6 ms·

I'm not a lawyer but, reading through the brief, the decision doesn't seem so bad or consequential as it may seem. The crux of the matter seems to be that Yous

I'm not a lawyer but, reading through the brief, the decision doesn't seem so bad or consequential as it may seem. The crux of the matter seems to be that Youssef, the director, did not make Garcia sign any form of written contract before filming her scenes. A standard work for hire contract would have relinquished Garcia's copyright claims to the work and none of this mess would have happened which is exactly why every professional organization insists on contracts being signed. Absent a contract, the court is forced to determine what the implied contract is. Now, if Youssef had hired Garcia to work on "Innocence of Muslims", the court may have determined that for a 5 second appearance, a work for hire was implied and Garcia's copyright claim does not outweigh Youssef's. But that's not what happened, Youssef hired Garcia to work on "Desert Warrior", a film that was described as materially different from "Innocence of Muslims". Given that, it becomes tricky to determine whether the implied contract was broad and general or towards a specific piece of work. The lower court interpreted it as general, the appeal disagreed. I can see both sides of the argument but, given that no contract was signed, it seems correct to me to give the maximum latitude towards Garcia. The court decision though, is that only the 5 seconds that Garcia appeared on film could be copyrighted by her. Youssef is still perfectly free to produce a cut in which her 5 seconds is excised or replaced and re-upload it to Youtube and Garcia would have no more claim to attempt a takedown. So, in summary, this case only creates a precedent if: * No work for hire contract is signed * You materially misrepresent or misappropriate the nature of work to be performed * The person later files a copyright claim * The work can't easily be altered to excise the copyrighted parts. Again, I'm not a lawyer so I may be reading and interpreting the case wrong but it seems largely reasonable.

