Netcom
David Sternlight
elements of certain Church of Scientology corporations and historically
predecessor, sister, and affiliated organizations, and certain of their
doctrines and policies, as reported in alt.religion.scientology and
elsewhere.
In article <hkkD7I...@netcom.com>, Helena Kobrin <h...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Certain Church of Scientology corporations that I represent are currently
>involved in litigation against Netcom, Tom Klemesrud (operator of a BBS)
>and Dennis Erlich in the San Jose Federal Court over the posting of
>copyrighted and trade secret church materials. The case is Religious
>Technology Center vs. Netcom, Et. Al, Case No. C95-20091 RMW. Dennis
>Erlich posted large portions of copyrighted and trade secret materials on
>the Internet through Tom Klemesrud's BBS and Netcom.
>
>Comments have been made by individuals on the Internet that the Church of
>Scientology was attempting to stifle freedom of speech and this was why
>this lawsuit was filed. This could not be further from the truth. The
>Church of Scientology has never been in conflict with the ethics or
>ethical principles of the Internet and totally supports bringing the world
>into better communication. The Church has always arduously fought for
>Freedom of Speech and its record speaks for itself when it comes to
>Freedom of Information. The Church is well known around the world for its
>efforts in this area.
I think this to be baloney and sliced thick. In my opinion the long history
of the "Church"'s attempt to suppress criticism in the press and critical
books is well and truly in the public record. For anyone unfamiliar with the
history, alt.religion.scientology and a number of web sites have source
documents, including court affadavits sworn to under oath. The behavior of
"Church" leaders and members, the doctrine of "fair game", "potential
trouble source" and "suppressive person" seem to me to speak huge volumes
about their intolerance of dissent and free speech that doesn't agree with
them. The accounts of the "Church" RPF and "RPF's RPF" add to a fuller
understanding of just who these people really are.
Accounts and documents of what I think to be their attempts to destroy
critics through both what I think to be reprehensible means as well as what
seems to me to be clear abuse of process are available from the above
sources for readers to draw their own conclusions. I've read accounts of the
"Church"'s founder saying that one should never defend against criticism,
but attack the critic instead. Some notion of ethical principles indeed.
As I understand it, it is also on the public record that officials of the
"Church" have been jailed after felony convictions in connection with some
of their activities in support of the "Church", including Mary Sue Hubbard,
the founder's wife.
>The case against Netcom, Klemesrud and Erlich is not about Freedom of
>Speech or Freedom to criticize. It is simply a copyright and trade
>secrets case. If the Church's rights in its materials were not unlawfully
>being violated there would be no suit. In fact, Mr. Erlich has been
>criticizing the Church for many years prior to the lawsuit being filed and
>continues to post vile and false criticisms about the Church, but he has
>not been sued for any of these. This case has nothing to do with free
>speech. It has to do with the protection of Intellectual Property rights
>and nothing more. This is a concern held by many.
>
>In relation to Erlich, Netcom initially took the position that Erlich
>could do what he wanted and they couldn't or wouldn't stop him. This was
>in complete contravention of its own rules and regulations or his BBS.
>The Church believes that Netcom has now started to change its position as
>it has become clear that the Judge is not going to tolerate copyright
>infringement and has continued the restraining order against Erlich. This
>is beneficial for everyone except for those who engage in lawlessness such
>as infringement.
This seems to me to be a uh, er, um very peculiar version of what I
understand to be the facts, and I've read detailed accounts of the
"Church's" charges, the responses filed by Ehrlich, Netcom, and Klemeserud,
and eyewitness accounts of what actually happened in court. Ehrlich's
central claim is that his posts were fair use permitted under the copyright
laws. Netcom's basic position is that they are not in a position to
adjudicate such matters, or make determinations of the truth between one
party's claims of fair use and another's of infringement, and that the
matter is between Ehrlich and the "Church"'s attorneys. Netcom may well
remind people of its rule that one should not post infringing material, but
to decide something to BE infringing just on someone's unsupported say-so is
quite a different matter indeed.
Kobrin, in my opinion, seems to think her accusations alone should be
tantamount to conviction--never mind the nuisance of a judge and jury. She
seems, in my opinion, to think that Netcom should pull accounts or otherwise
intervene just because she claims someone is infringing, even if the user
asserts fair use exemption under the copyright law. Evidence for this is not
only her statements here and elsewhere in which she seems to expect Netcom
and Klemeserud to take her word that infringement took place despite the
counter-claim of fair use, but also that when the Judge asked the "Church"'s
attorneys for detailed evidence of infringement in court in the Ehrlich
case, they could not provide it and the Judge had to give them a few days to
produce it. Showing up in court in what seems to me this essentially
empty-handed way with what I think to be nothing but accusation seems to me
to be the kind of arrogance typical of Kobrin and other Church attorneys and
representatives.
I've never seen Kobrin post a reply to the posted question of whether when
they asked for the search and seizure warrant on Ehrlich's home they told
the Judge that Ehrlich had offered to cease posting the matter, withdraw it,
and apologize if they could give Ehrlich evidence that he had infringed, or
whether they failed to inform the Judge of what I think to be this material
fact. Readers will draw their own conclusions as to whether the search
warrant was thus improperly and perhaps unethically and contemptuously
obtained if the above information was, in fact, not reported to the Judge at
the time.
Kobrin has never responded that I've seen to posted claims that the actual
search and seizure was massively over-broad, so much so that according to
Ehrlich's account they returned three cartons of materials to him two days
later. As I read the accounts in alt.religion.scientology, they had no right
to seize materials which Ehrlich had legitimately purchased, including
published works of Hubbard, yet according to Ehrlich they did so. According
to Ehrlich they erased files, took bank account records, and failed to
permit him to observe the detailed computer search nor to have an inventory
of what was taken at the time.
The details I've read suggest to me that the search and seizure in Ehrlich's
home was designed to intimidate. Both the conduct of the search and seizure,
and some of the matter seized suggest to me that the tactics were
Gestapo-like.
As a matter of information, my prior association with the CoS was limited to
buying books and reading them--I've read quite a few of the "Church's" books
purchased from their bookstore, and was favorably impressed until this sorry
episode, which has caused me to do a good deal of reading of independent
materials about the "Church" and taken together has convinced me that the
"Church" and many of its policies are a clear and present danger to
democracy, freedom, ethics, and civil liberties. I find it particularly
ironic, given my conclusions. that Kobrin seems to wrap herself in the
mantle of "ethics" "freedom of speech", etc. in her "explanations" of what
the "Church" is up to here.
David
P.S. A couple of quotations, which should be read generally:
"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."
and
"How can you tell that a lawyer is lying?"
"His lips are moving."
Helena Kobrin
involved in litigation against Netcom, Tom Klemesrud (operator of a BBS)
and Dennis Erlich in the San Jose Federal Court over the posting of
copyrighted and trade secret church materials. The case is Religious
Technology Center vs. Netcom, Et. Al, Case No. C95-20091 RMW. Dennis
Erlich posted large portions of copyrighted and trade secret materials on
the Internet through Tom Klemesrud's BBS and Netcom.
Comments have been made by individuals on the Internet that the Church of
Scientology was attempting to stifle freedom of speech and this was why
this lawsuit was filed. This could not be further from the truth. The
Church of Scientology has never been in conflict with the ethics or
ethical principles of the Internet and totally supports bringing the world
into better communication. The Church has always arduously fought for
Freedom of Speech and its record speaks for itself when it comes to
Freedom of Information. The Church is well known around the world for its
efforts in this area.
The case against Netcom, Klemesrud and Erlich is not about Freedom of
Speech or Freedom to criticize. It is simply a copyright and trade
secrets case. If the Church's rights in its materials were not unlawfully
being violated there would be no suit. In fact, Mr. Erlich has been
criticizing the Church for many years prior to the lawsuit being filed and
continues to post vile and false criticisms about the Church, but he has
not been sued for any of these. This case has nothing to do with free
speech. It has to do with the protection of Intellectual Property rights
and nothing more. This is a concern held by many.
In relation to Erlich, Netcom initially took the position that Erlich
could do what he wanted and they couldn't or wouldn't stop him. This was
in complete contravention of its own rules and regulations or his BBS.
The Church believes that Netcom has now started to change its position as
it has become clear that the Judge is not going to tolerate copyright
infringement and has continued the restraining order against Erlich. This
is beneficial for everyone except for those who engage in lawlessness such
as infringement.
When the Church recently brought to Netcom's attention another copyright
violator on its system by the name of Grady Ward, Netcom took action
pursuant to its rules and regulations and immediately sent a warning to
the infringer letting him know that if his actions continued his account
would be cancelled. Netcom's lawyers even told the Judge in the Erlich
case that Netcom took this action.
The Church is pleased that Netcom has agreed with its position and concern
about copyright and trade secret infringers and will take appropriate
action against violators in the future.
Helena Kobrin
Allen B. Ethridge
>
>The case against Netcom, Klemesrud and Erlich is not about Freedom of
>Speech or Freedom to criticize. It is simply a copyright and trade
>secrets case. If the Church's rights in its materials were not unlawfully
>being violated there would be no suit. In fact, Mr. Erlich has been
This is, of course, not true. The existence of the suit only means that
the Church of Scientology has some reason for wanting the publication stopped,
and chooses to accomplish that by means of a suit based on copyright and
trade secrets law. Whether or not the Church's rights were unlawfully
violated, and if so, who was responsible, is a matter for a jury to decide,
and until that time undecided.
>criticizing the Church for many years prior to the lawsuit being filed and
>continues to post vile and false criticisms about the Church, but he has
>not been sued for any of these. This case has nothing to do with free
>speech. It has to do with the protection of Intellectual Property rights
>and nothing more. This is a concern held by many.
>
If you really cared about free speech you would only be taking action
against Mr. Erlich, rather than trying to frighten internet service providers
into submission.
allen
Sue Irvin
^^^^^^^
: Certain Church of Scientology corporations that I represent are currently
: involved in litigation against Netcom, Tom Klemesrud (operator of a BBS)
: and Dennis Erlich in the San Jose Federal Court over the posting of
: copyrighted and trade secret church materials.
Is it me or is it really bizarre for somebody who is involved in
a lawsuit against Netcom to be *using* Netcom?
--
Sue Irvin | "Alexander the Great was the first person in history
bu...@rahul.net | to prove that killing lots of people is easy if
| you put your mind to it." -- Richard Shenkman
Brad Templeton
particularly catches the attention of the net, though the cases against
the BBS and Rev. Erlich are also of interest.
The question of contributory liability is of partiuclar interest. Netcom's
involvement with such matters is very peripheral. While they may or may
not have some responsibility over their direct customers, many question
what responsibility they should have over the customers of their customers.
Indeed, why have you not also named as defendant MCI, which provides
IP connectivity for Netcom. (Though they have other connections.) MCI
is a common carrier, but is not acting in its common carrier capacity in
providing IP connectivity to the best of my knowledge, though I could be
mistaken in this.
The Church won an injunction against Rev. Erlich, why is more needed than
that? If the terms of the injunction require providers not to give Rev.
Erlich access to the net, then that's fine, otherwise the court did not
intend that.
--
Brad Templeton, publisher, ClariNet Communications Corp. | www.clari.net
The net's #1 Electronic newspaper (circulation 90,000) |in...@clari.net
David Sternlight
Bob Wallert <ice...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>It is a shame they started out on this issue by defending an admitted copy-
>right infringer
I think this to be a falsehood. It discredits anything else you may say if
it is, in fact, false. Please provide evidence for "admitted".
Thank you;
David
David M. Cook
>It is a shame they started out on this issue by defending an admitted copy-
This is patently false. Mr. Erlich asked for proof that the material in
question was indeed copyrighted. He was never given any. The CoS still
has not been proven that any copyrights were infringed.
Dave Cook
Bob Wallert
: Certain Church of Scientology corporations that I represent are currently
: involved in litigation against Netcom, Tom Klemesrud (operator of a BBS)
: Technology Center vs. Netcom, Et. Al, Case No. C95-20091 RMW. Dennis
: the Internet through Tom Klemesrud's BBS and Netcom.
: Comments have been made by individuals on the Internet that the Church of
: Scientology was attempting to stifle freedom of speech and this was why
: this lawsuit was filed. This could not be further from the truth. The
: Church of Scientology has never been in conflict with the ethics or
: ethical principles of the Internet and totally supports bringing the world
: into better communication. The Church has always arduously fought for
: Freedom of Speech and its record speaks for itself when it comes to
: Freedom of Information. The Church is well known around the world for its
: efforts in this area.
: The case against Netcom, Klemesrud and Erlich is not about Freedom of
: Speech or Freedom to criticize. It is simply a copyright and trade
: secrets case. If the Church's rights in its materials were not unlawfully
: being violated there would be no suit. In fact, Mr. Erlich has been
: criticizing the Church for many years prior to the lawsuit being filed and
: continues to post vile and false criticisms about the Church, but he has
: not been sued for any of these. This case has nothing to do with free
: speech. It has to do with the protection of Intellectual Property rights
: and nothing more. This is a concern held by many.
: In relation to Erlich, Netcom initially took the position that Erlich
: could do what he wanted and they couldn't or wouldn't stop him. This was
: in complete contravention of its own rules and regulations or his BBS.
: The Church believes that Netcom has now started to change its position as
: it has become clear that the Judge is not going to tolerate copyright
: infringement and has continued the restraining order against Erlich. This
: is beneficial for everyone except for those who engage in lawlessness such
: as infringement.
: When the Church recently brought to Netcom's attention another copyright
: violator on its system by the name of Grady Ward, Netcom took action
: pursuant to its rules and regulations and immediately sent a warning to
: the infringer letting him know that if his actions continued his account
: would be cancelled. Netcom's lawyers even told the Judge in the Erlich
: case that Netcom took this action.
: The Church is pleased that Netcom has agreed with its position and concern
: about copyright and trade secret infringers and will take appropriate
: action against violators in the future.
:
It's good to hear that Netcom has realized the error of the position it took
on Dennis Erlich. Seems like taking action against copyright infringers is
all the Church was asking Netcom to do in the first place. Looks like Netcom
is taking the appropriate actions against other infringers behind the scenes.
It is a shame they started out on this issue by defending an admitted copy-
right infringer, when their own rules say that they will not tolerate
infringements, and they are now enforcing these rules. As to why are they
still staying in the suit, well I guess they feel they can't get out of the
Erlich case without looking bad to the Internet community. Funny thing is
they would surely be viewed by 98% of the Internet users as being responsible
and ethical. After all, the postings for which Erlich was sued were pages
and pages of outright copies and these violations are no different than
what Grady Ward posted, the same rules should be applied to Erlich.
Klemesrud, who is the actual subscriber to Netcom, should be told to stop
his infringing subscriber or else he is off. It really is a simple matter
which I believe the real users of the Net want to see happen. It is good to
see Netcom starting to take the right action, and other providers should
do the same.
B. Wallert
Jon Noring
>It's good to hear that Netcom has realized the error of the position it took
>on Dennis Erlich. Seems like taking action against copyright infringers is
>all the Church was asking Netcom to do in the first place. Looks like Netcom
>is taking the appropriate actions against other infringers behind the scenes.
EFF does not see it the way you do. This is a much more complex case than
you realize and has ramifications for Freedom of Speech and Freedom of
Religion.
>It is a shame they started out on this issue by defending an admitted copy-
>right infringer, when their own rules say that they will not tolerate
Erlich never made such a claim. He claims Fair Use and Freedom of Religion.
And anyway, the highest ethical position is that a person is innocent until
proven guilty by due process. You apparently don't hold to this highest of
ethical principles. How would you like it if I claimed you were a criminal
without benefit of due process? That's all I've seen on this newsgroup the
last few months, particularly from those who support the CoS organization
(which is different than the religion of Scientology). Dead agenting and
guilty until proven innocent are some of the most despicable, immoral, and
unethical principles that exist. They have no place in a moral and ethical
society, and work to inhibit Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion.
