The “Innocence of Muslims” is Back in Court

obama freedom

This was the movie that Obama tried to blame his intelligence failure on. This was the movie whose producer Hillary promised to send to jail. (And did.) It’s also the movie that Obama told Google to take down. Google to its credit refused. A Federal judge issued a bizarre ruling claiming that an actress in the movie could get it taken down because the movie was unprofessional. His decision is now being challenged.

An 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena will hear arguments Monday by Google, which owns YouTube, disputing the court’s decision to remove “Innocence of Muslims” from the popular video sharing service.

A divided three-judge panel ruled in February that actress Cindy Lee Garcia had a copyright claim to the 2012 video because she believed she was acting in a much different production than the one that appeared.

Garcia was paid $500 for a movie called “Desert Warrior” she believed had nothing to do with religion, but ended up in a five-second scene in which her voice was dubbed over so her character asked if Muhammad was a child molester.

“These, of course, are fighting words to many faithful Muslims and, after the film aired on Egyptian television, there were protests that generated worldwide news coverage,” Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in the 2-1 opinion. “While answering a casting call for a low-budget amateur film doesn’t often lead to stardom, it also rarely turns an aspiring actress into the subject of a fatwa.”

Google argued that the copyright was owned by filmmaker Mark Basseley Youssef, who wrote the script, managed the production and dubbed over Garcia’s dialogue.

A dissenting judge said Garcia played no creative role that would give her ownership rights.

Until the court order, YouTube had rejected calls by President Barack Obama and other world leaders to pull the video, arguing that it would amount to government censorship and violate free speech protections.

Google is supported in its appeal by an unusual alliance that includes filmmakers, Internet rivals such as Yahoo and prominent news media companies such as The New York Times that don’t want the court to infringe on First Amendment rights.

The case is a no-brainer.

Kozinski made up his own law with no actual grounds. Meanwhile the Obama blame game has died down to such an extent that even the New York Times is willing to join in on the side of free speech. The appeals court will likely reverse. But the real issue is still the fact that a man was sent to jail for making a movie and that the administration actually told YouTube to take it down.

This is a topic we ought to be talking about, but the media refuses to have a serious discussion about the implications of it even if they have very belatedly now come out on the side of free speech.

  • roccolore

    Democrats defend the Benghazi terrorists and had a filmmaker arrested at the demands of Hamas-linked CAIR.

  • Hard Little Machine

    All I can say is that after that massacre of hundreds of children in Pakistan today that must of been THE MOST offensive Youtube video besmirching the prophet Mohammed those children produced. It’s axiomatic.

  • Texas Patriot

    The actress has a point. Filmmakers ought not be allowed to overdub actors’ voices with dialog that can get them killed in today’s environment. If filmmakers want to make controversial films, fine. But let them do it at their own risk, and not the risk of actors who have no idea of the risk they are being involuntarily and non-consensually being subjected to.

    • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

      No, she has no point whatsoever. The filmmaker is the legal owner of the film, and the job of the government is to protect his property rights. Actors don’t get to insist on control of the script (unless that’s in their contracts), and producers can’t be held responsible for the insane ravings of Muslims who take offense at anything and everything.

      • Texas Patriot

        Perhaps you would like it if someone took a video of you and overdubbed it with inflammatory dialog that was not your voice and not your words and did it without your knowledge or consent If a filmmaker has something to say, let him say it himself, and let him take responsibility for it, whatever it is. Using actors to say what you’re too afraid to say yourself is nothing more than a coward’s way of hiding behind a human shield.

        • objectivefactsmatter

          It’s up to the actors to protect their own images. They can limit use when they sign their contracts. Or they accept the risks.

        • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

          If I object to someone putting words in my mouth than I shouldn’t accept a job as an actor in the first place! What do you think the drama is – and improvised bull session in which each actor makes up his lines as he goes along. Documentaries are not the only form that a film may take, you know.

          • Sparafucile

            “I talked to Barzini!”

            Well, I guarantee you that actor Alex Rocco never said those words.

    • Sparafucile

      Then her conflict should be with SAG and their standard-form contracts.

    • http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/ Edward Cline

      If the actress had no idea that she’d be getting in trouble with Muslims and a fatwa, then she’s brain dead and hardly aware what’s going on in the world. Then there’s the issue of contracts between a producer and his cast. If there was nothing in the contract about NOT over-dubbing a cast member’s voice, then she hasn’t a leg to stand on, whether or not she was aware of any danger or of the world around her.

    • objectivefactsmatter

      Demand a “no dubbing” clause.

      We don’t have to bend to Islamic standards. The solution is to prosecute with violence if necessary anyone that terrorizes the public in to thinking we have to change the way that we do business to please them.

      Otherwise caveat emptor applies.

  • glpage

    Because Jews and Christians won’t kill you if you piss them off. Because leftists define what is real regardless of the facts. Because they want to kill you if you believe otherwise.

  • SCREW SOCIALISM

    140,000,000 Muslims are NOT innocent.

    That’s the 10% of the 1.4 billion who support terrorism.

  • Bryan Schmick

    Mohammed (age 47) married a seven year old but managed to hold off his urges to consummate the marriage until she was nine. That sound a lot like a child molester. Remember that he is the model Muslims want to be like.

  • bob e

    i think i’ve reached my jihad moment .. that is, i used to be moderate
    but now have reached that slice & dice moment .. can’t do much however,
    due to muslim metro-sex pimp barry o’fraud who has disarmed all patriots..
    mebbe’ i’ll go ‘undercover’ & wear a burka .. or

  • Sparafucile

    This should be even easier.

    What did the release the actress signed say?

  • David

    Technically the man was sent to jail for a parole violation.

    • objectivefactsmatter

      Technically he was investigated to “punish” the video publisher.