The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that “Innocence of Muslims,” the anti-Islam video once at the center of the Benghazi terror attack scandal, should not have been forcibly removed from YouTube.
A majority of the 11-judge panel reverse a lower court’s decision from last year, The Hill reported Monday. A three-judge panel had issued an injunction against Google Inc., which prohibited the company from making the video accessible. Plaintiff Cindy Lee Garcia made a copyright claim for her brief appearance in the 2012 video.
The Obama administration initially claimed that the video helped spark the Sept. 11, 2012, terror attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans.
“In this case, a heartfelt plea for personal protection is juxtaposed with the limits of copyright law and fundamental principles of free speech. […] The appeal teaches a simple lesson — a weak copyright claim cannot justify censorship in the guise of authorship,” the majority said, The Hill reported.
The court added that Ms. Garcia was ” ’copyright cherrypicking,’ which would enable any contributor from a costume designer down to an extra or best boy to claim copyright in random bits and pieces of a unitary motion picture without satisfying the requirements of the Copyright Act,” the newspaper reported.
Ms. Garcia said that she has received death threats because of the video. She also claims that she did not know the video, directed by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, was about Islam or that her lines would be dubbed over with “Is your Mohammed a child molester?”
SEE ALSO: Court orders Google to remove ‘Innocence of Muslims’ film from YouTube
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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