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Google Ordered To Remove Anti-Islamic Film From YouTube
cold fjord writes "The Verge reports, 'Google and YouTube must scrub all copies of Innocence of Muslims, a low-budget anti-Islam film that drew international protest in 2012, at the behest of an actress who says she received death threats after being duped into a role. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has granted a temporary takedown order on behalf of Cindy Lee Garcia, who filed a copyright claim against Google in an attempt to purge the video from the web. While actors usually give up the right to assert copyright protection when they agree to appear in a film, Garcia says that not only was she never an employee in any meaningful sense, the finished film bore virtually no relation to the one she agreed to appear in. In a majority opinion, Judge Alex Kozinski said she was likely in the right.' — Techdirt has extensive commentary on the ruling that's worth reading. It seems likely there will be an appeal, with the distinct possibility that Google and the MPAA will be on the same side."
People who make death threats aren't rational people. Expecting them to suddenly behave rationally is without merit. They'll just move on making death threats to the next person in line they have some perceived (real or imagined) gripe against.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
People who make death threats aren't rational people.
If the death threats achieve the desired end, then why aren't they rational?
The director didn't "trick" the actors - if the judge is correct in his analysis, the director committed fraud against the actors. No quotation marks, just a real criminal act, which, if true, also makes releasing the film automatically a criminally negligent act, (reckless endangenrment) again without any quotes around the facts.
It's like Traci Lords may have genuinely tricked the directors of her first few films into thinking she was over 18, or she may have "tricked" them, but it doesn't matter, as you still have no right what-so-ever to watch an X rated film that features a person still a minor under US law. People can argue over whether the producers knew Ms. Lords was under 18, or not, but it simply doesn't change whether you have a right to watch those films, either way.
The argument in this case runs the same way, the judge has ruled that, at the very least, there wasn't a valid contract. (The producer was a previously convicted felon, who had legal restrictions as part of his probation against using an alias, and yet used one in representing himself to the actors and in signing their contracts, and who has pled guilty to this, and three other charges including making false statements, He's already convicted and serving time). Presumption of who is "tricking", or tricking whom also follows. You're trying to make this a debate over who may have committed this or that other act of trickery that is yet unproven, and may be just a matter of tort law either way, and ignoring that one side has been convicted of criminal acts, which makes your whole point moot. The contract is invalid, and all the actors have the right to seek protection from the consequences of their involvement. They are threatened with death, and that threat exists as a consequence of whole set of proven criminal acts.
They have that right in some jurisdictions even if every single one of them suspected, or even knew that the producer was an ex con, or that the law prohibited him from using an alias, just like we can charge one person who planned a bank robbery with murder in the commission of a felony, even though the 'victim' was one of his fellow robbers. But if you want to claim you know for an absolute fact that all the actors knew the producer was committing a crime, go right ahead and claim it. They still have a right to be protected as much as possible from being killed as a consequence of the producer's felonious actions, and you don't have a right to have them put at further risk, whether that feels like your first amendment right is what you're invoking, or not.
Who is John Cabal?