A slight hijack:
Even if there are no criminal penalties that can be raised against the film makers, could a case be made that he could be sued in civil court for damages caused by the rioting? (Assuming of course that it could be proved that the rioting was a direct result of the publication of the video).
This is what I came in to say. Unless the words are forced upon someone they cannot be considered fighting words. In the case of the movie, it was never forced upon anyone to watch or hear. It is the mere existence of the content that has caused riots and now we’re getting into the realm of the thought police.
Wrong. That would be assault (assuming the threats were accompanied by an appropriate gesture, such as a raised fist) , which in some jurisdictions would justify the use of reasonable force in self defense.
Yes, you could be charged with assault as noted above.
Fighting words are not threats of bodily harm so much as insults so grave as to be likely to provoke a violent response.
Possibly. However, in addition to much else, you’d have to prove that the filmmakers’ negligence (or possibly, though even less likely, their intentional act) was the proximate and an actual cause of the property damage.
In other words, you have to prove that something else wasn’t a more direct cause of the damage, and that the damage would not have occurred but for the distribution of the film. The latter is easy; the former is hard.
As a general matter, the criminal act of a third party is considered an intervening cause, meaning it breaks the chain of causation. For example, if I borrow your car and park it in a bad neighborhood, I am (probably) not the proximate cause of the damage if some jackass decides to take a baseball bat to it.
The big problem here is that if anti-Islam films are fighting words than so are anti-Christian films.
I don’t believe that this is accurate. You would still be guilty of a battery if someone used “fighting words” towards you. You can only respond in self defense if you fear immediate bodily harm, not to defend your honor.
The “fighting words” are simply speech that the government may prohibit in the interest of not having fights break out (even though the fights themselves are unjustified).
This. From Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942):
And anti-atheist ones?