Actress Cindy Lee Garcia has been inundated with death threats since her voice was dubbed over in an anti-Muslim video, Innocence of Muslims. Photo: Reuters

San Jose: As a US federal appeals court readies to hear her groundbreaking case, once obscure actress Cindy Lee Garcia faces some tough resistance: death threats from around the Muslim world and the wrath of the planet's most powerful internet companies.

And that is what has catapulted Garcia v Google into one of the most closely watched legal battles in years.

On Monday, a special 11-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California, was due to re-examine Garcia's bid to force Google-owned YouTube to take down an anti-Muslim video that sparked worldwide protests: a 2012 film in which a clip of her was spliced in with words she never spoke that cast her as disparaging the prophet Mohammed.

A divided three-judge 9th Circuit panel this year backed Garcia's arguments, based on violations of federal copyright law, that she was duped into a performance that resulted in unrelenting death threats. The court's order requiring YouTube to take down the film, Innocence of Muslims, has remained intact while the legal showdown continues to unfold.

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The 9th Circuit voted to rehear the case at Google's request. But the removal order has provoked widespread criticism from the online world, legal academics, media organisations and internet companies. They warn of apocalyptic consequences for internet content providers if Garcia prevails, calling the order to remove the film "alarming".

The companies argue that the ruling has carved out unprecedented copyright protections for actors with even a bit role in every movie or video produced, and, at the same time, allowing the courts to force companies such as YouTube to take down material protected by the First Amendment while vastly expanding their responsibility for policing web content.

But to Garcia's lawyer, the case is a simple quest to clear Garcia's name and protect her security, not an attack on the freewheeling internet.

"The sky is not going to fall," lawyer Cris Armenta said.

The showdown stems from Garcia's minor role in a film originally called Desert Warrior, for which she was paid $US500 ($610). The movie never materialised but Garcia later discovered her scene had instead been used in the anti-Muslim video Innocence of Muslims, produced by Mark Basseley Youssef. When released, it sparked protests in the Muslim world and was at one point cited in the debate over the fatal attacks on the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya.

Garcia's voice was dubbed over with an insult to Mohammed. Her life has not been the same since: she has been inundated with death threats, court papers show.

Former 9th Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski backed Garcia's argument that she had a right to force YouTube to take down the video because she had been misled by the director and because she retained copyright protections to her artistic work.

The ruling drew protest from Google, other internet companies and First Amendment advocates who say the reasoning stretches copyright protections in a way that allows anybody involved in a film "to wave around the threat of an injunction to shut down distribution".

 Ms Armenta, Garcia's lawyer, scoffs at the online advocates' free speech arguments.

"Ms Garcia has a First Amendment right to not have words put in her mouth she doesn't condone," she said. "It's a very specific case with very extraordinary facts."

TNS