Last month, Shia LaBeouf’s short film HowardCantour.com was released online to much acclaim, until everyone realised he’d simply stolen the concept, and pretty much all of the dialogue, from comic book creator Daniel Clowes’ Justin M. Damiano.
Realised he’d been caught blatantly plagiarising (and plagiarising his apology) LaBeouf then decided to ridicule Clowes and his critics by posting a series of plagiarised tweets, paying for a sky-writing apology, threatening to steal more of Clowes’ work, and even tweeting a cease and desist letter sent on behalf of Clowes.
Well, it now seems that LaBeouf is calling it a day, posting on Twitter that, “in light of the recent attacks against my artistic integrity, I am retiring from all public life. My love goes out to those who have supported me.” Of course LaBeouf’s version of “all public life” doesn’t appear to include Twitter as his account still remains open, so at this point it looks like this is just another attention-grabbing stunt from the actor and copyright infringer.
Originally published January 10, 2014. Updated April 11, 2018.