Posting rumors about the criminality of individuals is the true definition of
Hate Speech, and I've seen a LOT of hatred posted by OSA the last few months--
against Erlich, Wollersheim, CAN, Factnet, Young, etc., etc., etc. I can
only conclude that all OSA has done the last few months is create hatred on
the Internet. The Internet community from the beginning offered to work with
CoS to deal with any legitimate issues they may have, and all we got in return
were lawsuits, illegal cancellations, threats, posting unfounded rumors
against individuals, harassment of individuals by visiting them and posting
private information they obtained from paying PI's to find the information,
etc. And these are all things that violate the Freedoms of Religion and
Speech.
>and ethical. After all, the postings for which Erlich was sued were pages
>and pages of outright copies and these violations are no different than
>what Grady Ward posted, the same rules should be applied to Erlich.
>Klemesrud, who is the actual subscriber to Netcom, should be told to stop
>his infringing subscriber or else he is off. It really is a simple matter
>which I believe the real users of the Net want to see happen. It is good to
>see Netcom starting to take the right action, and other providers should
>do the same.
The majority of Internet users see a lot more in this than you do. If your
view somehow prevails, it will ultimately lead to stifling the Freedoms of
Religion and of Speech. Is that what you want?
Jon Noring
(p.s., most of the 130,000 people who signed the S.314 Petition would
vehemently disagree with you. I know, I was one of the people who ran
this petition. I've got a lot of people backing up my position and ready
to protect freedom of expression on the Internet if called upon to do so.)
--
OmniMedia | The Electronic Bookstore. Come in and browse! Two
1312 Carlton Place | locations: ftp.netcom.com /pub/Om/OmniMedia/books
Livermore, CA 94550 | and ftp.awa.com /pub/softlock/pc/products/OmniMedia
510-294-8153 | E-book publishing service follows NWU recommendations.
StarOwl
Jeez, I wish someone would housebreak these cows before letting them
on the net.
Helena Kobrin (h...@netcom.com) wrote:
: Certain Church of Scientology corporations that I represent are currently
: involved in litigation against Netcom, Tom Klemesrud (operator of a BBS)
: and Dennis Erlich in the San Jose Federal Court over the posting of
: copyrighted and trade secret church materials.
Isn't there some question about whether or not an alleged religious
organization can have "trade secrets"?
: The case is Religious
: Technology Center vs. Netcom, Et. Al, Case No. C95-20091 RMW. Dennis
: Erlich posted large portions of copyrighted and trade secret materials on
: the Internet through Tom Klemesrud's BBS and Netcom.
*Allegedly* posted.... Ms. Korbin, you're a lawyer. You should know
better than to follow the bivalve party line before the Truth has been
determined in a court of law.
: Comments have been made by individuals on the Internet that the Church of
: Scientology was attempting to stifle freedom of speech and this was why
: this lawsuit was filed. This could not be further from the truth.
*sniff* There's that unhousebroken bovine again.
: The
: Church of Scientology has never been in conflict with the ethics or
: ethical principles of the Internet
*ahort!*
: and totally supports bringing the world
: into better communication.
...provided that the cult gets to censor that communication first.
: The Church has always arduously fought for
: Freedom of Speech
...and the Cult has just as arduously fought against the Freedom of Speech
when the Cult couldn't take the heat from its critics.
: and its record speaks for itself when it comes to
: Freedom of Information.
You can say that again!
: The Church is well known around the world for its
: efforts in this area.
Or it soon will be.
: The case against Netcom, Klemesrud and Erlich is not about Freedom of
: Speech or Freedom to criticize. It is simply a copyright and trade
: secrets case.
*looks at the floor* You know, I've heard that some farm younguns occasionally
play frisbee with these things.
: If the Church's rights in its materials were not unlawfully
: being violated there would be no suit.
If the cult didn't feel threatened by its critics, or if it didn't feel
that its profit-making ventures were jeopardized by individuals reavealing
the cult's dirty little secrets, there would be no suit.
: In fact, Mr. Erlich has been
: criticizing the Church for many years prior to the lawsuit being filed and
: continues to post vile and false criticisms about the Church,
Judging by some of what's been said on the net, they aren't entirely false....
: but he has
: not been sued for any of these.
...if only because it wasn't until recently when he had a potential
audience of millions.
: This case has nothing to do with free speech. It has to do with
: the protection of Intellectual Property rights and nothing more.
I hope someone's going to clean up all this fertilizer before the
net reeks too badly.
Actually, I submit that part of the heated response to the cult's
acts have something to do with the protection of the Fair Use doctrine.
Copyrighted material is *still* criticizable.
Some of what has been posted in the great a.r.s flamewar is, I will
agree, over the line. Yet, save for the acts of cult-funded cancelbunnies,
we have seen no legal action taken against individuals whom you *might*
have a better case against.
It certainly makes it seem like you have a thing against Dennis. Could
it be because a former cult brainwasher finally saw the light, and decided
to show others just where the cult's skeletons are buried?
: This is a concern held by many.
Yes, I think it's safe to say that the cult causes concern for many.
: In relation to Erlich, Netcom initially took the position that Erlich
: could do what he wanted and they couldn't or wouldn't stop him. This was
: in complete contravention of its own rules and regulations or his BBS.
: The Church believes that Netcom has now started to change its position as
: it has become clear that the Judge is not going to tolerate copyright
: infringement and has continued the restraining order against Erlich. This
: is beneficial for everyone except for those who engage in lawlessness such
: as infringement.
It's also not beneficial for those who breed cancelbunnies.
: When the Church recently brought to Netcom's attention another copyright
: violator on its system by the name of Grady Ward, Netcom took action
: pursuant to its rules and regulations and immediately sent a warning to
: the infringer letting him know that if his actions continued his account
: would be cancelled. Netcom's lawyers even told the Judge in the Erlich
: case that Netcom took this action.
: The Church is pleased that Netcom has agreed with its position and concern
: about copyright and trade secret infringers and will take appropriate
: action against violators in the future.
Yet the cult still keeps Netcom in its suit.
Snap! Snap! Snap!
Nico Garcia
It's good to hear that Netcom has realized the error of the position it took
on Dennis Erlich. Seems like taking action against copyright infringers is
all the Church was asking Netcom to do in the first place. Looks like Netcom
You lie like a dog. Dennis made short quotes from publicly posted
material to verify that it was genuine, which he can certainly do
under "fair use" as an ex-scientology member for 13 years. When the
Church of Scientology lawyer Ms. Kobrin insisted he delete all copies
of Scientology material from the Internet (a ludicrous desire in any
case), Dennis rightly pointed out that that he made only short quotes,
and asked that they identify *specific* materials, and he would remove
them from his system upon identifiation. They then ignored his email,
got a writ of seizure under false pretenses, and deleted every file
from his system with the word "scientology" in it, with 11 goons
present and *no federal marshall*. They also used
those files to get the address and unlisted phone numbers of certain
scientology critics, and used the data to harass them (such as Grady
Ward, also at netcom.com).
It is a shame they started out on this issue by defending an admitted copy-
right infringer, when their own rules say that they will not tolerate
infringements, and they are now enforcing these rules. As to why are they
They didn't and do not, nor did Dennis commit copyright infringement.
That claim is libel, in my opinion, of both Netcom and Dennis.
still staying in the suit, well I guess they feel they can't get out of the
Erlich case without looking bad to the Internet community. Funny thing is
they would surely be viewed by 98% of the Internet users as being responsible
and ethical. After all, the postings for which Erlich was sued were pages
You have it backwards, the Internet views Netcom as responsible citizens
in theis matter, and the Church of Scientology as litigious bozos. What
Scientology training camp have you been hiding in? The Flag one? Or
are you a new alias for Rick Sherwoood, now that he's made slips and
signed several other aliases as "Woody"?
and pages of outright copies and these violations are no different than
what Grady Ward posted, the same rules should be applied to Erlich.
Ready my keyboard: *Dennis posted only short quotes*. And the copyright
on the key documents is extremely questionable, since the documents
that granted RTC the copyrights on L. Ron's writings was found by
a British court to be forged (David Miscavige, the president of Scientology,
and L. Ron had the same handwriting).
Klemesrud, who is the actual subscriber to Netcom, should be told
to stop
his infringing subscriber or else he is off. It really is a simple matter
Having the female scientologist entrap Klemesrud by going home with
him from a bar and flinging a bottle of blood all over his bathroom
didn't work, did it? When Tom called the cops, she claimed assault,
but the cops dropped it.
which I believe the real users of the Net want to see happen. It is good to
see Netcom starting to take the right action, and other providers should
do the same.
No, we don't want to see censorship of Scientology critics. Go back to
your Office of Special Affairs boss and tell them your lies didn't
work out here. (Note: I cannot prove that icecube is another alias for
noo...@netcom.com or the other aliases posting the disinformation, I
merely suspect that they are all the same people working for the
enforcement arm of the Church of Scientology).
Followups directed over to alt.religion.scientology, where Helena Kobrin
failed to crosspost her lies to. You did, the only thing you got right
in your libelous post.
Nico Garcia
ra...@mit.edu
My opinions are my own, not MIT's or my employer's or my cat's
(Well, maybe my cat's....)
Bob Wallert
: In article <icecubeD...@netcom.com>,
: Bob Wallert <ice...@netcom.com> wrote:
: >
: >It is a shame they started out on this issue by defending an admitted copy-
: >right infringer
: I think this to be a falsehood. It discredits anything else you may say if
: it is, in fact, false. Please provide evidence for "admitted".
I would suggest that before you make claims about statements being false,
you get your facts straight. Perhaps you have been too caught up in the
anti-Scientology rhetoric to have noticed a few salient facts:
On February 27th, Mr. Erlich sent a letter to the judge in this case (this
letter was posted on the ars newsgroup) in which he apologized to both the
judge and to the plaintiffs for posting materials which were covered under
the TRO which the judge had issued. Erlich endeavored to then get this
offending post cancelled. It is hard to get a more black and white
admission than that.
Secondly, the materials which Mr. Ward posted, were of the same type which
Erlich had been posting. Netcom recognized this and warned Ward about it.
So, it is completely obvious that by Netcom's own rules and practice they
recognize that copyrighted materials were being posted by Erlich.
Bob Wallert
Dick Cleek
>gr...@netcom.com (Grady Ward) writes:
>>Netcom does not have an opinion as to the copyright status of the
>>laugable criminal cult doctrine of Xenu, Marcab aliens, and so on.
>I wonder why you would make that statement, since you are not a
>Netcom spokesperson?> -Greg>Netcom admin, posting his own viewpoint
Greg, pay attention now.
In America we use the COURTS to make legal judgements
such as copyright status. Netcom does not have an "opinion"
in the sense that it doesn't matter if they did have an opinion.
It's not their option to make a copyright violation determination.
You've been listening to the Scientology puppets, haven't you?
You've forgotten your high school civics.
Dick Cleek
just another theatre geek
>I would suggest that before you make claims about statements being false,
>you get your facts straight. Perhaps you have been too caught up in the
>anti-Scientology rhetoric to have noticed a few salient facts:
>
>On February 27th, Mr. Erlich sent a letter to the judge in this case (this
>letter was posted on the ars newsgroup) in which he apologized to both the
>judge and to the plaintiffs for posting materials which were covered under
>the TRO which the judge had issued. Erlich endeavored to then get this
>offending post cancelled. It is hard to get a more black and white
>admission than that.
Lies and distortion.
>Secondly, the materials which Mr. Ward posted, were of the same type which
>Erlich had been posting. Netcom recognized this and warned Ward about it.
Lies and distortion.
>So, it is completely obvious that by Netcom's own rules and practice they
>recognize that copyrighted materials were being posted by Erlich.
It is completely obvious that you are an idiot.
--
Roger Tang, gwan...@u.washington.edu, Artistic Director PC Theatre
The most unAmerican thing you can say is "He/she makes too much money."
Steve
> : Bob Wallert <ice...@netcom.com> wrote:
> : >
> : >It is a shame they started out on this issue by defending an admitted copy-
> : >right infringer
> : I think this to be a falsehood. It discredits anything else you may say if
> : it is, in fact, false. Please provide evidence for "admitted".
> I would suggest that before you make claims about statements being false,
> you get your facts straight. Perhaps you have been too caught up in the
> anti-Scientology rhetoric to have noticed a few salient facts:
> On February 27th, Mr. Erlich sent a letter to the judge in this case (this
> letter was posted on the ars newsgroup) in which he apologized to both the
> judge and to the plaintiffs for posting materials which were covered under
> the TRO which the judge had issued. Erlich endeavored to then get this
> offending post cancelled. It is hard to get a more black and white
> admission than that.
A typical $cientology dead-agent trick. As if you didn't already
know, icecube, Dennis made some postings which he believed to be
within the terms of the agreement as he had heard it in court. The
written confirmation had a wider scope than the verbal agreement made
in court, and covered the postings he had just made. Mr Erlich's
letter to the court was in response to this and demonstrates the fact
that, rather than being some embittered zealot embarking on a
fanatical crusade against your tawdry cult, he is capable of taking a
pragmatic view of the situation and acting in good faith (he could
have gone back to court and argued the whole thing - no doubt the
approach the co$ would have taken in the same situation).
Of course, since no $cientologist is capable of apologising for
ANYTHING, even when they are known to have done it, it is no wonder
that you have difficulty with the concept of an apology.
> Secondly, the materials which Mr. Ward posted, were of the same type which
> Erlich had been posting. Netcom recognized this and warned Ward about it.
> So, it is completely obvious that by Netcom's own rules and practice they
> recognize that copyrighted materials were being posted by Erlich.
"allegedly" copyrighted, icecube, "allegedly". Let's not get ahead of
ourselves here.
>
> Bob Wallert
Steve
--
Moderated soc.religion.$cientology? Just Say No: keep speech free on the 'net!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stevea@ca | E-Meters! Woody! Hazelnut Yogurt! Vera! | "Is that a clam in your
stlsys.de | Get It While It's Hotte...Inna Bun! | pocket or are you just
mon.co.uk | alt.religion.$cientology | pleased to see me?"
Greg Andrews
>ge...@netcom.com (Greg Andrews) wrote:
>>gr...@netcom.com (Grady Ward) writes:
>>>Netcom does not have an opinion as to the copyright status of the
>>>laugable criminal cult doctrine of Xenu, Marcab aliens, and so on.
>
>>I wonder why you would make that statement, since you are not a
>>Netcom spokesperson?> -Greg>Netcom admin, posting his own viewpoint
>
>Greg, pay attention now.
>In America we use the COURTS to make legal judgements
>such as copyright status. Netcom does not have an "opinion"
>in the sense that it doesn't matter if they did have an opinion.
>It's not their option to make a copyright violation determination.
>
Where would I have seen that gr...@netcom.com was using the
word "opinion" in its specific legal meaning, rather than the
broader dictionary meaning? Only a few of the posts in that
thread had been cross-posted to netcom.netnews.
>
>You've been listening to the Scientology puppets, haven't you?
>You've forgotten your high school civics.
>
You've forgotten to watch the Newsgroups: line.
-Greg
Netcom admin, posting his own viewpoint from his own account.
--
::::::::::::::::::: Greg Andrews ge...@netcom.com :::::::::::::::::::
ObGuindon: The fad of throwing tofu, Japanese bean curd, at the
ceilings of restaurants to see how long it will stick
has really gotten out of hand in some cities.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Sirilyan
>on Dennis Erlich. Seems like taking action against copyright infringers is
>all the Church was asking Netcom to do in the first place. Looks like Netcom
>is taking the appropriate actions against other infringers behind the scenes.
No, the Church asked that [postings from Erlich be blocked from a.r.s,
content-irrelevant. (To do otherwise would require that the filter
program have a copy of the CoS materials that might be transmitted. They
seemed less than forthcoming in providing these materials.)
>It is a shame they started out on this issue by defending an admitted copy-
>right infringer, when their own rules say that they will not tolerate
>infringements, and they are now enforcing these rules. As to why are they
>still staying in the suit, well I guess they feel they can't get out of the
>Erlich case without looking bad to the Internet community. Funny thing is
>they would surely be viewed by 98% of the Internet users as being responsible
>and ethical. After all, the postings for which Erlich was sued were pages
>and pages of outright copies and these violations are no different than
>what Grady Ward posted, the same rules should be applied to Erlich.
