It's worth noting that it was removed because it <i>grossly</i> misrepresents what the people in the film would want to be associated with, and nothing to do with religion. This is akin to filming someone doing something wholly innocent and then dubbing it with hate speech without asking them if that's ok.<p>There's a strong argument that this is art, and consequently worth protecting to enshrine freedom of expression, but at the same time I can't imagine many people would be happy if they were the one in the film. I'd argue that it's not far from defamation as far as the actor is concerned.
More like US court ordered Google to remove anti-Islamic film from YouTube...<p>"By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Google's assertion that the removal of the film "Innocence of Muslims" amounted to a prior restraint of speech that violated the U.S. Constitution."