Quentin Tarantino sued Gawker Media for contributory copyright infringement over the reported leak of "The Hateful Eight" script - Gawker published a link that led readers to a post titled "Here Is the Leaked Quentin Tarantino Hateful Eight Script." But did Quentin Tarantino actually want "The Hateful Eight" script to leak for attention?

"Gawker Media has made a business of predatory journalism, violating people's rights to make a buck," the lawsuit said in a copy obtained by Hollywood Reporter.  

"This time, they went too far. Rather than merely publishing a news story reporting that Plaintiff's screenplay may have been circulating in Hollywood without his permission, Gawker Media crossed the journalistic line by promoting itself to the public as the first source to read the entire Screenplay illegally," it added.

Hollywood Reporter reported that Quentin Tarantino was so incensed about the leak of the 146-page script for "The Hateful Eight" that he junked the movie as his next production.

The director's legal counsel, Lavely & Singer in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, claimed that Gawker did not heed their client's "repeat demands to remove the posted URL links."

However, Gawker editor John Cook said, in a rejoinder published on its website, that the media company didn't leak the script and that Quentin Tarantino wanted "The Hateful Eight" published online. What Gawker did was publish the link "because it was news."

John Cook then went on to say that Quentin Tarantino blew up the whole thing, when it was just a "small-scale" leak known to few Hollywood press and insiders, as "shrewd publicity strategy."

He said contributory infringement is a legal action deployed against file-sharing sites.

"Gawker and Defamer are news sites, and our publication of the link was clearly connected to our goal of informing readers about things they care about. As far as I can tell ... no claim of contributory infringement has prevailed in the U.S. over a news story. We'll be fighting this one," the Gawker editor wrote.