Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that YouTube must remove the controversial short film “Innocence of Muslims” that was used by Muslims to help spark protests in the Middle East and was blamed by the Obama administration for leading to the attack in Benghazi that resulted in the death of four Americans.
As NY Daily News reports, the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered YouTube to take down the film, citing copyright issues rather than content-related concerns. The court argued that producer/director Mark Basseley Youssef (Sam Bacile) infringed actress Cindy Lee Garcia’s copyrights to her role by misleading her into participating in the film.
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski penned the majority opinion:
Garcia’s performance was used in a way that she found abhorrent and her appearance in the film subjected her to threats of physical harm and even death. Despite these harms, and despite Garcia’s viable copyright claim, Google refused to remove the film from YouTube.
When the controversy erupted in Fall 2012 and after she had received multiple death threats, Garcia filed an emergency restraining order against YouTube, stating, "Yes we have a right to freedom of speech, but what [Youssef] did was wrong," she said. "It was wrong in so many ways.” However, the order was denied by a judge. This time, the court ruled in Garcia’s favor.
Though the film was not removed, the director was sentenced to a year in prison for probation violations of a previous bank fraud case, a move many suspected as being politically motivated.
By Wednesday afternoon, YouTube had yanked the film.