1. Netcom doesn't need help from ANY criminal cult to look bad,
Wallert. Just grep "ix.netcom.com" and "$50,000" in your news spool to
find out why.
2. Dennis is *not* an "admitted" copyright infringer. He is an
*alleged* copyright infringer. This works the same way that I see you as
an *alleged* brainless prat, not an *admitted* brainless prat.
3. 98% of the Internet users *I* know find the CoS to be a poor netizen,
considering their rich history of cancels, rmgroups, and persecution of
those who dare think oppositely to their own twisted worldview. Netcom,
in refusing to jump just because the CoS said "frog", is acting
responsibly and honestly. You say that User X is violating your
copyright? Fine, PROVE IT. I say that you raped my dog. By CoS rules,
you're guilty of it (after all, the accusation is as good as the
conviction) and I'll be posting your home address and phone number to
alt.sex.bestiality tomorrow.
4. Why not ask the EFF why they're supporting Erlich, and ot the CoS?
Of course, they have a record of being "unethical" - supporting Craig
Neidorf and not the phone company (when the phone company is what has
made civilisation great; for FREE phone sex, dial 1-800-FOR-TRUT), Steve
Jackson Games and not the U.S. Secret Service (treason!) and now Dennis
Erlich and not the CoS (you create hate and persecution on the Internet).
>Klemesrud, who is the actual subscriber to Netcom, should be told to stop
>his infringing subscriber or else he is off. It really is a simple matter
>which I believe the real users of the Net want to see happen. It is good to
>see Netcom starting to take the right action, and other providers should
>do the same.
It is better to see the EFF helping the CoS to see that they need to do
more than just follow HCPOLs to succeed in *real* two-way communication.
It is far better to see Dennis Erlich getting pro bono defense from
reputable lawyers. And it is best of all to see that you, sir, are far
in the minority among responsible, thinking users of the Net.
>
> B. Wallert
>
Sirilyan. Plays GURPS, reads Phrack, hates Co$. That's your cue, Woody.
Brad Templeton
>Greg, pay attention now.
>In America we use the COURTS to make legal judgements
>such as copyright status. Netcom does not have an "opinion"
>in the sense that it doesn't matter if they did have an opinion.
>It's not their option to make a copyright violation determination.
Where did you get this notion? We use the courts to settle disputes
and to award damages in *extreme* cases in the USA. 99.9% of legal
judgements are made by the individuals involved. They ask lawyers when
they are not sure, and if people argue and can't make a decision, then
they file a suit, and in a very small number of those cases it goes
before a judge and sometimes it gets so far as the court makes a decision.
(Courts also issue injuctions and restraining orders in extreme cases.)
You can't just ignore copyright and say, "Until you prove you have the
copyright in a court of law, I'm going to ast like you don't have one."
That's ridiculous!
What happens if you say that is that you get sued, and if they win, you
have to pay damages for the violations you did, plus possibly their costs,
and of course your own costs. If you win you might also have to pay
your own costs, that depends.
You must decide what to do about copyrighted material long before it goes
to court. If you decide wrong, you pay retroactively.
Now in 99% of cases this works, because there really isn't much argument
on ordinary material concerning who wrote it and who has the rights. In
unusual cases there is a dispute over that and courts are involved.
In this case nobody is disputing that Elron wrote the texts and that they
are properly protected by copyright, as far as I know. The dispute is over
whether the postings were fair use. If they were, Erlich gets off. If
not, he pays.
The interesting question is whether netcom and the BBS should also pay
for knowingly allowing Erlich to continue posting using their equipment,
and whether they should have to make that determination.
Don't dream that one can be immune from having to make determinations.
While it is likely (as in Cubby v. CIS) that a bulletin board can be held
harmless for material already posted, this case revolves around *new*
postings, which makes it interesting.
Ie. the church told the sysops, "Do not let him use your equipment to make
more copyright violations."
The older doctrine justifiably argues that a sysop can't know about all
the material on her system, just like a bookstore, and thus can't be held
liable for what's in it. But this is not such a case. In this case the
sysop knows and has been specifically warned.
Consider the famous Kinko's case, where Kinko's has to pay damages because
they allowed their machines to be used to violate copyrights when they
clearly should have known that violations were going on. (They were near
a college, and a professor or his students, I can't recall which, regularly
came over to copy large, clearly copyrighted books.)
So the question is, can the Sysop be liable if they know in advance that
material they will provide publishing services for is a violation, and
have in fact been warned about it?
Should the sysop be liable in these cases?
--
Brad Templeton, publisher, ClariNet Communications Corp. in...@clari.net
The net's #1 Electronic newspaper (95,000 readers) www.clari.net/brad.html
My new personal page ^^^^^^^^^
Dick Cleek
>In article <3nlh2c$s...@uwm.edu>, Dick Cleek wrote:
>>In America we use the COURTS to make legal judgements
>>such as copyright status. Netcom does not have an "opinion"
>>in the sense that it doesn't matter if they did have an opinion.
>>It's not their option to make a copyright violation determination.
>
>Where did you get this notion? We use the courts to settle disputes
>and to award damages in *extreme* cases in the USA. 99.9% of legal
>judgements are made by the individuals involved.
True, but it is previous court decisions that elaborate the law and
provide the examples upon which individuals must base their day-to-day
decisions.
>You can't just ignore copyright and say, "Until you prove you have the
>copyright in a court of law, I'm going to ast like you don't have one."
>That's ridiculous!
I didn't say they should ignore copyright violations, or at least I
didn't mean to say that flatly. Let me expand my thought. In a case
where the copyright issue is unclear, then an individual should not
attempt to make a determination of copyright. The Ehrlich/CoS case is
unclear for two reasons. First, the material is secret and therefore
it is difficult to determine copyright since there is no text to compare
to. Even the judge in this case is going to have difficulty unless CoS
changes their behavior and gives him the original material. Second, the
Fair Use principle is not crystal clear. If it were then universities
wouldn't have to have Library training sessions on it every couple of
years. It seems that unless Ehrlich was quoting hundreds of pages
verbatim, from a text that Netcom could purchase and use for comparison,
Netcom would be crazy to accuse Ehrlich of copyright violation.
>Don't dream that one can be immune from having to make determinations.
I don't. But for a private individual to make that determination, the
offense must be flagrant and clearcut.
>So the question is, can the Sysop be liable if they know in advance that
>material they will provide publishing services for is a violation, and
>have in fact been warned about it?
Now this is an interesting idea. Suppose the Sysop has been warned about
a purported violation by a group which is known to have engaged in
deceitful practices and illegal activities (as witnessed by multiple
court decisions). Should the Sysop believe the group's allegation in the
absence of any evidence?
My final point: can we post this whole newsgroup to rec.funny.humor?
Dick Cleek
Jon Noring
>In article Dick Cleek <dcl...@pharos.uwc.edu> wrote:
>>Greg, pay attention now.
>>In America we use the COURTS to make legal judgements
>>such as copyright status. Netcom does not have an "opinion"
>>in the sense that it doesn't matter if they did have an opinion.
>>It's not their option to make a copyright violation determination.
>Where did you get this notion? We use the courts to settle disputes
>and to award damages in *extreme* cases in the USA. 99.9% of legal
>judgements are made by the individuals involved. They ask lawyers when
>they are not sure, and if people argue and can't make a decision, then
>they file a suit, and in a very small number of those cases it goes
>before a judge and sometimes it gets so far as the court makes a decision.
>
>(Courts also issue injuctions and restraining orders in extreme cases.)
>
>You can't just ignore copyright and say, "Until you prove you have the
>copyright in a court of law, I'm going to ast like you don't have one."
>That's ridiculous!
>
>What happens if you say that is that you get sued, and if they win, you
>have to pay damages for the violations you did, plus possibly their costs,
>and of course your own costs. If you win you might also have to pay
>your own costs, that depends.
>
>You must decide what to do about copyrighted material long before it goes
>to court. If you decide wrong, you pay retroactively.
This is true, but in many cases, such as many of the posts of Dennis Erlich,
how do you know? Fair Use determination is a very complex issue (except
*possibly* for the clear out and out cases of wholesale duplication with no
commentary), and even the courts have to often go through a lot of analysis
and even soul-searching to come to a ruling in any particular case. You make
it sound like it is cut and dried, which it many times is NOT. And in the
case of Dennis Erlich, who claims to be a minister of his religion and claims
he is doing his ministerial duties, we add to that Freedom of Religion issues.
Thus, to ask an ISP to try to make a copyright determination, particularly
when the copied material is cited in Fair Use fashion (rather than wholesale
duplication w/o any commentary), is just not feasible. And an ISP may be
liable for a lawsuit if it does decide a transmission made through it is
copyrighted and the person who made the transmission believes it to be done
in Fair Use. The sword can cut both ways. It's best to leave ISP's out of
it except in the clear-cut and unambiguous cases.
All in all, I find many publishers to have a hard-core attitude about
copyrights and they somehow believe that the purpose of copyrights is for
commercial gain. It is NOT as the Constitution clearly states -- copyrights
are meant to encourage FREE EXCHANGE of ideas. I myself would support a
radical overhaul of our copyright laws to make a copyright term no longer
than 20 years with no renewal, and to apply this retroactively (Berne
Convention notwithstanding). In addition, copyrights would be lost if the
material has not been *publicly* available for sale or distribution (e.g.,
in print) for 5 years. None of this copyrighting of proprietary material
shit as the Constitution NEVER intended such a use of Copyright law in the
first place. (Proprietary material can be covered under Trade Secret laws
where the recipient of the proprietary material can be contractually
obligated not to publicly reveal it.)
And, btw, I am a publisher myself and a strong supporter of the NWU, so I
am very aware of copyright issues and copyright law, and the need for
royalties, etc. But I also believe in freedom of information exchange and
that is why I am working to prevent entities from stifling freedom of
expression and freedom of speech on the Internet, and thus my interest in
what happens on alt.religion.scientology.
Jon Noring
(p.s., my first distaste with current copyright laws came several years ago
when I was interested in 1920's and early 30's jazz. Most of the recordings
from this era are not available on legitimate reissues from the current holders
of the copyrights to these recordings (SONY, MCA, and RCA-VICTOR). And they
have not been for up to 60 years! Attempts by collectors to ask to reissue
the material, even offering to pay a generous royalty and assume all financial
risk, have been turned down 99 out of a 100 times with no reasons given. So,
the bootleg market is big and thriving with thousands of bootleg albums now
available, and curiously the Big 3 companies have only taken a couple of
people to court the last 30 years for copyright infringement of reissuing this
material without their permission. In all, there is a wealth of great
recordings (and movies as well) sitting in vaults never to be legitimately
reissued, and all because of our misdirected copyright laws. It is curious,
too, that just about when the Original Dixieland Jazz Band recordings from
1916-1917 became Public Domain, RCA, who owns the copyrights to them, decided
to reissue the material, but essentially sat on it for many years before that!
Copyright law was NEVER intended to keep artistic works away from the public's
enjoyment.)
Greg Andrews
>Greg Andrews (ge...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
>: I wonder why you would make that statement, since you are not a
>: Netcom spokesperson?
>
>: -Greg
>: Netcom admin, posting his own viewpoint from his own account.
>
>Fair enough. Since you are a NETCOM spokesdroid, what, pray tell, *is*
>the official NETCOM opinion on Marcabs and Xenu?
>
No, I'm not a Netcom spokesperson. I'm a Netcom admin.
If you want the official Netcom position, you should call the
office and ask the Netcom officials.
-Greg
Netcom admin, posting his own viewpoint from his own account.
--
::::::::::::::::::: Greg Andrews ge...@netcom.com :::::::::::::::::::
A large number of installed systems work by fiat.
That is, they work by being declared to work.
-- Anatol Holt
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Hillel
>Consider the famous Kinko's case, where Kinko's has to pay damages because
>they allowed their machines to be used to violate copyrights when they
>clearly should have known that violations were going on. (They were near
>a college, and a professor or his students, I can't recall which, regularly
>came over to copy large, clearly copyrighted books.)
Question:
Libraries have xerox machines in them, and usually people use those
machines to xerox parts of copy-right protected books of the library.
The librarians know pretty well that that's what going on.
Can the library be sued for damages?
Should the library pay damages?
Hillel
>Comments have been made by individuals on the Internet that the Church of
>Scientology was attempting to stifle freedom of speech and this was why
>this lawsuit was filed. This could not be further from the truth.
>In relation to Erlich, Netcom initially took the position that Erlich
>could do what he wanted and they couldn't or wouldn't stop him. This was
>in complete contravention of its own rules and regulations or his BBS.
>The Church believes that Netcom has now started to change its position as
>it has become clear that the Judge is not going to tolerate copyright
>infringement and has continued the restraining order against Erlich. This
>is beneficial for everyone except for those who engage in lawlessness such
>as infringement.
Helena, let's *assume* that all you said is true.
You demand that netcom, and any other service provider, will scan
everything that a user posts for copyright violation.
There are several problems with the idea:
1) Knowledge. How can somebody who has never read your secret texts
know that they were posted?
2) Price. It takes a *long* time to read everything which is posted
from a large site like netcom.
3) Responsibility. Why somebody who acts in a good faith be responsible
for somebody who act in a bad faith?
4) Time. Articles will be delayed for a long time till somebody will
be able to scan them.
If the court will accept your position than the net, as we know it,
will be history. Nobody will provide any services because the
penalty when a user violates copyright will be just too high.
That's what you, personally, try to do.
By doing so you hurt the freedom of speech of all net users.
You decided to pick the net.users as your enemies; I hope
that you remember that it is much easier to start a legal
fight than stopping it.
>Helena Kobrin
Hillel ga...@cs.duke.edu
"Knowing -- and remembering -- who one's enemies are is the first
rule of self-preservation. I never forget." -- Clay Bond
Hillel
#machines to xerox parts of copy-right protected books of the library.
#The librarians know pretty well that that's what going on.
In article <3npfpg$n...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
sgoe...@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (scott goehring) writes:
>every library i've been in has a big warning sign about Title 17
>splashed on the copiers.
The sign does not prevent a user from xeroxing a book.
It just tell him that what he does is illegal.
>if a library takes reasonable steps to prevent illegal duplication
>(such as posting signs like this), they're probably not liable.
If a net service provider will put among the login messages
a message about Title 17, and a user will post the secret texts
of Co$, will the service provider be legally protected from
the Church of $cientology?
Bill Winn
>David Sternlight (strn...@netcom.com) wrote:
>I would suggest that before you make claims about statements being false,
>you get your facts straight. Perhaps you have been too caught up in the
>anti-Scientology rhetoric to have noticed a few salient facts:
>
>On February 27th, Mr. Erlich sent a letter to the judge in this case (this
>letter was posted on the ars newsgroup) in which he apologized to both the
>judge and to the plaintiffs for posting materials which were covered under
>the TRO which the judge had issued. Erlich endeavored to then get this
>offending post cancelled. It is hard to get a more black and white
>admission than that.
<sarcasm on>
The CoS would *never* spoof a posting to further their own ends, would
they? :-)
<sarcasm off>
Bill Winn
Software Engineer - Analysts International Corporation
-------------------------------
bill...@acm.org
My views do not express the views of anyone except my alter-ego.
Bruce D. Scott
: In this case nobody is disputing that Elron wrote the texts and that they
: are properly protected by copyright, as far as I know. The dispute is over
: whether the postings were fair use. If they were, Erlich gets off. If
: not, he pays.
