Lena Dunham Book Pitch Leaked: $3.7 Million Book Deal Proposal Posted Online, Leads to Legal Threat
Lena Dunham's book pitch was leaked online last week, sparking threats of legal action from the author's legal representatives.
The entire 66-page book pitch that landed Girls star and creator Lena Dunham a $3.7 million book deal with Random House in October was published online by celebrity rumor site, Gawker at the end of last week. However, the website has since removed the posting after action by Dunham's attorneys.
Charles Harder, who represents 26 year old Dunham, has reportedly written a letter to Gawker demanding they cease and desist their actions and immediately un-publish the leaked material.
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That legal threat has led to Buzzfeed to take action, with the website taking down every image from a post titled "9 Passages From Lena Dunham's Book Proposal Illustrated By Her Instagrams" as well.
The original proposal has been un-published online Gawker, however, many have already pointed out that once something is posted on the Internet they have a tendency to spread and go viral. It is all too easy for anyone to copy the information and spread it to other sites. Some have said that this is the case with Lena Dunham's book pitch – as it was originally posted as a downloadable Scribd file – making it super easy for anyone who saw the post originally to have downloaded it and made copies, or posted it elsewhere online.
Gawker's writer John Cook also did not immediately wipe out several of its quotes from his original blog post despite the legal threat from Dunham's attorney, Charles Harder.
Cook has also apparently looked to take a dig back at Harder and Dunham, by posting a new supplemental comment to each excerpt, saying he wanted "to clarify our intent in quoting the above matter from Dunham's proposal." As an example, "The quoted sentence demonstrates that Dunham is incapable of conceiving a rationale for writing that doesn't serve the goal of drawing attention to herself," according to Entertainment Weekly.
