Google Pressured to take down Muslim video

[Rageaholic]

link

I was prepared to put this in the religion forums, but it actually has little to do with religion and more to do with deceit. The people who made the movie made an actress believe that she was gonna be in another film more on that here. She has since received death threats from Islamic extremists and is suing the director for lying to her.

I haven't cared to watch the video in question, but it sounds like she has quite a case. Though knowing the internet, this video isn't going anywhere (even if it does get taken off of youtube).

[Gravekeeper]

Oh, I remember this shit storm. Some asshole got a bunch of actors together, had them read some random script than edited/dubbed them all hating on Muslims. The whole thing was a pretty shitty thing to do all around by the director/producer.

That said, I don't see why Google is fighting this in the first place instead of just saying yeah, its shitty and people's lives are being threatened so fuck those guys.

[Rageaholic]

Yeah, this is strange that google is fighting this. Aren't they usually the ones who cow tow to others to avoid these other lawsuits (don't cite me on that)?

[siead_lietrathua]

reading the article, i can understand why they won't. it's because it's filed as a copyright claim, and the actor filing isn't actually the copyright owner. even if they feel like the final product isn't what they thought it was going to be, that doesn't mean they suddenly own the copyright.
google does "cow tow" to the legit copyright owners. but filing false copyright claims on youtube is against their rules and can actually get you hit with criminal charges. (check thunderfoot VS venomfangx drama).

reading the article, i can see why they don't do it.

But Google argues this sets a dangerous precedent. "Under the panel's rule, minor players in everything from Hollywood films to home videos can wrest control of those works from their creators, and service providers like YouTube will lack the ability to determine who has a valid copyright claim," it says....
"Protected speech on a matter of broad public interest is undoubtedly being gagged," it says, "because the panel has suppressed the entire trailer, even though Garcia only claims to hold a copyright in the five seconds where she appeared."...
The counterargument, made by the appeals court, is that the First Amendment doesn't cover copyright infringement. Google, however, says that the judges never established that copyright infringement had actually occurred, only that there was a possibility it had. It's also generally accepted that actors can only own the parts of a work that they are responsible for creating, and Google argues that by this token, the court shouldn't lump the whole video in with the few seconds Garcia appears.

i think it's ridiculous the woman is going after google/youtube though. if she is pissed off about being misrepresented, she should go after the guy that made the movie! revoke her consent to be in it and have him edit her out of the movie. or hell, film an expose with all the other actors that got edited and screwed by this movie and release it online, let it go viral.
deal with the guy that actually fucked you over, not a company where any tom, dick or harry can upload something for free.

[Rageaholic]

Okay now google's actions are starting to make sense. Though I can see why she went after them, $$$.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

i think it's ridiculous the woman is going after google/youtube though.

Not as silly as you think. She can't win, but going after the distribution channel is pretty common. The producer/director profited off her in the same way Google and YouTube sold advertising off of it.

If however there were a physical distribution chain at work and say this woman was forced to work in sweat shop conditions in the US where the goods were sold by the company she worked for, then a distribution company, and then Wal-Mart, there have been cases where all three would have been found liable if the distribution chain were proved to have knowledge. That's a hypothetical, but I've seen examples of that which I just can't remember at this point. And at this point, knowledge of the videos dubious production is well known so I doubt Google or YouTube could say "we didn't know."

It's one of the areas where frankly Internet/Silicon Valley companies are currently preferred by our legal system either intentionally or because law hasn't caught up.