I just want to point out here, for those who don't know, that there is more
to this scientology-Erlich dispute than a simple copyright decision which
is approachable in an academic way. The behaviour of the scientology
organisation vis-a-vis Erlich shows that their real purpose is simply to
remove him from the scene. In this case, the scene is the international
attention given the scientology track record via the Internet, and the
method of silencing is principally legal/financial. The scientology
organisation has dragged his mid-1980s divorce into it by using his ex to
press him for money until he is destitute, and has been working behind the
scenes with people such as Hughes Aircraft to divest the company Erlich
works for of customers. The result of this appeared a couple of days ago
-- Erlich gets laid off. He has a nonzero chance of being homeless in a
few weeks as a consequence. Look for posts by Dennis Erlich and Tom
Klemensrud to alt.religion.scientology over the last week: Erlich is
relaying the legal demands made against him (see especially articles
<950420170...@support.com> and <950424161...@support.com>), and
Klemensrud has discovered the link to Hughes Aircraft (in article
<950420195...@support.com>).
No, this is no simple copyright case.
--
Gruss,
Dr Bruce Scott The deadliest bullshit is
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik odorless and transparent
b...@ipp-garching.mpg.de -- W Gibson
The R R M Tweek
[unknown who ">#" should be attributed to]
>#Libraries have xerox machines in them, and usually people use those
>#machines to xerox parts of copy-right protected books of the library.
>#The librarians know pretty well that that's what going on.
You are implying that the librarians can read the mind of the "Photo
Copier" user (Xerox is a (tm)) and know that the user is not copying
the material under the Fair Use provision.
>The sign does not prevent a user from xeroxing a book.
>It just tell him that what he does is illegal.
No, it tells him (or her) that certain applications of the device
might be illegal. Photocopying a few pages of copyrighted material
for later reference is fair use. Photocopying an entire book to
resell elsewhere is not... and is also pricier than buying the book.
>If a net service provider will put among the login messages
>a message about Title 17, and a user will post the secret texts
>of Co$, will the service provider be legally protected from
>the Church of $cientology?
I don't think it would hurt... but I also don't (in my layman's
opinion) think it would help.
--
tw...@ccnet.com tw...@tweekco.ness.com WW4Net-1@11551 DoD #MCMLX N6QYA
**** Regarding the Internet><WWIVNet gateway and other assorted stuff: ****
http://www.io.com/~tweek/ tw...@io.com IM: Rev. Michael D. Maxfield
Steve Glines
>
>All in all, I find many publishers to have a hard-core attitude about
>copyrights and they somehow believe that the purpose of copyrights is for
>commercial gain. It is NOT as the Constitution clearly states -- copyrights
>are meant to encourage FREE EXCHANGE of ideas. I myself would support a
>radical overhaul of our copyright laws to make a copyright term no longer
>than 20 years with no renewal, and to apply this retroactively (Berne
>Convention notwithstanding). In addition, copyrights would be lost if the
>material has not been *publicly* available for sale or distribution (e.g.,
>in print) for 5 years. None of this copyrighting of proprietary material
>shit as the Constitution NEVER intended such a use of Copyright law in the
>first place. (Proprietary material can be covered under Trade Secret laws
>where the recipient of the proprietary material can be contractually
>obligated not to publicly reveal it.)
>
work. In Europe a copyright is held for the life of the author plus
fifty years. This is reasonable IF the author actually benefits from the
copyright. It encourages artistic expression and rewards writers for
their efforts.
Unfortunately authors rarely benefit from their work here in the US. Big
publishers generally offer terms that benefit them and not the authors.
For example the NWU is fighting many of the large magazines who no
longer offer contracts stating "First North American Serial Rights" but
now demand rights in perpetuity and in all mediums known and unknown. I
actually signed a contract that stated that the publisher owned all
rights in "all known and unknown universes."
My own belief is that if the author looses all rights to his material
then the copyright laws should be reduced to, say, five years. That is
to say, by law an author can only sell all rights for five years before
they revert back to the author. This would prevent the big guys from
benefitting from laws designed to protect the individual.
>And, btw, I am a publisher myself and a strong supporter of the NWU, so I
>am very aware of copyright issues and copyright law, and the need for
>royalties, etc. But I also believe in freedom of information exchange and
>that is why I am working to prevent entities from stifling freedom of
>expression and freedom of speech on the Internet, and thus my interest in
>what happens on alt.religion.scientology.
>
>
Since most writers liberally use the library all of us are proponants of
the fair use docterine. I would love to see my work quoted liberally
that might encourage more people to go out and buy my work. There is a
fine line between quoting liberally and quoting so much that the reader
no longer feels compelled to purchase the items quoted. That is the line
the courts have to decide when awarding judgements.
>(p.s., my first distaste with current copyright laws came several years ago
>when I was interested in 1920's and early 30's jazz. Most of the recordings
>from this era are not available on legitimate reissues from the current holders
>of the copyrights to these recordings (SONY, MCA, and RCA-VICTOR). And they
>have not been for up to 60 years! Attempts by collectors to ask to reissue
>the material, even offering to pay a generous royalty and assume all financial
>risk, have been turned down 99 out of a 100 times with no reasons given. So,
>the bootleg market is big and thriving with thousands of bootleg albums now
>available, and curiously the Big 3 companies have only taken a couple of
>people to court the last 30 years for copyright infringement of reissuing this
>material without their permission. In all, there is a wealth of great
>recordings (and movies as well) sitting in vaults never to be legitimately
>reissued, and all because of our misdirected copyright laws. It is curious,
>too, that just about when the Original Dixieland Jazz Band recordings from
>1916-1917 became Public Domain, RCA, who owns the copyrights to them, decided
>to reissue the material, but essentially sat on it for many years before that!
>Copyright law was NEVER intended to keep artistic works away from the public's
>enjoyment.)
>
This is the kind of abuse that big corporations can get away with.
Holding on to material does not benefit the public or the authors which
was the origional purpose of copyright laws. I agree, if something is
out of print for 5 years, copyright should automatically revert to the
author or his estate.
PAX
--
Steve Glines
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
<A HREF="ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/sg/sglines/homep.html">
My Home Page</A>
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Ed Green
>
> In article <noringD7...@netcom.com>, Jon Noring <nor...@netcom.com> wrote:
> >
> >It is NOT as the Constitution clearly states -- copyrights
> >are meant to encourage FREE EXCHANGE of ideas.
> >
> work.
It always amazes me how many people think that the Constitution says
exactly and precisely what they want it to say! Neither of you is
correct. Here it is, straight from the horse's mouth:
US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8:
The Congress shall have the power ... To promote the progress of science
and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors
the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries
The PURPOSE of copyright law (here authorized) is to "promote the
progress of... arts." The MEANS by which this is accomplished is
by "securing... to authors... the exclusive right to their... writings"
Securing financial or any other benefit to authors has never been the
motivation behind copyrights -- it's mearly the mechanism by which the
primary policy is pursued. And that policy is not the free exchange
of ideas -- it is the progress of the arts.
--
Ed Green DoD#0111 (919) 543-1757 ed_g...@vnet.ibm.com
Nico Garcia
Brad Templeton (br...@clarinet.com) wrote:
: In this case nobody is disputing that Elron wrote the texts and that they
: are properly protected by copyright, as far as I know. The dispute is over
: whether the postings were fair use. If they were, Erlich gets off. If
: not, he pays.
In fact, since full copies of the documents are not presented to
people outside Scientology, it's *very* hard for the court to verify
that they are copyrighted, and not just written in a boiler room
somewhere. And there is some question about ownership of the
copyrights, since at least one judge found that David Miscavige and L.
Ron Hubbard had the same signature (!) on a legal document
transferring ownership to the Church of Scientology (or its front, the
Religious Technology Center, who I believe currently claims the
copyrights).
henry
In article <gradyD7...@netcom.com>, Grady Ward <gr...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Further Helena K. Kobrin's lie was malicious since her client has
>a stake in the litigation referenced by the lie *and* she is
>very well aware that no ajudication has happened in the matter.
similarly here. the cult is well aware of my specific
disavowal of the statement attributed to me, and despite
a strongly-worded letter threatening to 'contact the
appropriate authorities,' after they received my sysadmin's
response my email has been filled with whiny letters from
cultists.
>This kind of malicious lie by an officer of the court is a matter
>to be brought up before the California Bar, since attorneys in the
>state of California are required to be free from an "offensive
>personality" and to "obey the laws".
really? no 'offensive personalities?' doesn't that eliminate
most attorneys at a swipe?
the cult knows well the principles of using misleading language.
some examples:
the cult will state that someone is 'under investigation' by
this-or-that agency, failing to mention that it's the cult that's
doing the investigation.
the cult will state that so-and-so was indicted for whatever,
and fail to mention that the case was thrown out by the judge,
who included in his dismissal with prejudice a condemnation of
the cult.
it's funny how judges all include a jeering legalese condemnation
of the cult in their decisions when dealing with the co$. they've
become a national joke in the legal community.
the cult also resorts even to such crude and banal measures as
to smear its critics by forging documents and even posts to usenet.
this cult is laughable. we've all seen continuing evidence of
its criminal behavior.
right now, we might be tempted to feel free to rest on our laurels
as this nut cult is considered a laughingstock all over the world,
but as soon as we let up they'll be back under other names with new
lies, or the same ones trumped up into respectability.
one thing, though.
those sciento celebrities, if they're really into all this psycho
clam shit, why don't we hear them extolling the benefits of
scientology?
why didn't tom cruise ever shoot 'interview with the utter fucking liar?'
is it because they know that it's a nut cult and are ashamed
of any accidental association with a cult of crooks and thieves?
>Grady Ward +1 707 826 7715 (voice / 24hr FAX) gr...@netcom.com
h
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6
iQCVAwUBL6GSw9OUGUXWNqytAQFatAP/bF/hT7IuXmtOd/240UYUugF5ahI9KokL
JDyBB18dwus0wAeBLeSDPpHd4/KpyQ4fNCKM1DMaBHqT0Jm7oTz5V0TwRgQ1EFbN
XpVlNKC3JcU+SF7CywRSTqhUKqFjMALIEVWATl1lGMTuHiCKdQ3m2iGB3gzSd96G
Eiz66KqRMek=
=DHAA
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
henry
In article <D7pK4...@clarinet.com>, Brad Templeton <br...@clarinet.com> wrote:
>Where did you get this notion? We use the courts to settle disputes
>and to award damages in *extreme* cases in the USA. 99.9% of legal
>judgements are made by the individuals involved. They ask lawyers when
i assume that you mean by 'we' something like 'most of us.'
co$ uses the courts to harass its enemies and silence its critics.
>they are not sure, and if people argue and can't make a decision, then
>they file a suit, and in a very small number of those cases it goes
>before a judge and sometimes it gets so far as the court makes a decision.
>
>(Courts also issue injuctions and restraining orders in extreme cases.)
courts also dismiss frivolous copyright lawsuits by people who
refuse even to identify the texts which are copyrighted, and which
they asseverate to be 'copyright violations.'
>You can't just ignore copyright and say, "Until you prove you have the
>copyright in a court of law, I'm going to ast like you don't have one."
>That's ridiculous!
yes, it certainly is. were it not as ridiculous to assert:
'until you prove your every word is not a copyright violation,
and thus free speech, i will act as if you don't have free
speech?'
this, by an illegitimate and ill-conceived raid on dennis erlich
by co$, is what is being told to us by scientology.
the cult has refused to identify the doubtless apocryphal
'copyright violations' or to document it in any way.
the moment erlich was made aware of the cult's claims of copyright,
erlich immediately contacted the cult to ask which of his writings
were copyright violations, and showing good faith volunteered to
cease posting them.
the cult ignored his plea.
therefore, with no sign that the cult was acting in good faith,
and no responses but threats to his pleas for information, erlich
did what anyone sensible would have done--he continued to exercise
his right to free speech.
unlike a case where, for example, someone started spamming the net
with "the best of clarinet," and you, being a reasonable person,
identified the offender and stated which posts were copyright
violations, the cult has never documented in any way at all that
there ever _were_ any copyright violations.
this is because they know, i know, and everyone familiar with the
situation knows that it's a pack of lies.
there never _were_ any violations. there were criticisms.
this is the motivation behind the co$' frivolous, barratrous lawsuit.
>What happens if you say that is that you get sued, and if they win, you
>have to pay damages for the violations you did, plus possibly their costs,
>and of course your own costs. If you win you might also have to pay
>your own costs, that depends.
>
>You must decide what to do about copyrighted material long before it goes
>to court. If you decide wrong, you pay retroactively.
>
>
>Now in 99% of cases this works, because there really isn't much argument
>on ordinary material concerning who wrote it and who has the rights. In
>unusual cases there is a dispute over that and courts are involved.
>
>In this case nobody is disputing that Elron wrote the texts and that they
>are properly protected by copyright, as far as I know. The dispute is over
>whether the postings were fair use. If they were, Erlich gets off. If
>not, he pays.
actually, the dispute is also over whether the texts _are_ copyrightable.
that they're fair use is clear. however, the underlying issue of
whether evidence of criminal activity may be copyrighted to avoid
criticism must be addressed.
>The interesting question is whether netcom and the BBS should also pay
>for knowingly allowing Erlich to continue posting using their equipment,
>and whether they should have to make that determination.
>
>Don't dream that one can be immune from having to make determinations.
>While it is likely (as in Cubby v. CIS) that a bulletin board can be held
>harmless for material already posted, this case revolves around *new*
>postings, which makes it interesting.
it makes it interesting, but not for reasons of copyright law.
even the cult, by refusing to identify a _single_ copyright violation,
has shown poor faith. this case is _not_ about copyright. copyright
is a 'safe issue' which the cultists have hidden behind in order to
avoid the fact that the true reason for this lawsuit is harassment
of dennis erlich.
the cultists, unable to make any similar fraudulent claim about me,
has attempted to frame me with a bomb threat. however, despite the
fact that it is customary in the case of terroristic threats to contact
appropriate authorities, the cult has failed to do so.
this is because they know that it's fraudulent, as they know in
the case of dennis erlich.
>Ie. the church told the sysops, "Do not let him use your equipment to make
>more copyright violations."
the use of the modifier 'more' presupposes that there was even
a single copyright violation, which is as yet undetermined.
it's a _hysteron proteron_ fallacy, begging the question.
as an example: 'have you stopped beating your wife?' the
question implying assumptions about your wife-beating habits.
>The older doctrine justifiably argues that a sysop can't know about all
>the material on her system, just like a bookstore, and thus can't be held
>liable for what's in it. But this is not such a case. In this case the
>sysop knows and has been specifically warned.
however, the judge almost immediately dismissed netcom and tom
klemesrud from the case, which however has not been finalized due
to a stalling action from the cult on procedural points.
>Consider the famous Kinko's case, where Kinko's has to pay damages because
>they allowed their machines to be used to violate copyrights when they
>clearly should have known that violations were going on. (They were near
>a college, and a professor or his students, I can't recall which, regularly
>came over to copy large, clearly copyrighted books.)
in this case, kinko's was guilty. it was not only negligent,
but clearly encouraged massive copyright violations. copyright
violations are a large part of the business of any copy company,
and thus it is interested in seeing how much it can get away with.
>So the question is, can the Sysop be liable if they know in advance that
>material they will provide publishing services for is a violation, and
>have in fact been warned about it?
this would be an interesting hypothetical.
however, it is not what happened in this case. what happened in this
case is that the service provider was not provided any evidence of
copyright violations, since there was no copyright violation.
is it expected to take the _de facto_ principle of shutting up its
users on even the flimsiest, most fraudulent complaint?
>Should the sysop be liable in these cases?
in the case of deliberate criminal activity, yes.
in this case, no, not at all.
the complaint is utterly frivolous. not even the cult denies that.
>--
>Brad Templeton, publisher, ClariNet Communications Corp. in...@clari.net
>The net's #1 Electronic newspaper (95,000 readers) www.clari.net/brad.html
> My new personal page ^^^^^^^^^
h
btw, what the hell's ty doing lately? loved _stig's inferno_.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6
iQCVAwUBL6GYM9OUGUXWNqytAQGSNQQAnPbFlsdlnT9EFwrdn0kjwD7Mcbmj/rk5
Kr3rS3NGeWfQOB4NYhs3oRTpdH/uDwo7XxdtpliBqlLcupHtW6OkUDJ6OvnB0LvI
bFirFbSMgkTt8RO07OKlj7yl+QLi5QCrR4FQ/XHGZXgwIqR0jwddu2z1WfCMeyeg
9ltvfUfNMPs=
=Q9h0
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Brad Templeton
>how do you know? Fair Use determination is a very complex issue (except
>*possibly* for the clear out and out cases of wholesale duplication with no
>commentary), and even the courts have to often go through a lot of analysis
>and even soul-searching to come to a ruling in any particular case. You make
Difficult, indeed. It comes to the question of just who a SYSOP is.
