Google Ordered To Remove Anti-Islamic Film From YouTube 321
cold fjord writes "The Verge reports, 'Google and YouTube must scrub all copies of Innocence of Muslims, a low-budget anti-Islam film that drew international protest in 2012, at the behest of an actress who says she received death threats after being duped into a role. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has granted a temporary takedown order on behalf of Cindy Lee Garcia, who filed a copyright claim against Google in an attempt to purge the video from the web. While actors usually give up the right to assert copyright protection when they agree to appear in a film, Garcia says that not only was she never an employee in any meaningful sense, the finished film bore virtually no relation to the one she agreed to appear in. In a majority opinion, Judge Alex Kozinski said she was likely in the right.' — Techdirt has extensive commentary on the ruling that's worth reading. It seems likely there will be an appeal, with the distinct possibility that Google and the MPAA will be on the same side."
In before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dangerous precedent (Score:3, Insightful)
The "church of scientology" will be all over this one.
The constitutional protections, and by extension US citizens, take in in the ass yet again.
Copyright? (Score:5, Insightful)
How can someone who performed in a work-for-hire claim copyright? They own nothing other than the cash they were paid for their services.
Rather than Streisand herself she should just change her name. It sucks to have to do so but that's her only recourse.
Re:In before... (Score:4, Insightful)
The important point is that the law says you are not allowed to see it on YouTube. Its a right that you had yesterday that you do not have today. Part of the massive, slow and irreversible erosion of our rights.
Re:Dangerous precedent (Score:5, Insightful)
The complainant is not a random critic who disagrees with the content of the film. And under normal circumstances, an actor would not have the standing to file a takedown notice either. But this woman claims that she was duped into appearing in the film under unusual circumstances and the judge seemed to agree.
Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically, something that looked a whole lot like a work for hire is suddenly not a work for hire anymore because the hireling didn't really approve of the changes made elsewhere in the production process. It's hard to imagine a theory much more dramatic than that, for any company doing business in copyrighted work slapped together by teams of employees.
In fairness, I don't envy the actress who now enjoys the attention of some of the real dregs of abrahamic monotheism, even by the tepid standards of the genre; but the idea that that makes the movie no longer a work for hire (rather than, say, a reckless endangerment suit) has no obvious 'bright line' boundaries that would prevent it from applying to much less dramatic situations. They say that doing 'rights clearance' in film sucks already, imagine if every cast member, and maybe even the memorable extras, gets veto power based on whether they approve of the post-production special effects or not... That'd be fun to try to insure.
Re:Dangerous precedent (Score:3, Insightful)
May as well be (Score:2, Insightful)
The complainant is not a random critic who disagrees with the content of the film.
It's close enough as to make no difference. Do you really think that EVERY actress/actor who finds the released movie different than the one she/he worked on can get the movie pulled when they have ZERO ownership of it? Absurd.
The movie was never really a problem anyway - all of the protests against it were shams, as are death threats against the actress (obviously). And yet we are willing to let any person who appeared in a movie have a say over release and distribution... it will never work.
Re:Copyright? (Score:2, Insightful)
It opens the door for every actor to sue the producers for copyright violation. The judge is basically saying that the director has no right to edit the film in a way the actors disapprove of, because the actors are being "creative".
Re:May as well be (Score:5, Insightful)
It's close enough as to make no difference.
Actually it makes a big difference. To file a court case, you have to have "standing". A random person who's pissed off does not qualify. You have to be directly involved in the situation.
I'm also surprised that an actor in a film was able to get any claim of ownership. An actor is expected to know that a movie can change due to rewrites, or editing, or any of the reasons that films normally change between the beginning and the end of the process. But if you can show that the producer was intentionally deceptive- that he planned the whole time to make an anti-Islam hit piece but told the actors something else, then that's a different story.
Re:Garcia had to file this legal complaint (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In before... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Dangerous precedent (Score:5, Insightful)
What the hell does that even mean? They are actors, pretending to be someone else, i.e. pretending to have different views, thoughts, feelings etc. Its their job to "falsely represent themselves".
Re:Ridiculous assertion (Score:3, Insightful)
If there’s any suit available to this actress, it’s against the producer/director/etc. of the film for misrepresentation. There’s no conceivable way this should be a copyright case. There’s no way that anyone who was paid for appearing in it by the eventual rights holder (producer/etc.) should retain any right to issue take down demands contrary to the will of the actual owner of the copyright.
Short of a contract that stated she retained any rights (doubtful), then I can’t see how this was anything other than work for hire with associated assignment of copyright.
Re:Dangerous precedent (Score:4, Insightful)
Susan Sarandon supposedly hated Rocky Horror and regretted ever appearing in it. Shall we tear down all the copies of that?
