AKIPRESS.COM - A lawsuit filed by Academy Award winning screenwriter and director Quentin Tarantino against the Gawker website for linking to a script for a future film project was dismissed Tuesday by a federal judge, the U.S. media report.

In January, Gawker posted links to the script for "The Hateful Eight," an unproduced Western. Tarantino failed to prove that was an act of direct copyright infringement, said Judge John F. Walter of the Central District of California.

The judge said he would allow Tarantino's attorney to amend arguments and refile the complaint by May 1.

Although Gawker did not post the script to its own site, Tarantino's attorney charged the script would not have been widely accessible if Gawker had not linked to it.

Gawker turned down repeated requests to remove links to download the script, Tarantino's complaint charged.

Tarantino told the gossip site Deadline that he had given the script to only six people, including actors Michael Madsen, best known as the killer in "Reservoir Dogs," as well as Bruce Dern and Tim Roth. "Reservoir Dogs" was Roth's breakthrough film.

Somehow, the script leaked. It was posted through a site that lets users anonymously upload and download files.