Of course, to my mind, a Sysop is a Sysop. Courts don't work that way,
they tend to let legislatures define new animals, and they try instead
to interpret which sort of animal something is. (On rare occasions they
will define a new animal themselves.)
So which is it? I see the following possibles.
A Publisher
A Print Shop
A Copy Shop
A Meeting Hall owner
An Entertainment Promoter
A Bookstore owner
A Library owner
All of these have different standards of care. The standards also probably
vary when there is a restraining order against the individual alleged to
violate copyright.
A publisher is certainly liable if they publish something they
should have known was copyrighted.
Print and copy shop owners have much less duty to examine what they
handle, but as the Kinko's case shows, they are not immune.
Bookstore and Library owners are pretty immune from these problems,
but what are their duties after they are informed of violations?
What about after the court has issued an order?
Are there precedents in the bookstore case (the analogy most sysops
hope form and the one found in Cubby v. Compuserve.) when it comes to
post-warning violations? Imagine this... I make pirate copies of
Microsoft Windows. I sell them to a software store at 10% of
Microsoft's price -- or perhaps I give them to the store for free.
What is the store's liability on sales before Microsoft complains?
What is their liability after Microsoft complains?
What happens to them after Microsoft gets a court order?
How does the fact that MS Windows is famous and a typical dealer should
know what the price is affect this? What about a not so famous product?
What if the store keeps buying and selling new copies after the court
issues a restraining order against me for pirating?
>All in all, I find many publishers to have a hard-core attitude about
>copyrights and they somehow believe that the purpose of copyrights is for
>commercial gain. It is NOT as the Constitution clearly states -- copyrights
>are meant to encourage FREE EXCHANGE of ideas. I myself would support a
Actually, to get technical, the U.S. constitution specifies that *a*
purpose for copyright is to promote the development of the useful arts.
Nothing about the free exchange of ideas is noted. In addition, it's
quite clear from reading other parts of that constitution that it
deliberately never lists all the rights of the people or all the reasons
for them to have such rights. Simply because a right of the people is
not listed in the constiution does not mean it doesn't exist -- the
constitution is very clear on that.
Brad Templeton
Bruce D. Scott <b...@ipp-garching.mpg.de> wrote:
>Brad Templeton (br...@clarinet.com) wrote:
>
>I just want to point out here, for those who don't know, that there is more
>to this scientology-Erlich dispute than a simple copyright decision which
>is approachable in an academic way. The behaviour of the scientology
>No, this is no simple copyright case.
Entirely possible, and if so, I would hope that Erlich could win a
harassement countersuit.
However, this doesn't change that the scientologists are entitled to the
same protection of copyright law as anybody else, whether they are angels or
that sludge underneath the scum of the earth in their other dealings.
henry
In article <D7s8K...@clarinet.com>, Brad Templeton <br...@clarinet.com> wrote:
m. keith henson wrote:
>>No, this is no simple copyright case.
>
>Entirely possible, and if so, I would hope that Erlich could win a
>harassement countersuit.
>
>However, this doesn't change that the scientologists are entitled to the
>same protection of copyright law as anybody else, whether they are angels or
>that sludge underneath the scum of the earth in their other dealings.
i agree. however, anyone else, even not a scientologist, who
continued making a claim of copyright violation while refusing to
identify any copyright violations, would be treated with the same
judicial disdain with which judge white seems to be meeting this case.
scientology screams on the net: dennis erlich is committing copyright
violations! dennis erlich is committing copyright violations!
dennis erlich: huh? no i'm not. tell me which posts are copyright
violations and i'll stop doing it.
scientology: [no answer]
scientology: [to judge] dennis erlich is committing copyright violations!
when we asked him to stop, he refused and made fun of us!
dennis erlich: i did not. i asked them to tell me which posts were
copyright violations so i could stop posting them!
scientology: dennis erlich is committing copyright violations!
or infringing trademark! or something!
judge white: so, where are the copyright violations or whatever?
scientology: um, we're not sure. we don't know. i guess we'll
have to have a dozen hearings to find out.
>Brad Templeton, publisher, ClariNet Communications Corp. in...@clari.net
>The net's #1 Electronic newspaper (95,000 readers) www.clari.net/brad.html
> My new personal page ^^^^^^^^^
[this of course is not intended as verbatim quotes but as a synopsis.
it's all on ron newman's home page at http://www.mit.edu:8001/
people/rnewman/home.html in the original. if you can read the
documents and still believe that this case has a shred of
legitimacy i'm amazed.]
h
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6
iQCVAwUBL6IuR9OUGUXWNqytAQF1tAP+O+3v3zThaj1urGO3dXpzc+Db5PPBN0oF
+1HE76CzAYW+aPih7dv41bYsBeBQYTXgIwcW2b5dsbXN9Q2Dbq0MU5NHGt4/IRBJ
bAn4RFcxSXyQdd/4ywSbs1WjFMHw5nWf5tPz/Z3vbjdpmsGxVDKOp2fHd+OoNLtP
qtal/cTbsYI=
=j5bp
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Ron Newman
The R R M Tweek <tw...@ccnet.com> wrote:
>Photocopying a few pages of copyrighted material
>for later reference is fair use. Photocopying an entire book to
>resell elsewhere is not... and is also pricier than buying the book.
Here's a case to consider:
Suppose the book is out of print, and therefore unavailable to be
bought elsewhere.
Suppost that, in addition, the copyright of the book has been
acquired by a party hostile to the book, who has no intention
of ever re-publishing it.
In that case, would photocopying the entire book, and even
re-selling it at copying cost, be a fair use?
--
Ron Newman Email: <rne...@mit.edu>
Web: http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/rnewman/home.html
(I speak only for myself, not for any part of MIT.)
Dick Cleek
>Here's a case to consider:
>
>Suppose the book is out of print, and therefore unavailable to be
>bought elsewhere.
>
>Suppost that, in addition, the copyright of the book has been
>acquired by a party hostile to the book, who has no intention
>of ever re-publishing it.
>
>In that case, would photocopying the entire book, and even
>re-selling it at copying cost, be a fair use?
I would argue that that act would not be fair use. You'd need to find
another construct under which to make the material available.
How about not re-selling it, but just giving it away. Then there
would be no question of gain. At worst, such an act could be
seen as civil disobediance.
Better yet, just post it all, one chapter at a time, to appropriate
newsgroups using an anonymous remailer. Lets suppose that such a book
was critical of CoS and that CoS had gained legal control via their
litigious tactics. I can see using an anonymous remailer in such a
case as an ethical act.
So, Ron, which book are we talking about?
Dick Cleek
Jon Noring
>>This is true, but in many cases, such as many of the posts of Dennis Erlich,
>>how do you know? Fair Use determination is a very complex issue (except
>>*possibly* for the clear out and out cases of wholesale duplication with no
>>commentary), and even the courts have to often go through a lot of analysis
>>and even soul-searching to come to a ruling in any particular case. You make
>Difficult, indeed. It comes to the question of just who a SYSOP is.
>
>Of course, to my mind, a Sysop is a Sysop. Courts don't work that way,
>they tend to let legislatures define new animals, and they try instead
>to interpret which sort of animal something is. (On rare occasions they
>will define a new animal themselves.)
>
>So which is it? I see the following possibles....
>
>All of these have different standards of care. The standards also probably
>vary when there is a restraining order against the individual alleged to
>violate copyright.
>
> A publisher is certainly liable if they publish something they
> should have known was copyrighted.
The key here is "should have known". When Fair Use is evident, can anybody
make a clear determination?
> Print and copy shop owners have much less duty to examine what they
> handle, but as the Kinko's case shows, they are not immune.
>
> Bookstore and Library owners are pretty immune from these problems,
> but what are their duties after they are informed of violations?
> What about after the court has issued an order?
>
>
>Are there precedents in the bookstore case (the analogy most sysops
>hope form and the one found in Cubby v. Compuserve.) when it comes to
>post-warning violations? Imagine this... I make pirate copies of
>Microsoft Windows. I sell them to a software store at 10% of
>Microsoft's price -- or perhaps I give them to the store for free.
>
>What is the store's liability on sales before Microsoft complains?
>What is their liability after Microsoft complains?
Interesting example. However, let me say that with regard to this example,
there is no such thing as "Fair Use". Unauthorized duplication of software
is a copyright infringement, no question. But in the case of scholarly
commentary of copyrighted works where portions of the original copyrighted
text are included, we have a situation where we need to assess Fair Use.
The Dennis Erlich case falls under this category and it is clear that Netcom
cannot and should not roll over and grant CoS' demands to censor Erlich. Of
course CoS did take it to court, which is closer to the proper course of
action to take, though the morality/ethics of how they did this (based on the
facts of the case) leaves much to be desired.
Where there is any possibility of Fair Use, I don't believe ISP's can nor
should make a determination of copyright status. It is clear that ISP's need
to be given Common Carrier status to protect them from this possibly "no-win"
situation.
Your other later comments are noted and I stand corrected (somewhat) on
the intent of the Constitution regarding copyrights.
Jon Noring
Mean Green Dancing Machine
>
>Difficult, indeed. It comes to the question of just who a SYSOP is.
>
>Of course, to my mind, a Sysop is a Sysop. Courts don't work that way,
>they tend to let legislatures define new animals, and they try instead
>to interpret which sort of animal something is. (On rare occasions they
>will define a new animal themselves.)
>
>
> A Publisher
> A Print Shop
> A Copy Shop
> A Meeting Hall owner
> An Entertainment Promoter
> A Bookstore owner
> A Library owner
I'd also add "phone switch operator", particularly when it comes to
Usenet and e-mail. Another possibility would be "TV/radio broadcaster";
this possibility is particularly interesting if you think about the
responsibility of a network affiliate getting a feed.
--
--- Aahz (@netcom.com)
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6
Androgynous kinky vanilla queer het
There may or may not be a smiley above.
Jim Hill
<ed_g...@vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> It always amazes me how many people think that the Constitution says
> exactly and precisely what they want it to say! Neither of you is
> correct. Here it is, straight from the horse's mouth:
>
> US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8:
> The Congress shall have the power ... To promote the progress of science
> and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors
> the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries
Exactly. Not their heirs. Not their estates. The authors and inventors
themselves. So where does Congress get the authority to extend copyright
far beyond the author's lifetime? I'd buy the 25 or maybe even 50 years
as a simple disincentive to murder, but more than that is getting a bit
extreme.
I think it's pretty well accepted that the free exchange of ideas also
promotes the progress of science and the arts, but as you say, the
Constitution doesn't give Congress the power to legislate that. Somehow I
thought copyrights and patents were a *restriction* on the free exchange
of ideas, as a compromise between ideals and reality in a market.
Jim
--
Jim Hill
jth...@netcom.com PGPrint 6B 85 76 D1 EF BA 2C 78 12 25 8A 5A BF F3 37 7E
The R R M Tweek
>
>Suppose the book is out of print, and therefore unavailable to be
>bought elsewhere.
>
>Suppost that, in addition, the copyright of the book has been
>acquired by a party hostile to the book, who has no intention
>of ever re-publishing it.
>
>In that case, would photocopying the entire book, and even
>re-selling it at copying cost, be a fair use?
That's a good one. I don't even want to make a call on
this... wars have been waged on less.
I would hope that it would be considered fair use, just to keep
hostile parties from suppressing literary works, but my gut feeling
tells me that it might not be considered fair use.
Solution... keep the book under tight control while allowing those
desiring to view it, to view it under controlled circumstances... maybe
by copying the entire work, storing the original document in a secure
location and circulating the sole copy... and then when the copyright
finally expires, retrieve the original and re-publish it.
This doesn't, unfortunately, expand the availability of the book
during the run of the copyright so it really doesn't succeed in
assisting you in your hypothetical predicament, but it does at least
offer a solution to protecting the existing document while allowing
it to be viewed.
In your hypothetical, is the author still alive? Surely there must
be some way for the author to reclaim his rights to publish the
work, even if any royalties go to the current copyright holder. Maybe
there is some law which may force the copyright holder to accept royalties
for further copies made?
[I don't know... IANAL and I know didley about the inner workings
of copyright law.]
Another distortion from:
The Church of the Free Byte
Ian Board
>Certain Church of Scientology corporations that I represent are currently
>involved in litigation against Netcom, Tom Klemesrud (operator of a BBS)
>and Dennis Erlich in the San Jose Federal Court over the posting of
[dubious claim that CoS is for freedom of speech]
>The Church is pleased that Netcom has agreed with its position and concern
>about copyright and trade secret infringers and will take appropriate
>action against violators in the future.
>
>Helena Kobrin
You obviously think we are pretty dumb.
Whether you are or aren't for freedom of speech, you have to understand that
perception is what counts here. In bringing these lawsuits, you are behaving
as one would who IS out to stifle expression. In collecting vast amounts
of money, having 'secrets' known to a small number of initiates and in
general being so litigious, you invite speculation that you are, in fact,
not a religion, but a business.
Moreover, these 'explanations' you post will confirm many peoples worst
suspicions about you - it is the kind of behavior one comes to expect from
powerful organizations founded on lies. They really are rather pathetic.
- Ian
H Keith Henson
: : In this case nobody is disputing that Elron wrote the texts and that they
: : are properly protected by copyright, as far as I know. The dispute is over
: : whether the postings were fair use. If they were, Erlich gets off. If
: : not, he pays.
: I just want to point out here, for those who don't know, that there is more
: to this scientology-Erlich dispute than a simple copyright decision which
: is approachable in an academic way. The behaviour of the scientology
: organisation vis-a-vis Erlich shows that their real purpose is simply to
: remove him from the scene. In this case, the scene is the international
: attention given the scientology track record via the Internet, and the
: method of silencing is principally legal/financial. The scientology
: organisation has dragged his mid-1980s divorce into it by using his ex to
: press him for money until he is destitute, and has been working behind the
: scenes with people such as Hughes Aircraft to divest the company Erlich
: works for of customers. The result of this appeared a couple of days ago
: -- Erlich gets laid off. He has a nonzero chance of being homeless in a
: few weeks as a consequence. Look for posts by Dennis Erlich and Tom
: Klemensrud to alt.religion.scientology over the last week: Erlich is
: relaying the legal demands made against him (see especially articles
: <950420170...@support.com> and <950424161...@support.com>), and
: Klemensrud has discovered the link to Hughes Aircraft (in article
: <950420195...@support.com>).
: No, this is no simple copyright case.
And even if it were a copyright case, I think an excellent case may be made
that the public interest far outweighs the interest of the copyright holder.
I have likened the material posted here (especially the policy items) to be
much like a "mafia policy manual." If a reporter found such a thing, and
the mafia tried to use copyright to get publishing it surpressed, no court
in the land would go along with them. Keith Henson
Tim Smith
>correct. Here it is, straight from the horse's mouth:
>
>US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8:
>The Congress shall have the power ... To promote the progress of science
>and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors
>the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries
>
>progress of... arts." The MEANS by which this is accomplished is
Nit pick time.
You missed with your "...". "Arts" goes with "inventors". What you wanted
to say (or, if you didn't, you should have wanted to say) is "...To promote the
progress of science...bu securing for limited times to authors...the
exclusive right to their respective writings...".
("Science" was used somewhat differently in 1792 English than it is in
1995 English).
--Tim Smith
Brad Templeton
>>bought elsewhere.
>>
>>Suppost that, in addition, the copyright of the book has been
>>acquired by a party hostile to the book, who has no intention
>>of ever re-publishing it.
>>
>>In that case, would photocopying the entire book, and even
>>re-selling it at copying cost, be a fair use?