Can she convince a judge that her contract to appear in the movie was invalid?
Re:In before... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In before... (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't realize that laws now singled out YouTube. I also didn't realize that my rights are somehow more important than anybody else's. In fact, usually it's the opposite - I'm not usually allowed to exercise my rights if doing so would infringe on others' rights.
There are three relevant laws in this case. First is the long precedent of case law saying that a contract must be made in good faith to be enforceable. Second is the long-standing interpretation of copyright law saying that people own copyright on their own appearance. Finally, there's the DMCA's takedown provisions.
Typically, when making a movie or taking pictures of a person, you need the actors' or models' permission*. This is a pretty standard part of the release contracts, which are indeed covered under contract law. However, in this case it seems the producers didn't make the release contract in good faith. That means the contract is thrown out, so the actress still owns copyright on her likeness as used in the movie, so she has legal standing to issue a DMCA takedown request.
This is not an erosion of our rights. This is enforcing the rights we already have. Cindy Lee Garcia's right to control her identity is being upheld.
* Especially for photos, model appearance is usually pretty weakly protected, actually. If the picture's subject is even a little famous, there's an easy argument to be made for fair use. Similarly, movie extras don't really get legal grounds to claim the whole movie, but responsible producers will have them sign releases anyway. Main characters, on the other hand, can easily claim that their appearance is significant to the final work, defeating any fair-use defense.
Re:Ridiculous assertion (Score:4, Insightful)
If the hiring was fraudulent, being based on false pretenses, then the copyright assignment is consequently void.
Re:Dangerous precedent (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely not. This has fuck all to do with freedom of speech, this has to do with being honest in your contracts and not trying to dupe people into making hate pieces.
Your statement demanding everyone agree with you shows how little you actual care about free speech.
Re:In before... (Score:2, Insightful)
People who make death threats aren't rational people.
If the death threats achieve the desired end, then why aren't they rational?
Is everything that achieved automatically made rational?
Or in other words, are you saying that results not only justify the means, but the motivations as well.
Re:In before... (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't watched it, and even if I had I wouldn't be able to comment on its historical accuracy. But given how long ago the subject lived it strikes me as unlikely that any current movie could claim such accuracy, even if they made a point of trying -- which IoM didn't, from what I've heard.
Also I think you are confusing the cases of a Dutch columnist who was murdered and a Danish cartoonist who was threatened, so historical accuracy doesn't appear to be your forte either (no offense).
Re:In before... (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually - and this is important - the movie offends Muslims but obviously not as primary intent. As it is historically accurate it primarily offends due to it revealing some pretty painful truths, and the fact that some Muslims takes offense to pictures of Muhammad. Both of these reasons are exactly why movies like this *must* be available out there. People needs to know about the pedophile prophet and we must erode and tear down the idea about Muhammad not being pictured. That's what the Danish cartoons did, or tried to do. But we must repeat and repeat until they get desensitized enough to just accept it because it is all part of an elaborate smoke screen designed to hide core aspects of the religion from public review and debate. They insist on calling it a religion of peace but the middle east have been at war for a thousand years because of it, and now several areas in Africa has followed into the pit of completely stupid ethnic wars over religion with Islam as the prominent primary aggressor.
Re:In before... (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes you say the film is historically accurate? What would you say is the primary intent of the movie -- informing the public? If either were true, why did the makers had to deceive the actors -- who were working with a different script than what ended up in the movie apparently -- and overdub significant portions of their lines?
As to the pedophile prophet meme... It seems to me this is projecting today's standards onto ancient history, and you're doing so selectively. I am pretty sure that at the time it was completely normal in Christendom too to consider females adults after they first menstruate.
Finally, I don't think Islam is significantly more -- or less -- violent than basically any other organized religion I can think of save Buddhism. And recent history in the Middle East is much less due to Islam then it is due to their cursed oil and *Western* meddling because of that. Read some of the declassified reports in which the US called the ME a "great prize".
So, for example, Iran -- whom we are supposed to be so very affraid of -- has not fought offensive wars for centuries. They have been, however, been forced to defend themselves from Iraqi aggression (backed by US/UK) and been deprived of their democratically elected moderate government on two occasions, again mostly instigated by US/UK agents. The fundamentalists in Tehran (despicable though I find them) are a direct result of Western actions.
Re:In before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Its too low budget and obviously biased to be believed. If they had a point made by any fact, it was lost in their enthusiasm to trash Islam.
However this opens the door to Christians taking down Atheist videos, Atheist taking down Christian videos, Islamic taking down Jewish videos, Jews taking down Islamic videos, $cientologists taking down Subgenius videos, Subgenii taking down $cientology videos and Anonymous taking down any server that displeases them.
I think we can live with a few offensive videos and keep everyones grubby mits to their goddamn selves.