4 ms·
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
by 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 agoFrom 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 agoYes, 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 agoFair 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 agoIf 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?