|
 Gaylord Flynn said he has received death threats and fears
for his life while Google continues to provide its users with
access to the film through pirated content websites known as
torrent sites, according to his lawsuit, filed on Friday in a
California federal court.
Flynn, who is also suing the filmmaker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula,
said Google had refused to block access to the movie, even
though a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel last February
ordered it taken off Google's video-sharing website, YouTube.
In that case, actor Cindy Lee Garcia sued Google for an
injunction, claiming she owned the copyright of her performance.
Garcia also said she received death threats.
Google argued at the time that an injunction amounted to
restricting speech in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The
company is demanding a rehearing from the full appeals court.
A representative from Google could not immediately be reached
for comment. Flynn's lawyer, Cris Armenta, who also represented
Garcia, could not immediately be reached for comment.
[to top of second column] |
"Innocence of Muslims," which depicts Mohammad as a sexual deviant
and a fool, sparked waves of anti-U.S. unrest in Egypt, Libya and
other countries in 2012, and coincided with an attack on U.S.
diplomatic facilities in Benghazi that killed four Americans,
including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.
Flynn said the filmmaker concealed the true nature of his
production. He said he thought he was hired for a movie called
"Desert Warrior" and never consented to be in a "religiously
oriented film nor in one that propagates hate speech."
Flynn, like Garcia, said he did not sign a release and his own
copyright interests remain intact, according to the complaint.
The case is Gaylord Flynn v. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, Google Inc et
al, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of
California, No. 14-01901.
(Reporting By Andrew Chung; Editing by Ted Botha and Grant McCool)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
