Innocence Of Muslims Maker Produces Acting Waiver Signed By Cindy Garcia

from the uh-oh dept

The saga of Cindy Garcia and her attempt to get The Innocence Of Muslims trailer off of YouTube continues. If you'll recall, Garcia is one of the actresses who performed in the controversial almost-film "Innocence of Muslims", which sparked protests throughout the Arab world. Since the protests and media blitz began (as opposed to since the flim's trailer was released), Garcia has been trying to get the YouTube video taken down by throwing the proverbial legal kitchen sink at proverbial legal kitchen-everyone, including claims that she was duped by the flimmakers and that she owned a copyright on her portion of her performance. Buttressing her argument was her claim that she never signed any kind of release for the film.

Well, that claim is now being directly challenged by Google and the film's producer, Mark Basseley Youssef, or whatever the hell he's calling himself this week.

Youssef, who is serving time in prison for using multiple names in violation of his parole, has furnished what he says is the "personal release" signed by Garcia. He says that he is prepared to testify under oath that it is the "cast deal memo" signed by the actress. A copy of his declaration is below.

Now, it should be stressed in very strong terms that Youssef is currently in jail for breaking the law and lying his posterior off, so the need for this document to be validated is certainly there. That said, if the document is genuine, Garcia has some real issues. Forget the lawsuit regarding copyright entirely, since the waiver ostensibly releases any rights that may exist there (and I don't think they exist anyway) to the filmmaker. On top of that, the waiver also includes language preventing Garcia from litigating the film producers as well, though I'm not sure how likely such provisions would hold up in court in this controversial case.

All that being said, if Garcia signed a release and then brought a court case against Youssef and Google for copyright violation, that is a clear case of copyfraud, and it spells trouble. Aside from the obvious legal implications of bringing such a false claim, one has to wonder if any other aspects of her case that may still be allowed to go forward would be damaged by the potential fact of Garcia herself also being a proven liar. Again, this document sure as hell needs to be vetted, considering the source, but if it's real, it's damaging.