Case: 12-57302, 05/18/2015, ID: 9540348, DktEntry: 197-1, Page 33 of 42
GARCIA V. GOOGLE
33
the risk of death Garcia faces. At most, the expert’s bare
assertion establishes that granting the requested injunction
will have an incremental but impossible-to-measure effect on
Garcia’s credibility. The declaration notably stops short of
suggesting that the injunction would have any impact (let
alone a likely impact) on the actions of the necessary
audience: the cleric who issued the fatwa and those who
would be inclined to carry it out. Nor is it obvious why
success in getting the district court to order the film’s
removal from YouTube would be critical to bolstering the
believability of Garcia’s message. Demanding the take-down
injunction seems to speak loudly and clearly in its own right
about the sincerity of her views on the film.
The district court did not abuse its discretion in
concluding that, on this record, Garcia failed to satisfy the
irreparable harm prong. Under our decision in Perfect 10,
that alone requires us to affirm the district court’s denial of a
preliminary injunction. 653 F.3d at 982. I concur in the
judgment for that reason only.
KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
Garcia’s dramatic performance met all of the
requirements for copyright protection: It was copyrightable
subject matter, it was original and it was fixed at the moment
it was recorded. So what happened to the copyright? At
times, the majority says that Garcia’s performance was not
copyrightable at all. And at other times, it seems to say that
Garcia just didn’t do enough to gain a copyright in the scene.
Either way, the majority is wrong and makes a total mess of
copyright law, right here in the Hollywood Circuit. In its
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