They’re illegal, matey!

Sorry, I know I shouldn’t find this amusing. But it is. A certain Mark Baynes posted to Groovetown’s Forums recently, saying that he had a copy of the Dwarf film script in PDF format, and that if people e-mailed him, he would send them a copy.

We got this this morning. Erm, this evening. The message (and its subsequent replies) has been removed from the site, as requested by Harbottle & Lewis LLP, acting for Doug Naylor and Red Dwarf Films Ltd. They have also said that Mr Baynes has not got a copy of the script; which I suspected as much, having sent off for a copy and not having recieved a reply. (In fact, it was pretty obvious that he didn’t have a copy from his message, but I just wanted to check. In the spirit of investigative journalism, of couse.) All messages have been forwarded onto Harbottle & Lewis LLP, along with the respondent’s e-mail addresses (the site owner, Rick Mason, has been careful to stress that the only time he would do such a thing is under circumstances like these) and it is possible that they may contact people who replied to the thread to check that they also do not have a copy of the script. INCLUDING ME. If they ask, shall I say I have it for a joke?

All of which is frankly an amusing bit of fun; Mark doesn’t have it, I don’t have it, Groovetown doesn’t have it; nobody has it that shouldn’t. Yet. It does however suggest that when the film enters production, any serious leaks will be dealt with pretty severely. Anyone who attended any later recordings of the TV show will remember the warnings given out not to spoil anything for people; this would appear to be a rather heightened version of that.

Incidentally, Mark “silly cunt” Baynes also posted the same message to CountingDown.com – and it hasn’t been removed yet…