Garcia v. Google, Inc., No. 12-57302 (9th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff was cast in a minor role in an adventure film with the working title "Desert Warrior." The film never materialized and plaintiff's scene was used, instead, in an anti-Islamic film titled "Innocence of Muslims." The film was uploaded to YouTube.com and her brief performance was dubbed over so that she appeared to be asking, "Is your Mohammed a child molester?" An Egyptian cleric subsequently issued a fatwa, calling for the killing of everyone involved with the film. After Google refused to take it down from YouTube, plaintiff sought a restraining order seeking removal of the film, claiming that the posting of the video infringed the copyright in her performance. The district court treated the application as a motion for a preliminary injunction but denied the motion. The court concluded that plaintiff demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits where plaintiff had an independent copyright interest in her performance; the work for hire doctrine was inapplicable in this instance because plaintiff was not a traditional employee and the filmmaker was not in the regular business of making films; and although plaintiff granted the filmmaker an implied license to use plaintiff's performance, the filmmaker exceeded the bounds of the license when he lied to plaintiff in order to secure her participation and she agreed to perform in reliance on that lie. The court also concluded that plaintiff faced irreparable harm absent an injunction where plaintiff took legal action as soon as the film received worldwide attention and she began receiving death threats; the harm plaintiff complained of was real and immediate; and plaintiff demonstrated a causal connection because removing the film from YouTube would help disassociate her from the film's anti-Islamic message and such disassociation would keep her from suffering future threats and physical harm. Finally, the balance of the equities and the public interest favored plaintiff's position. Accordingly, the court concluded that the district court abused its discretion in denying the motion for a preliminary injunction. The court reversed and remanded.
Court Description: Copyright / Preliminary Injunction. The panel reversed the district court’s denial in a copyright case of a preliminary injunction requiring the removal from YouTube.com of an anti-Islamic film that used a performance that the plaintiff made for a different film. The panel concluded that the plaintiff established a likelihood of success on the merits of her claim of infringement of her performance within the film because she proved that she likely had an independent interest in the performance and that the filmmaker did not own an interest as a work for hire and exceeded any implied license to use the plaintiff’s performance. The panel held that the plaintiff established the likelihood that irreparable harm would result if an injunction did not issue because she was subject to death threats and took action as soon as she began receiving the threats. The plaintiff also established sufficient causal connection between the infringement of her copyright and the harm she alleged. The panel also held that the balance of the equities and the public interest weighed in favor of injunctive relief. Dissenting, Judge N.R. Smith wrote that the facts and law did not clearly favor issuing a mandatory preliminary injunction to the plaintiff. He wrote that the plaintiff did not establish a likelihood that she had a copyrightable interest in her acting performance, nor did she clearly show that the performance was not a work made for hire. In addition, the district court did not abuse its discretion in its ruling on irreparable harm, and the balance of the equities and the public interest did not favor the issuance of a preliminary injunction.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on March 13, 2014.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on July 11, 2014.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on November 12, 2014.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on May 18, 2015.
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