Fatwa issued against actress Cindy Lee Garcia.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: A US federal appeals court has ordered that Google, owner of the online video website YouTube, immediately take down all online copies of a controversial film entitled Innocence of Muslims, an anti-Islam propaganda piece that has led to large-scale rioting in parts of the Middle East and a fatwa issued against the unwitting “star” of the film.
Actress Cindy Lee Garcia was originally hired by Mark Bassley – who is also known to go by the names of Nakoula Bassley Nakoula and Sam Bacile – to play a role in a film he was making entitled “Desert Warrior.” Garcia was paid $500 for working 3 ½ days on the film, which she was told would be some kind of action/adventure film set in the Middle East.
What the film actually ended up being, however, was Innocence of Muslims, a raging anti-Muslim tirade that featured Garcia front-and-center spewing lines of dialogue that bashed Islam – lines that she never even spoke, but which were dubbed over her original audio after the fact.
The film was posted online in July of 2012 and led to an immediate outcry from Muslims all over the world, with Garcia receiving death threats and having to hide her face in public in fear of being killed for her participation in the film. The film was also initially blamed for sparking the riots that led to the death of a US diplomat in Benghazi in 2012, although that was later debunked.
Google was requested several times over the past year to take down the film, most notably by President Barack Obama’s administration, but the company chose not to, essentially stating that it was a precedent-setting violation of First Amendment rights. Now, however, they’re being ordered to by the courts to get rid of all copies of the film within 24 hours of the verdict’s announcement.
In declaring the verdict against Google, 9th Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kosinski explained that the terms of Garcia’s original contract with the Bassley were for a movie that never materialized; as soon as Bassley decided to use her performance in another movie altogether – a movie that she could have never anticipated, let alone willingly been a part of – it voided the contract between them and “exceeds the bounds of the broad implied license granted by an actor.”
Google also tried to argue that Garcia had no business demanding that the film be taken down, as she was not one of the creators and therefore has no copyright claim to it. In a statement issued by Google on Wednesday night, a company spokesperson said “Today the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an actress in the Innocence of Muslims trailer may have a copyright claim over her five-second appearance in the video. As a result the court ordered Google to remove the video from our services. We strongly disagree with this ruling and will fight it.”
Should the case press onwards, its next stop would be the Supreme Court, which only hears cases it believes have the potential to set precedents for Constitutional law. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Google, it could lead to many more similar incidents occurring in the future, where an actor can have their life ruined by appearing for five seconds in a video they never intended to be a part of in the first place. If the Supreme Court sides with Garcia, it will ultimately be curbing First Amendment rights by declaring that a distributor of art must remove any piece that isn’t to the liking of a participating artist. Either way, it’s a dicey situation.
As for Bassley – he is an Egyptian-born Coptic Christian, and is currently living under probation in California. He was arrested shortly after Innocence of Muslims debuted in 2012 for violating the terms of a previous probation, after he went into hiding and used the internet in ways that went against the terms dictated by the court. He served jail time and was then moved to a halfway house, from which he was released last September.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com