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."
Garcia had to file this legal complaint (Score:5, Interesting)
Because if she succeeds is suppressing the film, she gets to keep her head.
But meanwhile, because even the more marginally sane decisions of the "Ninth Circus" are routinely blown away by the SCOTUS, this one will certainly not survive. Garcia therefore has a window of a few months to arrange for a new identity.
Re:In before... (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a difference in this case; the Striesand Effect refers to the fact that trying to take something off the internet not only doesn't work, but gives you lots and lots of negative publicity for trying to do so (and highlighting the original issue which would otherwise be obscure and largely unknown), causing more damage than the original problem.
This doesn't apply in this case because:
1) The Innocence of Muslims is already known to pretty much everyone on the internet due to the events surrounding it in 2012.
2) The publicity can only help Ms. Garcia in this case, as making her disapproval known will likely help stop the death threats.
Re:Dangerous precedent (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a very specific instance where the actor claims that she was hired for a film about one thing and the film turned out to be about something else. Would you have a problem with being hired for a film about the advantages of having a father figure but when the film comes out it is actually about the benefits of pedophilia? It is not about religion; It is about misrepresentations on the filming contract.
Re:In before... (Score:5, Interesting)
People who make death threats aren't rational people. Expecting them to suddenly behave rationally is without merit. They'll just move on making death threats to the next person in line they have some perceived (real or imagined) gripe against.
Re:In before... (Score:5, Interesting)
People who make death threats aren't rational people.
If the death threats achieve the desired end, then why aren't they rational?
Re:In before... (Score:5, Interesting)
Second is the long-standing interpretation of copyright law saying that people own copyright on their own appearance.
Got some cases you can cite for that?
Typically, when making a movie or taking pictures of a person, you need the actors' or models' permission*.
And publicity and privacy rights, which are what you get releases for, are not copyrights. They are not even vaguely related.
Re:In before... (Score:5, Interesting)
No. No, he did not misuse the word.
We have a first amendment right protecting us from the government saying what we can and can't say. You may find IoM horribly offensive, but the systematic attempts to censor it since release amount to nothing less than a violation of that right.
This BS line about the director "tricking" the actors amounts to little more than prison camp guards crying about just following orders. "Oh shit, that jokey inflammatory C-movie we made actually got someone's attention? Quick, deny, deny!"
Re:In before... (Score:5, Interesting)
The director didn't "trick" the actors - if the judge is correct in his analysis, the director committed fraud against the actors. No quotation marks, just a real criminal act, which, if true, also makes releasing the film automatically a criminally negligent act, (reckless endangenrment) again without any quotes around the facts.
It's like Traci Lords may have genuinely tricked the directors of her first few films into thinking she was over 18, or she may have "tricked" them, but it doesn't matter, as you still have no right what-so-ever to watch an X rated film that features a person still a minor under US law. People can argue over whether the producers knew Ms. Lords was under 18, or not, but it simply doesn't change whether you have a right to watch those films, either way.
The argument in this case runs the same way, the judge has ruled that, at the very least, there wasn't a valid contract. (The producer was a previously convicted felon, who had legal restrictions as part of his probation against using an alias, and yet used one in representing himself to the actors and in signing their contracts, and who has pled guilty to this, and three other charges including making false statements, He's already convicted and serving time). Presumption of who is "tricking", or tricking whom also follows. You're trying to make this a debate over who may have committed this or that other act of trickery that is yet unproven, and may be just a matter of tort law either way, and ignoring that one side has been convicted of criminal acts, which makes your whole point moot. The contract is invalid, and all the actors have the right to seek protection from the consequences of their involvement. They are threatened with death, and that threat exists as a consequence of whole set of proven criminal acts.
They have that right in some jurisdictions even if every single one of them suspected, or even knew that the producer was an ex con, or that the law prohibited him from using an alias, just like we can charge one person who planned a bank robbery with murder in the commission of a felony, even though the 'victim' was one of his fellow robbers. But if you want to claim you know for an absolute fact that all the actors knew the producer was committing a crime, go right ahead and claim it. They still have a right to be protected as much as possible from being killed as a consequence of the producer's felonious actions, and you don't have a right to have them put at further risk, whether that feels like your first amendment right is what you're invoking, or not.