[siead_lietrathua]

thing is, i could get going after google if she has a VALID copyright issue, because google is more than willing to flag down videos that have an actual copyright infringement. but she doesn't. her issue is with how the movie was edited to end up very different from how she was told it would be. so her issue should be with the person that did the editing to misrepresent her.
she wants it pulled from google because she's getting bashed by people that hate the trailer. the content of the trailer is not google's fault.
it would be like ordering an ad through an advertising company that they then send out to newspapers. and if the ad is wrong, suing the newspaper. but the paper isn't make the ad, they just ran it. the advertising company is the one that fucked up.

as to the dubious production.... people editing their videos to make people look dumb or shady happens constantly. ben stein did it to dawkins. ray comfort does it constantly. but when you sign a release, you give them the right to use the footage as they see fit, so it's hard to come back and get it withdrawn later. and the director's vision is covered under free speech laws. the actress could sue the studio for misrepresenting her, or etc, but again, that's not google's fault.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

The issue there (and it isn't a copyright issue) was if her consent in the production then was acquired by fraud. If she can prove that it was (which really should be her case) then she would be able to claim damages at least from the producer. However, my guess is if she can also make the claim that Google/YouTube knew the video as it existed was created essentially without consent and it was of legally dubious nature, I'm not sure she could get anything but it would be an interesting trial to watch. After all, I can steal goods through fraud. If you buy those goods from me while knowing they are stolen, you would also be liable. So Google not being liable actually is a nuance of the law that isn't necessarily consistent with the spirit of how it is practiced with tangible goods.

Google (of all companies) with their expansive data mining and indexing capabilities is probably one of the companies least able to credibly make a claim of ignorance in a case like this. They are able to police copyright quite effectively through their systems. I would not be shocked if eventually a case like this actually either collects damages from YouTube OR YouTube eventually creates some sort of internal mechanism to deal with scenarios like this.

May not be her though because her approach seems wrong.

[siead_lietrathua]

The issue there (and it isn't a copyright issue)

i'm gonna cut you off there, just because that's exactly the point. she isn't the copyright owner of the media, but she filed a copyright claim against the posted trailers to have them removed. if she did own the copyright to the trailers, google wouldn't be fighting it.

everything else is irrelevant. it doesn't matter how much the video sucks. google has to stick with only allowing real copyright claims or it will open a well of insanity.

now, if she wants to sue over being misrepresented in the video or trailer... well google has nothing to do with that!
and she did consent to be in the movie. actors have to sign a release. she just doesn't like the final product. but that's not google's fault, expecially not in anyway that they would be legally or monetarily responsible.

and as to keeping the trailers off youtube... they're trying. at least until the court case is over. the one thing about youtube is that it's a massive server where any tom dick and harry can upload things faster than youtube can delete them. the only feasable way to keep a trailer, or anything, from being uploaded is for them to shut down their uploading. indefinitely. because no matter how many times they delete it, someone that wants to will be uploading mirrors.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Turns out, we were both wrong.

She received an injunction to actually have the case heard and the 9th Circuit found sufficient cause to proceed with the case.

Granted, I think part of the reason why was the films producers didn't show. Still, the way the decision was worded, I think it makes more sense to me now. She, along with any person working in a creative capacity on a film has a copyright from their work. That's just how the law works. The right to allow a studio or prodcucer to make decisions based on those copyrights is generally in the contract.

That's problematic if as happened in this case, the producer decides to do things that might void the contract.

So in this case Google would have been better served to just follow their own procedure. They didn't.

[crashhelmet]

It's been about 6 or 7 years since I've been in anything, but if I remember right your standard contract and release forms waive your right to copyright. It keeps a performer from doing this exact thing to a major motion picture or television show.

[s_stabeler]

producer's actions invalidated the waiver- basically, a court would rule that the producer lying about what the film was about invalidated the original waiver- thus returning the copyright to the actor.

the reason it doesn't happen in a major movie is that a major movie doesn't make major changes to the plot of the movie in post-production. Same for TV shows.

[crashhelmet]

I somehow missed the part where she was filmed for a different movie and the footage was used for this one.

This gets into an entirely different issue that comes down to the wording of her contract. In a standard, single film contract, she can fight this. If her contract was written with the specific clause to do what the producers did, then she won't have a legal leg to stand on.

[s_stabeler]

She was told she was appearing in a film about a generic Egyptian. The actual film? portrayed Muhammad as a child molester and thug.

and it is actually irrelevant exactly what the contract says-if there is a contract term that authorizes this, then it would be struck as unfair.