Cyndi Lee Garcia's second request to ban the anti-Muslim film from being spreading on YouTube has been turned down by a judge in a recent court ruling.
- Dec 1, 2012
AceShowbiz - Cindy Lee Garcia, the actress who appears in controversial anti-Muslim movie "Innocence of Muslims", failed in her latest attempt to take down the film from YouTube. On Friday, November 30, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Fitzgerald denied her request for the movie removal, reasoning that she would likely lost her case.
Cindy previously asked the court to grant her a temporary restraining order barring YouTube from spreading the film online based on claim that she was duped by the producer Mark Bassely Youssef a.k.a Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, but her plea was turned down. The rejection led her to file a bigger lawsuit naming Nakoula, YouTube and its parent company Google as defendants.
The actress argued that she owned the rights to her performance in the film and never signed a release form. "Even assuming both that Garcia's individual performance in the film is copyrightable and that she has not released this copyright interest, the nature of this copyright interest is not clear," the judge said Friday. "Nor is it clear that the defendants would be liable for infringement."
In response, her lawyer Cris Armenta stated, "Unfortunately, our client, Ms. Garcia, is a woman of extremely modest means. Aside from this film turning her life upside down and being subjected to frightening death threats and threats of harm, she does not have the financial resources to continue to wage battle against internet giants."
"Her entire legal team, of four lawyers in three different states and abroad, stands firmly behind the principles that were put before the court," the attorney additionally said. "We hope that worldwide the message has been heard that Ms. Garcia was not complicit and did not voluntarily participate in this heinous piece of hate speech."
