Another Actor From 'Innocence Of Muslims' Sues Google Over Copyright Claim... Via Same Lawyer As Cindy Garcia

from the building-a-business,-huh? dept

Mon, Sep 15th 2014 11:26am — Mike Masnick

Nothing much has happened lately in the bizarre legal case of actress Cindy Lee Garcia had against Google. If you don't recall, Garcia was one of the actresses who appeared in the "short film" called The Innocence of Muslims that became the center of a big story not so long ago for being incredibly insulting to many Muslims. Garcia claimed that she was duped into appearing in the film by its creator Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (who goes under a variety of names, including Sam Bacile). But, more importantly, she claimed that she had a copyright on her appearance, and thus could issue a takedown to make it disappear. Going against pretty much all settled law on the subject, the 9th Circuit Appeals court, lead by Judge Alex Kozinski agreed with her take, upending years of basic copyright law (even the Copyright Office has said she has no copyright claim). After lots of complaints, Kozinski doubled down on his original ruling, but added a couple of "outs" for a district court to fix his ridiculous interpretation (mainly by saying "fair use.") Either way, Kozinski ordered Google to take down the video (and originally put a very questionable gag order on the company about it).

Garcia's lawyer, Cris Armenta then accused Google of being in contempt of court by basically misrepresenting everything Google had done. That strategy failed, as the court rejected Armenta's attempt.

However, it appears Armenta isn't done with Google yet. She's found yet another actor from Innocence of Muslims, a guy named Gaylord Flynn, and convinced him to file yet another copyright lawsuit against Google over the film. Notably, the accusation is not about the film being on YouTube (since Google took all those down), but about the fact that doing searches on Google one can find copies of the film via other sites, including various torrent sites and also other video streaming sites like LiveLeak and DailyMotion. The fact that those other sites are not being sued kinda says a lot about what's happening here.

It appears that Armenta and/or Flynn hired one of the popular takedown request companies out there, DMCA solutions, to demand Google remove all these links from its search results. Google turned down the requests, and voila, Armenta gets to file another lawsuit against Google, based on the same ridiculous interpretation of copyright law that Garcia used, that merely appearing in the film gives one a copyright interest. I get the feeling this won't be the last such lawsuit either.

239812530 Flynn v Nakoula and Google Innocence of Musims Complaint (PDF)239812530 Flynn v Nakoula and Google Innocence of Musims Complaint (Text)

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Filed Under: alex kozinski, cindy garcia, cindy lee garcia, copyright, cris armenta, gaylord flynn, innocence of muslims, nakoula basseley nakoula, sam bacile
Companies: google

16 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 15 Sep 2014 @ 11:40am

If it were titled
"Innocence of Christians" or Jews then it would heralded as a new direction in art and very promising and quite possibly saw more angel investments from Muslims no less.

Funny how those biases work.

That and Obama would have had to pick a different scape goat for Benghazi.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Sep 2014 @ 11:42am

I feel like we've already been down this road before.
Are we driving in circles?
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 15 Sep 2014 @ 11:51am

Copyright law, a wonderful tool that is very prone to abuse.
When the copyright office says there is no claim that really should count for something, but instead we get bad law setting up what will be an endless parade of people suing Google because Google has the money.

Perhaps this time they will get a Judge who isn't given to flights of fancy and might defer to the Copyright Office's expert statement of the standing and put an end to this cottage industry.
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Trevor, 15 Sep 2014 @ 11:52am

Re: If it were titled
You went full Sean Hannity.

Never go full Sean Hannity.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Sep 2014 @ 12:07pm

Google should just buy the rights of the film .
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Sep 2014 @ 12:10pm

Re:
I blame the lawyers, they look for ways to bring a case and get paid, rather than advising their clients of what the law is. That way they can maybe establish bad common law precedents and make even more money.
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TasMot (profile), 15 Sep 2014 @ 12:11pm

Re:
Wouldn't work. Kozinski is handing out "rights" of sort to the work to the actors in the film. Google would be buying nothing because Kozinski is making it up as he goes along.
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jupiterkansas (profile), 15 Sep 2014 @ 12:16pm

Re: If it were titled
From what I've seen of the film, no it wouldn't.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Sep 2014 @ 12:59pm

Re: If it were titled
Guess the 50+ dead diplomatic personnel from other countries that died during the dozen simultaneous attacks on their sites on 9/11/13 that were confirmed due to the movie don't count to the Republican AC a-hole since they weren't Americans.
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jameshogg (profile), 15 Sep 2014 @ 1:28pm

This is why you don't mix laws of copyright and laws of defamation.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Sep 2014 @ 1:29pm

Re: Re: If it were titled
50+ dead diplomatic personnel....on the anniversary of 9/11.

Humm.....must be because of some stupid movie.

or maybe the attacks took place because it WAS THE ANNIVERSARY OF 9/1/1 ATTACK!
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Sep 2014 @ 2:41pm

Re: Re:
But then that's where the fight comes in , Google will have leverage, and the very same rights, because they own it entirely .
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Brian's Mom, 15 Sep 2014 @ 3:16pm

Re: Re: Re: If it were titled
What happened on 9/1/1? Was that the day the Toddler Jesus took His First Steps?
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Just Another Anonymous Troll, 16 Sep 2014 @ 11:27am

Just convince all the sites to blur out this person's appearance (possibly with something vulgar directed at them). They don't appear, so no copyright.
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Mo Ham Sandwich, 16 Sep 2014 @ 11:17pm

Why we care what muzzies want?
A dead muzzie is a good muzzie.
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iMirage, 17 Sep 2014 @ 4:42am

Re:
Aye. A judge with that weak of a grasp on basic case law is more than a bit unnerving as well. The derp is strong with this one.
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