United States Ninth Circuit

The district court's denial of a preliminary injunction requiring the removal from YouTube.com of an anti-Islamic film that used a performance that the plaintiff made for a different film is reversed and remanded, where: 1) plaintiff established a likelihood of success on the merits of her claim of copyright infringement of her performance within the film because she proved that she likely had an independent interest in the performance and that the filmmaker did not own an interest as a work for hire and exceeded any implied license to use the plaintiff's performance; 2) plaintiff established the likelihood that irreparable harm would result if an injunction did not issue because she was subject to death threats and took action as soon as she began receiving the threats; 3) plaintiff also established sufficient causal connection between the infringement of her copyright and the harm she alleged; and 4) the balance of the equities and the public interest weighed in favor of injunctive relief.

Appellate Information

• Decided 02/26/2014
• Published 02/26/2014

Judges

• KOZINSKI

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel