It’s not what you think. In fact, the opinion was written by Alex Kozinski, a famously libertarian-leaning judge who was appointed to the Ninth Circuit by Reagan. The question wasn’t whether the film is defamatory or a species of “fighting words†unprotected by the First Amendment (although Kozinski does, in fact, use that exact term at one point in its colloquial sense to describe the film’s offense to Muslims). The question is whether an actor owns a copyright in her performance and whether that copyright is violated if the filmmaker so distorts that performance that it violates the “implied...