Fortunately a moot case, in that in the electronic world, the concept of
out of print (except deliberately) won't exist, and before too long all
the pre-electronic works will also be in electronic form if there is
serious demand, or eventually, when their copyrights expire.
Of course, as for deliberately supressing a book, I believe that is the
right of the copyright holder. But then I believe in free markets.
Your mileage on free markets may vary.
Today, the concept of "out of print" usually means, in 99% of cases, that
sales have dropped down to a level that it is not profitable either to
reprint, or even do the small amount of work storing, cataloging and shipping
remaining stock of the book. Usually a book that is out of print reverts
to the author, if the author had even the most basic sense in negotiating,
or used an agent.
Most publishers would be happy to see a service that took out of print works,
turned them to E-form and made them available, especially if it were turnkey.
(Ie. they hand over the book and get back money and nice statements that drop
into their accounting software.) I expect this to happen, particularly
when OCR improves to the level where scanning an old book costs very
little.
--
Don Hosek - Quixote Digital Typography
Ron Newman <rne...@ATHENA.MIT.EDU> wrote:
>In article <3nr732$q...@ccnet3.ccnet.com>,
>The R R M Tweek <tw...@ccnet.com> wrote:
>>Photocopying a few pages of copyrighted material
>>for later reference is fair use. Photocopying an entire book to
>>resell elsewhere is not... and is also pricier than buying the book.
>Here's a case to consider:
>Suppose the book is out of print, and therefore unavailable to be
>bought elsewhere.
>Suppost that, in addition, the copyright of the book has been
>acquired by a party hostile to the book, who has no intention
>of ever re-publishing it.
>In that case, would photocopying the entire book, and even
>re-selling it at copying cost, be a fair use?
No. Fair use is a much-misused term in the net community. It's
restricted to a very narrow set of circumstances: non-profit,
educational use of a small portion of a copyrighted work. In your
example one could make an argument for non-profit, but for naught
else. Suggested subterfuges like doing it one chapter at a time (or
even one page at a time) wouldn't hold up in court.
There have been court cases that have upheld a copyright holder's
right to _not_ publish works that they own and to prevent others from
doing so. If this weren't the case, I could, for example, publish your
juvenile love notes to Tracey Stanton in the sixth grade.
If there is material in the book in question that should be published,
it could be extensively quoted in a new work, BUT, one must be sure to
avoid crossing the fair use threshold.
-dh
--
Don Hosek "I'm thinking this somehow elevates my rank in the herd and
Quixote Digital Typography improves my mating possibilities." -Dilbert
Publishers of _Serif: The Magazine of Type and Typography_
909-621-1291 Current reading: _Hosea_ (Andersen,
FAX: 909-625-1342 Freedman), _Antologia de
dho...@quixote.com Cuentos Mexicanos II_ (Millau, ed.)
Paul
: In article <3ntg6c$i...@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu>,
: >Here's a case to consider:
: >Suppose the book is out of print, and therefore unavailable to be
: >bought elsewhere.
: >In that case, would photocopying the entire book, and even
: >re-selling it at copying cost, be a fair use?
: No. Fair use is a much-misused term in the net community. It's
: restricted to a very narrow set of circumstances: non-profit,
: educational use of a small portion of a copyrighted work. In your
: example one could make an argument for non-profit, but for naught
: else. Suggested subterfuges like doing it one chapter at a time (or
: even one page at a time) wouldn't hold up in court.
Not so. In fact, I have maybe three dozen photocopied
books, most made for me by research librarians in large
university libraries.
The 'de facto' rule of thumb- if the copy deprives the
copyright holder from monies (like costing a sale of a
copyrighted product) then it is illegal. In the case of
OOP, there is no commercial market to infringe upon and
so, no restriction on personal copies. Of course, you may
never make copies to sell.
--
Paul McGoldrick | prea...@netcom.com | CI$ 71245,245 Nothing to excess,
17252 Hawthorne Blvd., #440, Torrance, CA 90504 save excess.
Bruce D. Scott
: : Bruce D. Scott (b...@ipp-garching.mpg.de) wrote:
: [...]
: : : No, this is no simple copyright case.
: : And even if it were a copyright case, I think an excellent case may be made
: : that the public interest far outweighs the interest of the copyright holder.
: : I have likened the material posted here (especially the policy items) to be
: : much like a "mafia policy manual." If a reporter found such a thing, and
: : the mafia tried to use copyright to get publishing it surpressed, no court
: : in the land would go along with them. Keith Henson
: In fact, this is how the matter has been judged in the UK. For those who
: don't know and would like to see the details, the judgements can be read on
: the web pages (these are the two I've seen):
: http://www.sky.net/~sloth/sci/sci_index.html
: http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/rnewman/scientology/home.html
Correction: I have confused this with a different judgement by the British
Government. The argument that the public interest outweighs a right to
secrecy is something either being argued or about to be argued before a
British court.
See the recent post to alt.religion.scientology (article
<1995042623...@infinity.c2.org> posted by gr...@alpha.c2.org),
which is a transcript of an article appearing 2 Mar 1994 in The East
Grindstead Observer.
Don Hosek - Quixote Digital Typography
>Don Hosek - Quixote Digital Typography (qui...@netcom.com) wrote:
>: In article <3ntg6c$i...@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu>,
>: >Here's a case to consider:
>: >Suppose the book is out of print, and therefore unavailable to be
>: >bought elsewhere.
>: >In that case, would photocopying the entire book, and even
>: >re-selling it at copying cost, be a fair use?
>: No. Fair use is a much-misused term in the net community. It's
>: restricted to a very narrow set of circumstances: non-profit,
>: educational use of a small portion of a copyrighted work. In your
>: example one could make an argument for non-profit, but for naught
>: else. Suggested subterfuges like doing it one chapter at a time (or
>: even one page at a time) wouldn't hold up in court.
> Not so. In fact, I have maybe three dozen photocopied
> books, most made for me by research librarians in large
> university libraries.
> The 'de facto' rule of thumb- if the copy deprives the
> copyright holder from monies (like costing a sale of a
> copyrighted product) then it is illegal. In the case of
> OOP, there is no commercial market to infringe upon and
> so, no restriction on personal copies. Of course, you may
> never make copies to sell.
Just because librarians made the copies does not make them legal. I'm
not a lawyer so I can't make a definite pronouncement, I only know
from what I've read, but every fair use definition I've seen was based
on the three terms I described.
Also, do not confuse out of print with out of copyright.
As I indicated, there are actual court cases which have set precedents
allowing the copyright holder to prevent dissemination of the work in
question.
Noticing the newsgroups header (which I'm editing netcom.general out
of) I assume that the "hypothetical" case in question involves the
CoS holding the copyright. Given their reputation for litigiousness, I
would not invite a potential copyright suit unless I had the financial
resources to fight it.
Hillel
>Also, do not confuse out of print with out of copyright.
So, if a book is out of print, can I xerox it?
If not, then the law gives the copyright holder an effective
tool to prevent wide distribution of data/text, which is
counter productive for the intentions mentioned in
the US constitution clause about copyrights..
Bruce D. Scott
[...]
: : No, this is no simple copyright case.
: And even if it were a copyright case, I think an excellent case may be made
: that the public interest far outweighs the interest of the copyright holder.
: I have likened the material posted here (especially the policy items) to be
: much like a "mafia policy manual." If a reporter found such a thing, and
: the mafia tried to use copyright to get publishing it surpressed, no court
: in the land would go along with them. Keith Henson
In fact, this is how the matter has been judged in the UK. For those who
don't know and would like to see the details, the judgements can be read on
the web pages (these are the two I've seen):
http://www.sky.net/~sloth/sci/sci_index.html
http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/rnewman/scientology/home.html
Bruce D. Scott
: In article <3nqq5t$3q...@sat.ipp-garching.mpg.de>,
: Bruce D. Scott <b...@ipp-garching.mpg.de> wrote:
[...]
: >No, this is no simple copyright case.
: Entirely possible, and if so, I would hope that Erlich could win a
: harassement countersuit.
: However, this doesn't change that the scientologists are entitled to the
: same protection of copyright law as anybody else, whether they are angels or
: that sludge underneath the scum of the earth in their other dealings.
I fully agree, but do not take the position that each case should be judged
in a contextual vacuum. Although the scientology organisation is entitled
to such protection -- the fact that they continue to refuse to stipulate
exactly what in their opinion constitutes copyrighted material, and that
they are busy with the other forms of harassment, shows that copyright is
not their principal interest. They are attempting to silence Erlich not
because of copyright, but because he is knowledgeable and due to his former
position as guardian of the doctrine, credible.
Is it standard legal policy in the US that cases should be judged as
isolated cases, or is this just the policy of some of the judges? I
consider such a policy dangerous -- it increases susceptibility to the
"totalitarian takeover" social instability.
The R R M Tweek
>
> That is a grossly erroneous simplification of "fair use". Fair use
>determination is based on the *balancing* of factors, including the
>4 factors enumerated in Section 107 of the Copyright act. Commercial
>fair use takes place all the time, as when a reviewer in a for-profit
>magazine quotes a line of a play. In that circumstance, quoting a whole
>scene would almost certainly not be fair use, while an educator reprinting
>a whole scene for a class handout might be allowable.
I don't know how recent your experiences with an "educator" reprinting
a section/scene are. I remember about 15 years ago, educators felt
that they were exempt from copyright in many cases... about 12 or
so years ago, I recall that there was a major change in the way the
act was interpreted and for the most part, even a chapter in whole
form did not fall under fair use (I thing there might have been a
different interpretation for private colleges VS. public too)... I
recall that this caused a major problem when I was working in the
Educational Media Services back in 1981-82, even with the PBS shows
being used in the classroom... Unfortunately, all of us in the EMS
were all techies and other than being located in the library, had little
to do with the Dewey side of things. (ie: we weren't librarians)... and
besides... Things change a heck of a lot in 15 years... I'm pure techie
now and nowhere near a library... I can however offer some WWW URLs which
might lead you to more information...
[these are in a clipped bookmark format... fix the line wraps and your
browser should be able to use them]
=============================cut====================
<p>
<ol>
<LI><a href="http://www.openmarket.com/copyright/html/lawinfo.html">
CCC Copyright Information</a>
<LI><a href="http://ipl.sils.umich.edu/">The Internet Public Library</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/ifla/services/cpyright.htm">
Copyright and Intellectual Property Resources</a>
<LI><a href="gopher://marvel.loc.gov/11/copyright">
Copyright Office Information</a>
<LI><a href="http://arl.cni.org/aau/IPTOC.html">
Report of the AAU Task Force on Intellectual Property Rights in an</a>
<LI><a href="gopher://marvel.loc.gov/11/copyright/other/fair">Fair Use</a>
<LI><a href="http://www.intac.com/~kgs/ifc/ifm.html">
The Intellectual Freedom Manual</a>
==========================cut========================
Stuart P. Derby
>Ron Newman <rne...@ATHENA.MIT.EDU> wrote:
>>In article <3nr732$q...@ccnet3.ccnet.com>,
>>The R R M Tweek <tw...@ccnet.com> wrote:
:
:::Photocopying a few pages of copyrighted material
:::for later reference is fair use. Photocopying an entire book to
:::resell elsewhere is not... and is also pricier than buying the book.
::Here's a case to consider:
:
::Suppose the book is out of print, and therefore unavailable to be
::bought elsewhere.
:
::Suppost that, in addition, the copyright of the book has been
::acquired by a party hostile to the book, who has no intention
::of ever re-publishing it.
::In that case, would photocopying the entire book, and even
::re-selling it at copying cost, be a fair use?
:
:No. Fair use is a much-misused term in the net community. It's
:restricted to a very narrow set of circumstances: non-profit,
:educational use of a small portion of a copyrighted work. In your
:example one could make an argument for non-profit, but for naught
:else. Suggested subterfuges like doing it one chapter at a time (or
:even one page at a time) wouldn't hold up in court.
That is a grossly erroneous simplification of "fair use". Fair use
determination is based on the *balancing* of factors, including the
4 factors enumerated in Section 107 of the Copyright act. Commercial
fair use takes place all the time, as when a reviewer in a for-profit
magazine quotes a line of a play. In that circumstance, quoting a whole
scene would almost certainly not be fair use, while an educator reprinting
a whole scene for a class handout might be allowable.
The following is a reprint of the entire text of section 107 of
title 17, United States Code.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Section 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, the fair use of a
copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or
phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for
purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching
(including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or
research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining
whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair
use the factors to be considered shall include--
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether
such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit
educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation
to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value
of the copyrighted work.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stu Derby | WHERE IN THE WORLD IS DAVID MISCAVIGE??
sde...@bcm.tmc.edu | And what is the Church of Scientology trying to hide?
I speak only for myself.
Ed Green
>
> In article <3nr1aa$d...@sernews.raleigh.ibm.com>, Ed Green
> <ed_g...@vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
>
>
> promotes the progress of science and the arts, but as you say, the
> Constitution doesn't give Congress the power to legislate that.
Specifically prohibits it, in fact, in Amendment I.
> Somehow I
> thought copyrights and patents were a *restriction* on the free exchange
> of ideas, as a compromise between ideals and reality in a market.
Patents PROMOTE the free exchange if ideas, by forcing disclosure of
the best mode of the invention. What they restrict is commercial activity.
One could make the argument that copyrights restrict the free exchange
of ideas, by potentially restricting dissemination of their embodiment.
Even here, though, in practice the restriction is more of one on profitable
commerce than on the exchange of ideas.
--
Ed Green DoD#0111 (919) 543-1757 ed_g...@vnet.ibm.com
Ivan M CaveroBelaunde
>In article <3ntg6c$i...@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu>,
>Ron Newman <rne...@ATHENA.MIT.EDU> wrote:
>>Suppose the book is out of print, and therefore unavailable to be
>>bought elsewhere.
>>Suppost that, in addition, the copyright of the book has been
>>acquired by a party hostile to the book, who has no intention
>>of ever re-publishing it.
>>In that case, would photocopying the entire book, and even
>>re-selling it at copying cost, be a fair use?
>No. Fair use is a much-misused term in the net community. It's
>restricted to a very narrow set of circumstances: non-profit,
>educational use of a small portion of a copyrighted work. In your
>example one could make an argument for non-profit, but for naught
>else. Suggested subterfuges like doing it one chapter at a time (or
>even one page at a time) wouldn't hold up in court.
While I do agree with you that reproducing the entire work is not
fair use, it is not true that fair use is restricted to "non-profit
educational use of a small portion of a ... work." There are several
criteria (I don't have the list handy) and while all three criteria
you mention are weighed (non-profit is more likely to be judged fair
use than for-profit, educational/commentary is more likely to be judged
fair use than other uses, and smaller excerpts are more likely to
be judged fair use than large one), it's not a flat restriction.
If it were, you could not sell a book that quoted other books.
If I remember correctly, other criteria included the effect of the
quoter's work on the value of the quoted work. Anyone have it handy?
-Ivan
----
Ivan Cavero Belaunde (iva...@world.std.com, iva...@avid.com)
Avid Desktop Group
Avid Technology, Inc.
Disclaimer: All opinions are mine and mine alone.
Tony Sidaway
qui...@netcom.com "Don Hosek - Quixote Digital Typography" writes:
>
> There have been court cases that have upheld a copyright holder's
> right to _not_ publish works that they own and to prevent others from
> doing so. If this weren't the case, I could, for example, publish your
> juvenile love notes to Tracey Stanton in the sixth grade.
I think you're right. However, it may sometimes be in the
public interest to publish a work that the copuright holder
wishes to suppress.
If the copyright of Atack's book fell into the hands of the
church of scientology, for instance, I would feel that a
samizdat publication of this essential work might be justified.
The English courts would probably support such publication, in
my humble opinion. To allow the church to use the copyright for
purposes of suppression would act against the spirit of the
copyright law and bring it into disrepute. Other authors would
be discouraged from entering print for fear of being crushed
by a powerful, ruthless enemy.
--
Tony Sidaway SUPPORT DENNIS ERLICH, CRITIC SUED BY SCIENTOLOGISTS
Checks drawn in foreign currency on foreign banks ARE accepted.