magicalist 13y ago
As the dissent argues, it is debatable at best that an actor maintains a copyright over their part in a movie, even without an explicit grant of rights. Absent a clear precedent there, and considering the length of the performance, prior restraint should not even be considered. The Supreme Court has been very clear about this. In fact, their only consideration of public interest is the statement which the EFF also found so objectionable: "But the First Amendment doesn’t protect copyright infringement". > Youssef is still perfectly free to produce a cut in which her 5 seconds is excised or replaced and re-upload it to Youtube I see no reference to this in the decision. On the contrary, I see: > Concurrent with this opinion, we have issued an order directing Google to take down all copies of “Innocence of Muslims” from YouTube and any other platforms within its control and to take all reasonable steps to prevent further uploads.
- shalmanese 13y ago
  From the brief, start of page 11: "Garcia may assert a copyright interest only in the portion of “Innocence of Muslims” that represents her individual creativity" The brief doesn't explicitly say that Youssef may upload a different cut but the quote you provided doesn't directly contradict it either since the copies that it's referring to contain Garcia's copyrighted material. A new cut would be a new copyrighted work.
  - magicalist 13y ago
    Yes, but this isn't a decision on the copyright claim. It is an injunction, ordering all copies of the film removed from youtube. She may eventually prevail and have only her portion of the video removed, with the rest able to be distributed intact. Until that day, though, that in no way justifies the government restraining speech before her claim is even evaluated, especially given the particulars of the case. Prior restraint is almost universally a very bad thing, and something that needs to be fought tooth and claw.
    - shalmanese 13y ago
      Fair enough, I didn't touch on the issue of prior restraint in my post and it is potentially troubling. The justification for prior restraint is that Garcia claims that she is facing death threats as a result of this movie being online and this is causing her irreparable harm. So on top of all the other factors I mentioned before, also don't produce a work that will cause people to send death threats. I'm not saying I agree with the court's decisions, just that if you look at the actual brief, it's not the landmark, precedent setting case the media wants it to be.
      - dfc 13y ago
        If you look at "the actual brief" you are not looking at "the court's decision" in the instant case.
  - darkarmani 13y ago
    > "Garcia may assert a copyright interest only in the portion of “Innocence of Muslims” that represents her individual creativity" I don't understand that argument. I thought copyright (outside of dance) was created when that creativity was affixed to media. Doesn't the person filming it own that copyright?
dfc 13y ago
No need to inform us that you are not a lawyer. That was made quite clear when you gave us your take on the decision after reading the brief, never even mentioned first amendment concerns (good or bad) and failed to limit the scope of the precedent variable to the Ninth Circuit.
- shalmanese 13y ago
  I'd love to be educated. This seems to be primarily an IP case. What are the first amendment concerns?
  - icebraining 13y ago
    I'm not a lawyer either, but from having read a few cases in the past, it seems that preliminary injunctions - like the one issued to force Google to take the film down - that prevent speech are usually considered violations of the First Amendment except in extreme cases. Whether this applies to copyright cases is still unclear, but it seems the Supreme Court has taken that stance: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1802778 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1802778
- 1stop 13y ago
  Why so rude? A person tries to contribute and your shoot them down, because they aren't an expert!? Were you not hugged enough as child?
ZoFreX 13y ago
> Youssef hired Garcia to work on "Desert Warrior", a film that was described as materially different from "Innocence of Muslims". If you are interested in hearing more about the story of how the movie came to be, Anna Gurki (another actor in the film) wrote a letter about it: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/09/a-letter-from-scared-actress.html http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/09/a-letter-from-scared-a...
Fuxy 13y ago
Legally it may be right but morally it just pisses me off. What world do we live in when some religions nuts are allowed to exert undue influence by threatening the actors. What you feel insulted by a movie? Keep it to yourself and move on. I don't care if you're Muslim, Christian, Jewish or whatever the new religion your neighbor came up with once you start forcing your beliefs on other people by threats or whatever you find appropriate you have crossed the line.
- onion2k 13y ago
  I think all ginger-haired people should be sent to live on an island! Woah there Fuxy, that's a bit nasty! You shouldn't say things like that. -- And, of course, you didn't. It doesn't really matter whether or not you agree with the statement, if you fear that ginger-haired people will take offence, or if the more extreme ginger-haired will attack you for it - the fact is, if someone deliberately misrepresents your views by making up something that you didn't say and putting your name on it then you should be able to have a say about whether or not that thing is disseminated around the world. In the case of this film it's quite possible that being associated with it might well harm the actor's ability to work. It's quite reasonable that they should go to court to express the fact that they didn't agree to be a part of what was eventually released. This is really quite a simple case of deception - the actors were told they were signing on for one thing, and the director made something completely different. He lied to them. He shouldn't have done.
  - Fuxy 13y ago
    It is quite clear by now that none of the actors ever knew what they were signing up for. That is quite rude on the producers part however the reality is producers are bound to fuck you over if you act for long enough. Really not cool on his part but that's a different issue. The person didn't exert her rights because she didn't agree with the movie she did it because she got death threats. Motivation is important.
    - pekk 13y ago
      The producer should have recruited for the movie he was going to make, or had everyone sign an appropriate contract. It's not right to throw the rights of the actors out the window just because Islam got involved.

magicalist 13y ago

As the dissent argues, it is debatable at best that an actor maintains a copyright over their part in a movie, even without an explicit grant of rights. Absent a clear precedent there, and considering the length of the performance, prior restraint should not even be considered. The Supreme Court has been very clear about this. In fact, their only consideration of public interest is the statement which the EFF also found so objectionable: "But the First Amendment doesn’t protect copyright infringement". > Youssef is still perfectly free to produce a cut in which her 5 seconds is excised or replaced and re-upload it to Youtube I see no reference to this in the decision. On the contrary, I see: > Concurrent with this opinion, we have issued an order directing Google to take down all copies of “Innocence of Muslims” from YouTube and any other platforms within its control and to take all reasonable steps to prevent further uploads.

