Judge Kozinski Refuses To Even Consider That His Ruling To Censor 'Innocence Of Muslims' On Copyright Grounds May Go Too Far

Copyright

from the bad-facts,-bad-law dept

On Friday, we had posted about Google’s motion for an emergency stay on Judge Alex Kozinski’s horrific ruling that forced Google to remove all copies of the controversial Innocence of Muslims trailer, based on a bizarre interpretation of copyright law, which gave an actress who appears in 5 seconds of the 13 minute trailer the ability to claim a copyright and take down every copy of the trailer. We had posted an update late Friday with the news that Judge Kozinski had quickly denied the motion, and only made one small change to his order, saying that copies of the video without Ms. Garcia’s 5 seconds did not need to be taken down. At the very least, this is a small concession that his original order was insanely overreaching and broad.

What’s troubling here, though, is that Kozinski seems completely blind to the fact that his ruling is extremely controversial and involves breaking serious new ground in how to interpret copyright law — in a manner that appears to be quite different than every other court in history that has raised these issues. While there are some lawyers who seem to think that Kozinski’s ruling makes sense, there are tons who disagree, including many of the top copyright experts in the field. Just the fact that this case is generating so much controversy from within the copyright bar should at least indicate that Kozinski’s interpretation should be looked at more closely — and as such, it seems quite reasonable for the 9th Circuit, and Kozinski in particular, to humbly recognize that for the sake of not censoring protected speech, the original order should be stayed until it can be reviewed.

Kozinski, unfortunately, is not exactly known for his humility. And while that sometimes makes him one of the most entertaining judges around, it seems dangerous in this particular case. He seems to have made up his mind that his ruling makes sense and, even if many people disagree with him, he appears to have no time to even think that maybe he misjudged the basic tenets of copyright law. On controversial decisions, it’s fairly common for judges to admit that the ruling is likely to be reviewed, and to agree to a stay. It’s disappointing that Kozinski seems so sure he’s right here that he’s unwilling to hold off on enforcing the order in the case until others might have a chance to review his rather novel reading of the law.

Filed Under: alex kozinski, copyright, first amendment, free speech, innocence of muslims
Companies: google, youtube