Send checks to Electronic Frontier Foundation, 1667 K Street, NW, Suite 801,
Washington, DC 20006, USA. MAKE SURE YOU LABEL YOUR CHECK "DENNIS ERLICH
DEFENSE FUND". Checks should be made out to Electronic Frontier Foundation.
For verification of this info, email sst...@eff.org (Shari Steele)
Ernest Volkman
>
>In article <quixoteD...@netcom.com>
>qui...@netcom.com (Don Hosek - Quixote Digital Typography) writes:
>>Also, do not confuse out of print with out of copyright.
>
>So, if a book is out of print, can I xerox it?
>
>If not, then the law gives the copyright holder an effective
>tool to prevent wide distribution of data/text, which is
>counter productive for the intentions mentioned in
>the US constitution clause about copyrights..
>
Whether a copyrighted work is out of print or not does not affect the
copyright holder's rights. Copyright has to do with content, not distri-
bution. A copyright holder has the right to distribute or not to distri-
bute as he/she sees fit. No one can disseminate someone else's copyrighted
material on the grounds that there is some sort of higher public purpose
that overrides the author's rights. Courts do not buy that argument; they
interpret the copyright law to mean what it says---the holder of copyright
can authorize a publisher to distribute it widely in book form, or can sell
excerpts, or can sell dramatic rights to the work, or can distribute it in
electronic form, or can choose not to distribute the copyrighted material
at all. That's why it's called copyRIGHT.
By the way, ALL copyrighted material that is published goes out of print at
some point. In the case of a newspaper, it's 24 hours; in the case of a book,
it can be months or years. The point is that the copyright remains in effect
for the entire period, no matter whether the material in question is in print
or not.
Ernest Volkman
Arcadia Ltd.
Literary Agency
Tim Smith
>Suppost that, in addition, the copyright of the book has been
>acquired by a party hostile to the book, who has no intention
>of ever re-publishing it.
>
>In that case, would photocopying the entire book, and even
>re-selling it at copying cost, be a fair use?
Doubtful. A good way to think of fair use is that it allows uses that
don't *substitute* for the uses that the copyright owner is given the
exclusive right to.
--Tim Smith
Bob Wallert
: ge...@netcom.com (Greg Andrews) wrote:
: >gr...@netcom.com (Grady Ward) writes:
: >>Netcom does not have an opinion as to the copyright status of the
: >>laugable criminal cult doctrine of Xenu, Marcab aliens, and so on.
:
: >I wonder why you would make that statement, since you are not a
: >Netcom spokesperson?> -Greg>Netcom admin, posting his own viewpoint
:
: Greg, pay attention now.
: In America we use the COURTS to make legal judgements
: such as copyright status. Netcom does not have an "opinion"
: in the sense that it doesn't matter if they did have an opinion.
: It's not their option to make a copyright violation determination.
:
: You've been listening to the Scientology puppets, haven't you?
: You've forgotten your high school civics.
By your logic, a shop owner could not take steps to prevent someone from
shoplifting, such as refusing to allow a person into the store after
receiving reports that the individual had been putting food into his
pockets and walking out the store. The theif may not have been caught, but
the fact that someone saw him commit the violation is pretty strong grounds
to say that he is a theif, even though not yet proven in a court of law.
The same thing applies to the Net and Erlich's actions. Because it has not
yet been proven in a court of law that he violated the copyrights does not
mean that a normal person cannot see what was posted and realize that
plenty of evidence exists - enough to realize that Erlich is an infringer.
Bob Wollert
Tim Smith
>The following is a reprint of the entire text of section 107 of
>title 17, United States Code.
No it isn't. A sentence was added a few of years ago at the end.
I'll add it below.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Section 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
>
>Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, the fair use of a
>copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or
>phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for
>purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching
>(including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or
>research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining
>whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair
>use the factors to be considered shall include--
>
> (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether
>such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit
>educational purposes;
>
>(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
>
>(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation
>to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
>
>(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value
>of the copyrighted work.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
Add this:
"The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a
finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration
of all the above factors."
--Tim Smith
Tim Smith
what is fair use. First, there are other sections of the Copyright Act
that make special exceptions to allow some library copying. Second, there
is some sort of copyright clearing house (sort of like ASCAP and BMI in
the world of music) that handles reproduction rights for out of print
material. If a professor wants to use an out of print book, they can
make an arrangement with this clearing house, and get permission to have
the local copy center make copies of the book for sale to the students,
and the clearing house arranges for the copyright owner to get paid.
--Tim Smith
Tim Smith
> but what are their duties after they are informed of violations?
> What about after the court has issued an order?
Bookstores and libraries are mostly in the business of *distributing*
rather than *copying*. As long as they own the copy they are distributing,
they should be OK under the first sale doctrine.
This makes bookstore and library analogies to the net questionable, since
the net works by copying.
--Tim Smith
The R R M Tweek
>Looking at what schools and libraries do is not a good way to figure out
>what is fair use. First, there are other sections of the Copyright Act
>that make special exceptions to allow some library copying.
I included more than library stuff in the URLs in my post. The reason
I used the educator experience in my post, was because the previous
article was going... and frankly speaking, if a library aproach did
indeed allow a solution to the original problem, then by all means,
handle the problem through a library and the case is solved... the
original problem is not concerned with making money from the work, but
rather getting the knowledge in the work into the hands of the public
using ANY legal method available.
And, Library copying such as in the case of an interlibrary loan does
require the payoff to the copyright clearance center, so no, it does
not appear that the "guise" of a library would help provide more copies
of the document than are original.
>Second, there
>is some sort of copyright clearing house (sort of like ASCAP and BMI in
>the world of music) that handles reproduction rights for out of print
>material.
A link in one of the URLs I posted connects to a CCC WWW page.
Jim Hill
Wallert) wrote:
> By your logic, a shop owner could not take steps to prevent someone from
> shoplifting, such as refusing to allow a person into the store after
> receiving reports that the individual had been putting food into his
> pockets and walking out the store. The theif may not have been caught, but
> the fact that someone saw him commit the violation is pretty strong grounds
> to say that he is a theif, even though not yet proven in a court of law.
By your logic, I could have your net access cut off by slandering you in
all the right places. Not. Whoever fed you this line of logic is using
you as a tool, dude. Time to do some serious critical thinking on your
own.
Jim
--
Jim Hill Contents public domain and worth $.02 more than you paid.
jth...@netcom.com PGPrint 6B 85 76 D1 EF BA 2C 78 12 25 8A 5A BF F3 37 7E
Steve
Bob Wallert (ice...@netcom.com) wrote:
> Dick Cleek (dcl...@pharos.uwc.edu) wrote:
> : Greg, pay attention now.
> : In America we use the COURTS to make legal judgements
> : such as copyright status. Netcom does not have an "opinion"
> : in the sense that it doesn't matter if they did have an opinion.
> : It's not their option to make a copyright violation determination.
> :
> : You've been listening to the Scientology puppets, haven't you?
> : You've forgotten your high school civics.
> By your logic, a shop owner could not take steps to prevent someone from
> shoplifting, such as refusing to allow a person into the store after
> receiving reports that the individual had been putting food into his
> pockets and walking out the store. The theif may not have been caught, but
> the fact that someone saw him commit the violation is pretty strong grounds
> to say that he is a theif, even though not yet proven in a court of law.
There's a whole lot of difference between a shopowner taking it upon
himself to restrict who he considers should have access to his
(private) property, based on whatever conditions he sees fit, and a
cult attempting to place legal gags on critics before due process.
> The same thing applies to the Net and Erlich's actions. Because it has not
> yet been proven in a court of law that he violated the copyrights does not
> mean that a normal person cannot see what was posted and realize that
> plenty of evidence exists - enough to realize that Erlich is an infringer.
If plenty of evidence of Dennis's copyright infringement exists, then
how was the co$ unable to identify the alleged copyright
infringements when Dennis asked them to in order that he could
attempt to remove the offending documents? And why, much later, when
the court asked for details of the allegedly infringed documents, was
the co$ unable to produce? Sounds to me like the evidence there's
plenty of isn't evidence that the co$ wants to present...
> Bob Wollert
Quite.
Steve
- --
SAVE THE REV! Annoy a $cientologist!! Contribute to Dennis' Defence Fund!!!
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
stevea@ca| Cheques (non-US are OK) to Electronic | Endorse Your Cheques:
stlsys.de| Freedom Foundation, 1667 K Street, NW | DENNIS ERLICH DEFENCE FUND
mon.co.uk| Suite 801, Washington DC 20006 U.S.A. | space donated by renta.Sig
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6
iQBVAgUBL6f8hPsT8zz+lqiRAQFtrQH8Cq58wzWz+bYQePgaTT9wXeL/OSOssRat
cYZBCdfYNqFwlXlX5hKfov2aqS6Lp8HoTLcfhnbXj6hHfrMRXqckcw==
=PYQS
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Nico Garcia
The same thing applies to the Net and Erlich's actions. Because it has not
yet been proven in a court of law that he violated the copyrights does not
mean that a normal person cannot see what was posted and realize that
plenty of evidence exists - enough to realize that Erlich is an infringer.
Bob, you're still a lying scumbag. Scientology is *notorious* for harassing
anyone who criticizes them, threatening and suing and even attacking critics.
See http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/rnewman/scientology/home.html
for more details.
Dennis did *nothing* illegal. He quoted short excerpts from other
people's long posts, which the church of $cientology has not
established the copyright of, refused to identify in private or in
court. Dennis quite correctly refused to delete all copies of any
scientology mentioning material and quit discussing scientology at all
under his rights to freedom of speech, until and unless the church of
$cientology identified specific copyrighted materials. To do otherwise
would be giving free rein to cult censorship. Instead, they confiscated
every file on his system with the word "scientology" in it, took his
bookkeeping and private correspondence, and used the data they found
to harass *other* critics, by using their unlisted phone numbers (as
a single example).
Don't even *pretend* you don't know about this, Bob, the data is in
the a.r.s. newsgroup daily. Try opening your eyes rather than just
listening to your superiors in the church of $cientology, probably
the Office of Special Affairs, possibly working for Andy Milne, who
publishes at least one of their newsletters and is currently filling
the a.r.s. group with dreck and publishing private posters names and
phone numbers in public.
Idiot.
By the way, even non-netcom people know enough to keep political
discussion from cross-posting to netcom.netnews. I've reset the follow-up's
appropriately.
Nico Garcia
ra...@mit.edu
My opinions are my own, not MIT's or my employer's or my cat's
(Well, maybe my cat's....)
Brad Templeton
Of course, but the courts don't think that way, and thus Compuserve
aruged that defence with success -- though in a libel case not a copyright
case.
The first sale doctrine does not apply to pirate copies anyway, does it?
I suspect if I knowingly buy and resell a pirate item, I still an
liable.
However, as noted, in this case there is even real copying, making it
very firmly a copyright case.
Jim Hill
and let the courts decide, since you're suing. When you win, then you can
yell about how evil everyone else is. Until then, you're just blowing
smoke.
Even in that imo unlikely event, the case is so full of unanswered
questions that the judge tossed Netcom and the other provider off your
list of defendants on day 1. If the courts say they're by no stretch of
the law responsible, what are YOU whining about? The ISP's didn't think
they had reason to do anything, and the judge agreed. As you so kindly
point out, when they _do_ think there's enough evidence, they take action.
henry
In article <D7ztq...@clarinet.com>, Brad Templeton <br...@clarinet.com> wrote:
[. . .]
>Of course, but the courts don't think that way, and thus Compuserve
>aruged that defence with success -- though in a libel case not a copyright
>case.
>
>The first sale doctrine does not apply to pirate copies anyway, does it?
>I suspect if I knowingly buy and resell a pirate item, I still an
>liable.
brad, in this case, there was NO pirate item. there was a
scriptural commentary by a reverend protected as fair use,
literary criticism, religious speech and federally-protected
free speech.
>However, as noted, in this case there is even real copying, making it
>very firmly a copyright case.
it is not very firmly a copyright case. this ludicrous and deliberate
assault and harassment of a man for his religious beliefs, which he has
stated eloquently, without a single documented copyright violation,
despite our repeated and vociferous demands that the cult document its
utterly fraudulent, frivolous allegations.
the lawyer, helena kobrin, perjured herself by claiming that dennis
erlich had refused to stop posting copyright violations, when he had
repeatedly and at great length, with a great deal of patience, offered
to stop posting these alleged copyright violations and cancel the articles
if they would tell him which articles were in violation.
erlich acted in good faith, and the attorney in this case has
misrepresented herself upon all occasions, to every public official
whom she has encountered in her vicious, barratrous attacks on
dennis.
this is absolutely not a copyright case. it is a monstrous
assault on free speech, and an attempt to shoehorn dennis
erlich's legitimate actions into the copyright code. the
cult is well-known for its history of filing multiple frivolous
lawsuits, criminal cases, character assassinations, SLAPP
lawsuits, libel cases, copyright violation cases, such that
even a federal judge described their tactics as criminal.
every federal judge who has rendered an opinion on them has
labelled them a criminal organization which disgracefully hides
under the ruse of being a religion.
so no, brad, this is not, absolutely not, even remotely, in
the slightest way, a copyright case.
it is a case of prior restraint, an attack on the rights of
literary critics, an attack on individual expression of religion,
an attack on the net community, a threat to free speech on the
net, a calumny, a libel and a lie.
you ought to know better than to be fooled by anyone making
fraudulent claims of copyright violation. i KNOW you know
your copyright law very well.
>Brad Templeton, publisher, ClariNet Communications Corp. in...@clari.net
>The net's #1 Electronic newspaper (95,000 readers) www.clari.net/brad.html
> My new personal page ^^^^^^^^^
h
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6
iQCVAwUBL6iiPdOUGUXWNqytAQGMOQP+KSiR2byjaalvkyl1lY1i3CY96/W+AdTi
LbfMxOT1axdl9YaV1ye2X1ob4/81Jjz9rZnqxZtgj0GQQ8lYEfsnSByOxL/3pKPw
gZUM2S5powx2P+nxmc6WRoFsdzu2d8dhuvXA4aX+g6H/SZuYU9/bh/1lKvuFWjEx
M//ev9m5oJU=
=q9R0
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Ron Newman
Jim Hill <jth...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Even in that imo unlikely event, the case is so full of unanswered
>questions that the judge tossed Netcom and the other provider off your
>list of defendants on day 1.
This is not correct. Judge Whyte released them from the temporary
restraining order, but did not dismiss them from the case (yet).
--
Ron Newman Email: <rne...@mit.edu>
Web: http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/rnewman/home.html
(I speak only for myself, not for any part of MIT.)
Nico Garcia
So, you have a different opinion of what was going through Dennis head
when he made the posting which he later had cancelled. The fact remains
that he was already under a TRO for his *alleged* posting of copyrighted
material and he repeated the act while under the TRO, whether it be the
original one or the later one. Previous to even being sued, he was
warned repeatedly but continued to post the material leading to being sued.
As I recall, this was even before the Fair Use issue even came up.
Bob, you lying $cientology dirtbag.
This is *Dennis's* claim, with which we agree: the TRO specifically
permits Dennis to make critical postings, and "fair use" of the
material in question. The details of what is "fair use" and
copyrighted were not clear, and Dennis believes that one of his posts
may have been over the line of the TRO, not as originally understood
by Dennis in court, but after explanation from more experienced legal
experts. Dennis immediately did what he has offered to do if
$cientology establishes specific copyrights. He canceled the post
immediately, and sent a note to the judge to explain his possible
inadvertent violation.
So, Bob, why did the $cientology people take *every file with the
word scientology in it, instead of just what was on the writ of seizure,
and Dennis's financial records and address lists, and use the unlisted
phone numbers from it to harass $cientology critics? Dennis's alleged
copyright violations are a tort: theft and harassment are *criminal*.
This is exactly what they did to anon.penet.fi, entered the system
with police support under false pretenses, ignored the original pretext,
and sent the names of their critic or critics back to their main office
to cook up harassment and protect their secrets.