shalmanese 13y ago
From the brief, start of page 11: "Garcia may assert a copyright interest only in the portion of “Innocence of Muslims” that represents her individual creativity" The brief doesn't explicitly say that Youssef may upload a different cut but the quote you provided doesn't directly contradict it either since the copies that it's referring to contain Garcia's copyrighted material. A new cut would be a new copyrighted work.
- magicalist 13y ago
  Yes, but this isn't a decision on the copyright claim. It is an injunction, ordering all copies of the film removed from youtube. She may eventually prevail and have only her portion of the video removed, with the rest able to be distributed intact. Until that day, though, that in no way justifies the government restraining speech before her claim is even evaluated, especially given the particulars of the case. Prior restraint is almost universally a very bad thing, and something that needs to be fought tooth and claw.
  - shalmanese 13y ago
    Fair enough, I didn't touch on the issue of prior restraint in my post and it is potentially troubling. The justification for prior restraint is that Garcia claims that she is facing death threats as a result of this movie being online and this is causing her irreparable harm. So on top of all the other factors I mentioned before, also don't produce a work that will cause people to send death threats. I'm not saying I agree with the court's decisions, just that if you look at the actual brief, it's not the landmark, precedent setting case the media wants it to be.
    - dfc 13y ago
      If you look at "the actual brief" you are not looking at "the court's decision" in the instant case.
- darkarmani 13y ago
  > "Garcia may assert a copyright interest only in the portion of “Innocence of Muslims” that represents her individual creativity" I don't understand that argument. I thought copyright (outside of dance) was created when that creativity was affixed to media. Doesn't the person filming it own that copyright?

dfc 13y ago

No need to inform us that you are not a lawyer. That was made quite clear when you gave us your take on the decision after reading the brief, never even mentioned first amendment concerns (good or bad) and failed to limit the scope of the precedent variable to the Ninth Circuit.

shalmanese 13y ago
I'd love to be educated. This seems to be primarily an IP case. What are the first amendment concerns?
- icebraining 13y ago
  I'm not a lawyer either, but from having read a few cases in the past, it seems that preliminary injunctions - like the one issued to force Google to take the film down - that prevent speech are usually considered violations of the First Amendment except in extreme cases. Whether this applies to copyright cases is still unclear, but it seems the Supreme Court has taken that stance: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1802778 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1802778
1stop 13y ago
Why so rude? A person tries to contribute and your shoot them down, because they aren't an expert!? Were you not hugged enough as child?

ZoFreX 13y ago

> Youssef hired Garcia to work on "Desert Warrior", a film that was described as materially different from "Innocence of Muslims". If you are interested in hearing more about the story of how the movie came to be, Anna Gurki (another actor in the film) wrote a letter about it: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/09/a-letter-from-scared-actress.html http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/09/a-letter-from-scared-a...

Fuxy 13y ago

Legally it may be right but morally it just pisses me off. What world do we live in when some religions nuts are allowed to exert undue influence by threatening the actors. What you feel insulted by a movie? Keep it to yourself and move on. I don't care if you're Muslim, Christian, Jewish or whatever the new religion your neighbor came up with once you start forcing your beliefs on other people by threats or whatever you find appropriate you have crossed the line.

onion2k 13y ago
I think all ginger-haired people should be sent to live on an island! Woah there Fuxy, that's a bit nasty! You shouldn't say things like that. -- And, of course, you didn't. It doesn't really matter whether or not you agree with the statement, if you fear that ginger-haired people will take offence, or if the more extreme ginger-haired will attack you for it - the fact is, if someone deliberately misrepresents your views by making up something that you didn't say and putting your name on it then you should be able to have a say about whether or not that thing is disseminated around the world. In the case of this film it's quite possible that being associated with it might well harm the actor's ability to work. It's quite reasonable that they should go to court to express the fact that they didn't agree to be a part of what was eventually released. This is really quite a simple case of deception - the actors were told they were signing on for one thing, and the director made something completely different. He lied to them. He shouldn't have done.
- Fuxy 13y ago
  It is quite clear by now that none of the actors ever knew what they were signing up for. That is quite rude on the producers part however the reality is producers are bound to fuck you over if you act for long enough. Really not cool on his part but that's a different issue. The person didn't exert her rights because she didn't agree with the movie she did it because she got death threats. Motivation is important.
  - pekk 13y ago
    The producer should have recruited for the movie he was going to make, or had everyone sign an appropriate contract. It's not right to throw the rights of the actors out the window just because Islam got involved.