Shia LaBeouf facing legal threat as plagiarism row escalates
Shia Labeouf has been threatened with legal action following allegations he plagiarised a graphic novel in a short film he directed.
The Transformers star was recently accused of basing his movie, Howard Cantour, on a book called Justin M. Damiano by Daniel Clowes. He subsequently issued a series of public apologies to the author, posting messages through Twitter.com and even hiring a skywriting plane to spell out his regret over the skies of Los Angeles.
However, the apologies have failed to appease Clowes' lawyers, who
hit LaBeouf with a cease-and-desist letter on Tuesday (07Jan14), in
which the skywriting stunt was branded "foolishness".
In the legal letter, which the actor posted on his Twitter.com page
on Wednesday (08Jan14), a lawyer representing Clowes, Michael J.
Kump, claims LaBeouf's legal team failed to respond to initial
contact regarding the alleged plagiarism in Howard Cantour, adding,
"We have been waiting since December 27 to hear how Mr. LaBeouf
intends to make (it) right, but all that has happened is...
foolishness such as Mr. LaBeouf's New Year's Day skywriting frolic
that exposed Mr. Clowes to further ridicule."
Kump also alleges that LaBeouf has caused further troubles in a
recent picture he posted on Twitter which showed a storyboard for a
project called Daniel Boring, which the lawyer claims is a "rip
off" of Clowes' comic strip David Boring.
The letter urges LaBeouf to "immediately cease and desist from any
further acts of copyright infringement, trademark infringement,
conversion, and other other intentional and malicious wrongs in
connection with Mr. Clowes and his works".
It adds, "Your client is seriously out of control. He must stop his
improper and outlandish conduct directed at Mr. Clowes and his
works... Leave Mr. Clowes alone, and address and fix these problems
immediately."