Actor Shia LaBeouf could face a potential lawsuit after admitting he plagiarized the script of his latest film project, "HowardCantour.com".
LaBeouf took to his official Twitter account on Dec. 16 to confirm the allegations of plagiarism against writer and illustrator David Clowes. LaBeouf's "HowardCantour.com" is reportedly very similar to Clowes' comic "Justin M. Damiano".
"The first I ever heard of the film was this morning when someone sent me a link. I've never spoken to or met Mr. LaBeouf," Clowes told Buzzfeed. "I've never even seen one of his films that I can recall - and I was shocked, to say the least, when I saw that he took the script and even many of the visuals from a very personal story I did six or seven years ago and passed it off as his own work. I actually can't imagine what was going through his mind."
I was wrong, terribly wrong. I owe it to future generations to explain why.
— Shia LaBeouf (@thecampaignbook) December 18, 2013
According to BuzzFeed, Clowes may be looking to take legal action against LaBeouf. Clowes' editor Eric Reynolds released an email statement to BuzzFeed about the actor's "non-apology".
"His apology is a non-apology, absolving himself of the fact that he actively misled, at best, and lied, at worst, about the genesis of the film," Reynolds wrote. "No one 'assumes' authorship for no reason. He implied authorship in the film credits itself, and has gone even further in interviews. He clearly doesn't get it, and that's disturbing. I'm not sure if it's more disturbing that he plagiarized, or that he could rationalize it enough to think it was OK and that he might actually get away with it."
Though LaBeouf publicly apologized, it seems that he may have also plagiarized his apology from the following Yahoo! Answers post by user Lilia:
"Merely copying isn't particularly creative work, though it's useful as training and practice. Being inspired by someone else's idea to produce something new and different IS creative work, and it may even revolutionalize the "stolen" concept."
"HowardCantour.com" is no longer available online. You can read LaBeouf's apology tweets here.
