A federal appeals court changed course Monday and said copyright law does not require Google to take down the inflammatory YouTube video, "The Innocence of Muslims."

A Los Angeles actress had demanded the video's removal after claiming she was fired from her job and received death threats over her brief stint in the video. Cindy Garcia said she thought she would be in an adventure show but was tricked into performing in a "hateful anti-Islamic production" that sparked worldwide protests.

A three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the woman last year in a 2-1 vote and ordered Google to remove the video. The court ruled that she controlled the copyright of her five-second stint, in which her dubbed voice asks: "Is your Muhammad a child molester?"

Google, the media, and digital rights groups asked the court to rehear the case en banc with 11 judges. The media argued that the original decision "expands the concept of copyright ownership."

The larger panel of the San Francisco-based appeals court agreed Monday in a 10-1 ruling.

"In this case, a heartfelt plea for personal protection is juxtaposed with the limits of copyright law and fundamental principles of free speech," Judge Margaret McKeown wrote for the majority. "The appeal teaches a simple lesson—a weak copyright claim cannot justify censorship in the guise of authorship."

The Hollywood Screen Actors Guild urged the court not to lift its injunction against the video.

In a lone Monday dissent, Judge Alex Kozinski wrote:

"The majority credits the doomsday claims at the expense of property rights that Congress created. Its new standard artificially shrinks authorial rights by holding that a performer must personally record his creative expression in order to retain any copyright interest in it, speculating that a contrary rule might curb filmmaking and burden the Internet. But our injunction has been in place for over a year; reports of the Internet’s demise have been greatly exaggerated."

Garcia was paid $500 for what she thought was a minor role in a video called "Desert Warrior." That movie never was published. Her footage was dubbed and inserted into "The Innocence of Muslims," made by Mark Bassely Youssef.

The appeals court suggested that perhaps Garcia had other legal avenues to pursue.