the Gawker article linked to and which offered Tarantino's script for download.

Reuters was unable to immediately reach AnonFiles.com for comment.

Cook said that Gawker had nothing to do with the appearance of the "The Hateful Eight" script on the Internet and claimed not to have uploaded the document to AnonFiles.com.

Cook also reported that Gawker is being sued for contributing to copyright infringement by publishing links to AnonFiles.com, which in turn is being sued for direct copyright infringement.

The lawsuit details how Tarantino discovered that a copy of his latest screenplay had been publicly leaked on January 21, a topic he addressed in an interview with Deadline Hollywood, an internet site dedicated to film industry news.

Tarantino said he was "very, very depressed" because of the leak and that he had given up on his plans to make the film, stating that he would instead publish the script.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy)