U.S. Judge Refuses to Order Anti-Muslim Film Off YouTube
U.S. judge refuses to order anti-Muslim film off YouTube
December 1, 2012Reuters - An actress who said she was duped into appearing in an anti-Islam film that stoked violent protests against the United States across the Muslim world lost on Friday her second legal bid to force the video off YouTube.
Garcia's lawyer, Cris Armenta, told Reuters she planned to appeal the decision.
The outbreak of violence coincided with an attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi in September that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.
For many Muslims, any depiction of the prophet is considered blasphemous.
Google has refused to remove the film from YouTube, despite pressure from the White House and others to take it down, though the company has blocked the trailer in Egypt, Libya and other Muslim countries.
COPYRIGHT CLAIM
Garcia has accused the purported filmmaker of fraud, libel and unfair business practices.
But her federal lawsuit also asserts a copyright claim to her performance in the video, titled "The Innocence of Muslims," and accuses Google of infringing on that copyright by distributing the video without her approval via YouTube.
But in a three-page ruling, the judge questioned the validity of such a claim. He held that even if she could prove a legitimate copyright interest in her film performance, she effectively relinquished her rights to producers of the film.
Fitzgerald also ruled that Garcia failed to show that she would suffer irreparable harm without an injunction.
Despite Friday's ruling against her, "we hope that worldwide the message has been heard that Ms. Garcia was not complicit and did not voluntarily participate in this heinous piece of hate speech," her lawyer said in a statement.