Fox Sues to Stop Film and TV Script Leaks

Twentieth Century Fox is taking aggressive steps to keep its movie and TV scripts off of the Internet.

The studio has filed a lawsuit alleging roughly $15 million in damages against a New York woman, Patricia McIlvaine, who is said to have put up roughly 100 scripts online without authorization.

On her personal website, McIlvaine describes herself as a "struggling screenwriter who sells flowers over the phone by day and writes scripts by night." She says she collected scripts that were already posted on the web and made a free online library of scripts in order to assist other screenwriters. She's already soliciting donations for a legal defense fund.

Why is the studio targeting her? Spoiler alert!

According to the complaint, McIlvaine's actions allegedly cause particular damage to films and TV shows that are still in development. The postings "interfere and trade off of the costly and carefully designed creative processes that produce finished works ready for public consumption. They harm the fans who do not want their enjoyment of a movie or television show to be spoiled by knowing the story ahead of actually being able to watch it."

Fox's lawsuit mentions various scripts including Aliens, Edward Scissorhands, Wall Street, and Glee. It also mentions the leak of the script for the X-Men sequel Deadpool, which isn't scheduled to be released until 2012.