Innocence Of Muslims Maker Produces Acting Waiver Signed By Cindy Garcia
from the uh-oh dept
The saga of Cindy Garcia and her attempt to get The Innocence Of Muslims trailer off of YouTube continues. If you'll recall, Garcia is one of the actresses who performed in the controversial almost-film "Innocence of Muslims", which sparked protests throughout the Arab world. Since the protests and media blitz began (as opposed to since the flim's trailer was released), Garcia has been trying to get the YouTube video taken down by throwing the proverbial legal kitchen sink at proverbial legal kitchen-everyone, including claims that she was duped by the flimmakers and that she owned a copyright on her portion of her performance. Buttressing her argument was her claim that she never signed any kind of release for the film.Well, that claim is now being directly challenged by Google and the film's producer, Mark Basseley Youssef, or whatever the hell he's calling himself this week.
Youssef, who is serving time in prison for using multiple names in violation of his parole, has furnished what he says is the "personal release" signed by Garcia. He says that he is prepared to testify under oath that it is the "cast deal memo" signed by the actress. A copy of his declaration is below.Now, it should be stressed in very strong terms that Youssef is currently in jail for breaking the law and lying his posterior off, so the need for this document to be validated is certainly there. That said, if the document is genuine, Garcia has some real issues. Forget the lawsuit regarding copyright entirely, since the waiver ostensibly releases any rights that may exist there (and I don't think they exist anyway) to the filmmaker. On top of that, the waiver also includes language preventing Garcia from litigating the film producers as well, though I'm not sure how likely such provisions would hold up in court in this controversial case.
All that being said, if Garcia signed a release and then brought a court case against Youssef and Google for copyright violation, that is a clear case of copyfraud, and it spells trouble. Aside from the obvious legal implications of bringing such a false claim, one has to wonder if any other aspects of her case that may still be allowed to go forward would be damaged by the potential fact of Garcia herself also being a proven liar. Again, this document sure as hell needs to be vetted, considering the source, but if it's real, it's damaging.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: cindy garcia, innocence of muslims
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
(other idiots)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
HOW DARE HE SAY MUSLIMS ARE VIOLENT
GIVE HIM THE DEATH PINALTY!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Response to: Anonymous Coward on Nov 30th, 2012 @ 5:08pm
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
IMDB
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: IMDB
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: IMDB
All this "controversy" over a non-existing (or viewed by 10ppl) film that has a 15 minute segment on YouTube?
Perhaps the real point was not even a film, perhaps it was really only 15min long and intended to expose the problems from all sides of the fence?
Notice the Fatwas, name calling, mudslinging debates, legal bullshit, etc... all out of nothing and all for nothing. It's people making mountains out of mole hills, and perhaps the intent was to show the ignorance and bigotry from all sides of the fence.
I wonder if anyone, including Egypt's court system that feels it can sentence someone to death who isn't even in their own country, stopped to think about that? I wonder if anyone stopped to think that the whole point was to stir up controversy and get people to show their true colours?
For those who flipped out and bashed others, uttered threats, uttered racist comments and the like, you were played!
You let some idiot change a film and create a stir, create riots, and make you behave like fools! Why would you give someone so much power over you?
Go and calm down and get your left brains working again and you'll see just how stupid this "film" is and what it was really intended to do.
Note: You are NOT a fool, so don't issue Fatwas against me for pointing out you had a temporary logical failure.
I think one thing is certain, this non-film showed people are not ready to get alone with one another and accept others for their differences (though that's obvious just by watching the US media and reading the comments on news sites).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: IMDB
I don't speak egyptian, or any other middle eastern language, i can't go check and see what the forums and news feeds are saying over there, i can't reconstruct a narrative or timeline. What i can see, is that the trailer was up on youtube for ages, and then suddenly, supposedly the arab world was up in arms about it. The trailer and the film were in english, i don't even remember any subtitles...so i'm a little confused about how it would have caused mass indignation. It's not like you have to look far to find something on youtube that's offensive to the arab world.
Frankly the whole thing feels like a story being spun, and i don't have nearly enough information to be able to decode who's playing this troll out. Then when they start digging into the shit surrounding and BEHIND the movie, it gets even murkier. Fake names, lying to actors, general asshattery and jiggery pokery...smells all conspiracy like. Except...it's a youtube trailer for some shit that doesn't exist. I can't see anyway for the guy to make money off it, so fraud seems out.
and yet, why go to the massive amount of trouble this guy went to, and risk violating the terms of his probation, if there wasn't money involved? sure, so he might have been an extremist of some sort, so what? Where was the payoff, unless it was just a massive wank job as a platform to get his hate on...but it still seems like an awful lot of effort for what should have been zero return, given the hundreds of hours of video uploaded to the tube daily.
none of it hangs together, it just doesn't pass my bullshit filter. It's not about needing to calm down, i'm simply saying that we'll likely never know what the actual narrative around all this was.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: IMDB
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: IMDB
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: IMDB
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: IMDB
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Are contracts made as part of fraud enforceable?
The judge should have addressed the fraud issue more clearly. There should be no reasonable defense against the copyright claim given the criminal activity surrounding the production of the film. How can ANY of "Bacile's" contracts be held valid?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Are contracts made as part of fraud enforceable?
She does not have the copyright to the video. Only the copyright holder, or an authorized representative hired or employed by them, can file to have youtube or another site remove the video. She is not this person, and therefor has no right to try and get it removed via a copyright claim.
This really isn't that difficult a concept to understand, so it boggles the mind how it keeps popping up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I am innocent
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Obama-ganda
Oh, pudding. I forgot that telling the truth is, "racist."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Obama-ganda
Uuhhmm, you do realize that there were protests throughout the Arab World over the video that had nothing to do with Benghazi, which is the case you're talking about, right? There were actual protests over the film. A lot of them. And I never mentioned any ambassadors in this post. Idiot.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Obama-ganda
When I wrote for a newspaper, the hierarchy of reporters was: 1) Original news story writers; 2) Rewriters of the original stories, for later editions & papers requiring different stylistic elements; 3) Rewriters of press releases.
Guess which type of writer you are, dipwad.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Obama-ganda
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Citation for lying
Can you produce a citation for your statement "Youssef is currently in jail for breaking the law and lying his posterior off"? Or are you making things up again?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Citation for lying
Umm. It's quoted right above that statementThe link to the article with that quote is right above the quote:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/innocence-muslims-filmmaker-surfaces-potential-39 5447
If you follow that link, there is a link in that story to a detailed article about it:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/innocence-muslims-filmmaker-mark-basseley-387522
I don't know about you, but I don't think something could be more cited than that.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Citation for lying
Can you provide us with a citation that your name is indeed Tristan Phillips? Or did you make that name up?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Citation for lying
Anything else Tristan?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Who really paid Basiel to make the film
[ link to this | view in chronology ]