Netcom has removed others from their service for violations of their rules
pertaining to posting of copyrighted works. This is something which is
Of course. Dennis, of course, only posted short quotes, quite legal
under the Fair Use doctrine. And $cientology refused to identify
the documents, insisting that Dennis be stopped from saying *anything*
about them.
about Netcom's practices in this regard. He indicated that other former
Netcom employees had also been contacted and are cooperating by giving
information not on just this issue but on other matters including the
subject of Netcom Management withholding the news about Metnik having
penetrated their security system at the time it happened.
Bob, you can't spell. It was Mitnick. And every bored hacker on the
planet penetrated netcom, it was published in alt.2600 months before
Mitnick got nailed, netcom security was a *joke*. They've improved,
thank Xenu and the Marcsbs.
As Netcom has a policy concerning posts of copyrighted works, it will be
interesting to see how this rule has been applied to other users.
Fairly, and consistently. Netcom is good about *this* sort of public
thing, it was lacking the personnel and willingness to install more
restrictive security that made them a short-sighted public security
joke. One first has to establish that someone is violating the copyright
laws, which $cientology never has in the Erlich case.
Even the claimed copyrights are very questionable: The document
transferring ownership of Hubbard's copyrights to Miscavige was
apparently forged, signed by a single person. So the copyrights are
not apparently even *valid*, now that Hubbard is dead.
Jon Noring
>In article Bob Wallert <ice...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>So, you have a different opinion of what was going through Dennis head
>>when he made the posting which he later had cancelled. The fact remains
>>that he was already under a TRO for his *alleged* posting of copyrighted
>>material and he repeated the act while under the TRO, whether it be the
>>original one or the later one. Previous to even being sued, he was
>>warned repeatedly but continued to post the material leading to being sued.
>>As I recall, this was even before the Fair Use issue even came up.
>Look, you dweeb, whether "the Fair Use issue came up" or not, Fair Use
>exists -- you don't have to be able to cite the law for it to apply. So
>it's absolutely irrelevant whether x, y, or z happened "before the Fair
>Use issue even came up."
Bob's post is very interesting in that it is one of the first (if not the
first) documented instances of a pro-Scientology poster (at least I believe
he is) using the phrase "Fair Use". Up to now, nobody on that side of the
fence, particularly Ms. Kobrin, even acknowledges the existence of Fair Use
of their "sacred scriptures".
I also am happy that Bob used the word "alleged". He sounds like a very
reasonable person.
Jon Noring
--
OmniMedia | The Electronic Bookstore. Come in and browse! Two
1312 Carlton Place | locations: ftp.netcom.com /pub/Om/OmniMedia/books
Livermore, CA 94550 | and ftp.awa.com /pub/softlock/pc/products/OmniMedia
510-294-8153 | E-book publishing service follows NWU recommendations.
Chris Owen
Tony Sidaway <To...@sidaway.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> However, it may sometimes be in the public interest to publish
> a work that the copuright holder wishes to suppress.
>
> If the copyright of Atack's book fell into the hands of the
> church of scientology, for instance, I would feel that a
> samizdat publication of this essential work might be justified.
>
> The English courts would probably support such publication, in
> my humble opinion. To allow the church to use the copyright for
> purposes of suppression would act against the spirit of the
> copyright law and bring it into disrepute. Other authors would
> be discouraged from entering print for fear of being crushed
> by a powerful, ruthless enemy.
Tony's absolutely right on this, and it's already happened - Cyril
Vosper ("The Mind Benders") was served with an injunction by the CoS
in 1971 to prevent the publication of book and thus of the copyrighted
writings of LRH contained in the book. The judges came down very firmly
against the CoS. Read the comments of Lord Judge Megaw in particular -
he doesn't pull many punches. (And I find it rather hilarious that the
judges use the Scientologists' claim that the secret materials are
"dangerous" as one of the justifications for the material being published
in the first place, to reveal that danger to the public...) If Dennis
Erlich was being sued in England, I suspect that he'd win pretty easily,
not least because direct precedent exists.
Here's the full report on the affair. It comes from the All England
Law reports, 1972 vol. I, pp. 1023-1033. (Aren't scanners wonderful?)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hubbard and another v Vosper and another
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
COURT OF APPEAL, CIVIL DIVISION
LORD DENNING MR, MEGAW AND STEPHENSON LJJ
17th, 18th, 19th NOVEMBER 1971
------------------------------
Copyright - Fair dealing - Literary, dramatic and musical works - Fair
dealing for purposes of criticism or review - Scope of defence - Not
limited to criticism of literary style - Defence extending to criticism of
doctrine or philosophy expounded in work - Work not published to world at
large - Defence available where unpublished work has had wide circulation -
Copyright Act 1956, s 6 (2).
Equity - Confidence - Breach of confidence - Defence - Public interest in
publication Scientology - Courses of instruction in cult of Scientology -
Undertaking not to impart information acquired on course- Courses containing
material of such a nature that desirable in public interest that information
should be made public.
Injunction - Interlocutory - Principle governing grant - Copyright - Claim
for infringement - Defence of fair dealing - Plaintiff having arguable case
not sufficient to justify grant where defence of fair dealing raised.
------------------------------
H was the founder of the Church of Scientology of California and was
the author of a number of books which expounded the doctrines of the cult of
Scientology. He had also written numerous bulletins and letters on the
subject which had been circulated to members of the cult. V, who had been a
member of the Church of Scientology for many years, enrolled for an advanced
course on Scientology which the cult's authorities regarded as confidential.
They required V to sign an undertaking (a) to use the knowledge acquired on
the course for Scientology purposes only, and (b) to refrain from divulging
information received to those not entitled to receive it. V did not,
however, complete the course. He became disillusioned with Scientology. The
cult's authorities thought that he was actively seeking to suppress or
damage Scientology, and so, in accordance with the cult's practice, they
declared him to be a 'suppressive person' and to be in a condition of
'enemy'. The effect of this was that in the eyes of Scientologists V had no
right to 'self, possessions or position' and any Scientologist could take
any action against him with impunity. V left the organisation and wrote a
book about Scientology, which was stated on the jacket to be 'The first
ever investigation into the cult of Scientology by an ex-Scientologist of
14 years' service'. The book was highly critical of Scientology and
contained many extracts from the books and other writings of H. H and the
Church of Scientology brought an action against V claiming infringement of
copyright and breach of confidence and sought an interlocutory injunction
restraining publication.
Held - The plaintiffs were not entitled to an interlocutory injunction for
the following reasons -
(i) V had shown that he might have a good defence of 'fair dealing' under
s 6 (2) [a] of the Copyright Act 1956; whether the use of extensive
quotations from H's works constituted 'fair dealing' was a question to be
decided by the tribunal of fact, and there was material on which the
tribunal of fact could find that there was 'fair dealing'; further the
defence of fair dealing covered criticism not only of a plaintiff's
literary style but also of the doctrine or philosophy expounded in his
works and extended not only to those of the plaintiff's works which had
been published to the world at large but also to those which had been so
widely circulated that it would be fair to subject them to public
criticism (see p 1027 f to h, p 1028 a d and e, p 1031 d g and h and p
1033 f, post); dictum of Romer J in British Oxygen Co Ltd v Liquid Air
Ltd [1925] Ch at 393 disapproved:
(ii) although V may have made use of information which he knew that the
plaintiffs claimed to be confidential, there were, nevertheless, grounds
for thinking that the courses of the Church of Scientology contained such
dangerous material that it was in the public interest that it should be
made known; furthermore (per Megaw LJ) there was evidence that the
plaintiffs had been protecting their secrets by deplorable means, such as
was evidenced by their code of ethics, and therefore did not come to the
court with clean hands in seeking to protect those secrets by the
equitable remedy of an injunction (see p 1028 j, p 1029 c and p 1033 d e
and f, post); dictum of Lord Denning MR in Fraser v Evans [1969] I All
ER at II applied;
(iii) the defences raised by V to the claims for breach of copyright and
breach of confidence were such that V should be permitted to go ahead
with publication; to justify the grant of an interlocutory injunction it
was not sufficient that, having established a strong prima facie case
that he owned the copyright, a plaintiff need only show that he had an
arguable case that the defendant had infringed it or was about to
infringe it; each case was to be decided on a basis of fairness, justice
and common sense in relation to the whole of the issues of fact and law
relevant to the particular case; V had reasonable defences to the
plaintiffs' claims; if those defences were valid he was entitled to
publish his book and the law would not intervene to suppress freedom of
speech except when it was abused (see p 1029 g to p 1030 b and j to p
1031 a and p 1033 e and f, post); Donmar Productions Ltd v Bart [1967]
2 All ER 338 and Harman Pictures NV v Osborne [1967] 2 All ER 324
disapproved.
Per Megaw LJ. The fact that a quotation contains every single word
of the work criticised or reviewed does not necessarily preclude a defendant from relying on the defence of fair dealing under s 6 (2) of the Copyright Act 1956 (see p 1031 e, post).
Notes
-----
For fair dealing in copyright, see 8 Halsbury's Laws (3rd Edn) 435,
436, para 788, and for cases on the infringement of literary work by
quotations and extracts, see 13 Digest (Repl) 105-107, 468-487.
For restraining breach of confidence, see 21 Halsbury's Laws (3rd
Edn) 395, 396, para 825, and for cases on the subject, see 28 (2) Digest
(Reissue) 1081-1090, 868-917.
For the remedy of an interlocutory injunction to protect copyright,
see 8 Halsbury's Laws (3rd Edn) 445, 446, para 809, and for cases on the
subject, see 13 Digest (Repl) 130-132, 715-737
For the Copyright Act 1956, s 6, see 7 Halsbury's Statutes (3rd Edn)
141-143.
Cases referred to in judgments
------------------------------
British Oxygen Co Ltd v Liquid Air Ltd [1925] Ch 383, 95 LJCh 8q, 133 LT
282, 13 Digest (Repl) 55, 55
Donmar Productions Ltd v Bart [1967] 2 All ER 338n, [1967] 1 WLR 740n,
Digest (Cont Vol C) 174, 731a.
Fraser v Evans [1969] I All ER 8, [1969] I QB 349, [1968] 3 WLR 1172,
28 (2) Digest (Reissue) 1090, 9l7.
Harman Pictures NV v Osborne [1967] 2 All ER 324, [1967] I WLR 723,
Digest (Cont Vol C) 174, 731b.
Hawkes & Son (London) Ltd v Paramount Film Service Ltd [1934] Ch 593,
103 LJCh 281, 151 LT 294, 13 Digest (Repl) 116, 574.
Seager v Copydex Ltd [1967] 2 All ER 415, [1967] I WLR 923, 28 (2) Digest
(Reissue) 1019, 453
University of London Press Ltd v University Tutorial Press Ltd [1916] 2
Ch 601, 86 LJCh 107, 115 LT 301, 13 Digest (Repl) 55, 53.
Walter v Steinkopff [1892] 3 Ch 489, 61 LJCh 521, 67 LT 184, 13 Digest
(Repl) 52, 22.
Interlocutory appeal
--------------------
This was an appeal by the defendants, Cyril Ronald Vosper and
Neville Spearman Ltd, from the order of Kilner Brown J made on 4th October
1971, on the application of the plaintiffs, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard and the
Church of Scientology of California, whereby it was ordered that the
injunction granted on 9th September 1971 by Griffiths J on an ex parte
application by the plaintiffs restraining the first defendant by himself,
his servants or agents or howsoever otherwise and the second defendant by
their officers, servants or agents or howsoever otherwise from distributing,
disseminating, selling or parting with the book 'The Mind Benders' and
further restraining the first defendant by himself, his agents or servants
from further imparting any information, the subject of confidence between
the plaintiffs and the first defendant to any party whomsoever without the
plaintiffs' express consent, be continued for a period not exceeding 28 days
or further order. The facts are set out in the judgment of Lord Denning MR.
Leonard Caplan QC and M Levene for the defendants.
Peter Pain QC and Alan Newman for the plaintiffs.
LORD DENNING MR.
================
On 9th September [1971] a book was published called 'The Mind
Benders'. It was written by Mr Cyril Vosper, the first defendant, and
published by Neville Spearman Ltd, the second defendant. It was very
critical of the cult of Scientology. On the same day the Church of
Scientology of California issued a writ. They went to the judge and
obtained ex parte an interim injunction to restrain the publication of
the book. Later on Mr Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was added as plaintiff.
After hearing both sides, Kilner Brown J continued the injunction but, as
the matter involved the public interest, he hoped it would be taken to
appeal.
'Scientology' is a word invented by Mr Hubbard himself. He has
invented a lot of other words too which he has set out in a Dictionary of
Scientology. He defines it in this way:
'SCIENTOLOGY: An applied religious philosophy dealing with the study of
knowledge, which, through the application of its technology can bring
about desirable changes in the conditions of life.'
In addition to the dictionary, he has written many books about this
philosophy or cult. They include 'Axioms and Logics', 'Introduction to
Scientology Ethics', 'Scientology 8-80', 'Scientology 8-8008', and
'Scientology - A History of Man'. All of them contain a large number of his
invented words. They cannot be understood by anyone who is not versed in the
cult. In addition, Mr Hubbard has written numerous bulletins and letters
which have been circulated to members of the cult. These give many
descriptions of the workings of Scientology.
Mr Hubbard and his adherents occupy a big house near East Grinstead
called Saint Hill Manor. They hold courses for those who wish to study
Scientology and to acquire proficiency in it. Some of these courses, on
their own admission, 'can be dangerous in untrained hands'.
Mr Vosper was a member of the Church of Scientology for 14 years. He
worked at Saint Hill Manor as secretary, and such like. In 1967 he put his
name down for a course which the authorities regarded as confidential. It
was called the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course. He paid a fee of GBP 150
and signed an undertaking 'relating to higher levels of knowledge'. He
undertook (a) to use this knowledge for Scientology purposes only; (b) to
refrain from divulging level VI materials to those not entitled to receive
them or to discuss them within the hearing of such persons. Mr Vosper did
not, however, complete the course. He became disillusioned with Scientology.
Those in authority thought that he was actively seeking to suppress or
damage Scientology. So in September 1968 they declared him to be a
'suppressive person', which meant that he was considered 'fair game', and
they declared him to be in a condition of 'enemy'. In order to understand
what that means, you have to look at the books. It means that in the eyes
of Scientologists, Mr Vosper had no right 'to self, possessions or
position', and that any Scientologist could take any action against him with
impunity.
So Mr Vosper left Saint Hill Manor. He wrote 'The Mind Benders'. It
said on the jacket that it was 'The first ever investigation into the cult
of Scientology by an ex-Scientologist of I4 years' service'. It is this book
of which the plaintiffs now seek to prevent publication. They do it on two
grounds: first, infringement of copyright; secondly, breach of confidence.
1. Infringement of copyright
Whatever one may think of Mr Hubbard's books, letters and bulletins,
they are the subject of literary copyright. His name appears as author on
every book, letter and bulletin. So he is presumed to be the owner of the
copyright in them. In writing 'The Mind Benders' Mr Vosper has made free use
of Mr Hubbard's books, letters and bulletins. He has taken very little from
some, but from others he has taken very substantial parts. For instance, he
has taken quite big extracts from the 'Introduction to Scientology Ethics',
and put them into his book. He has also taken substantial parts of the
letters and bulletins. The parts taken are so substantial that Mr Vosper
will be guilty of infringement of copyright unless he can make good his
defence. And his defence is that his use of them is fair dealing within
s 6 (2) of the Copyright Act 1956. This provides.
'No fair dealing with literary, dramatic or musical work shall constitute
an infringement of the copyright in the work if it is for purposes of
criticism or review, whether of that work or of another work, and is
accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgment.'
The last words of the section are satisfied. At the end of his book,
Mr Vosper said: 'Criticisms are used from the following books by L Ron
Hubbard' - setting them out.
The question is, therefore, whether Mr Vosper's treatment of Mr
Hubbard's books was a 'fair dealing' with them 'for the purposes of
criticism or review'. There is very little in our law books to help on this.
Some cases can be used to illustrate what is not 'fair dealing'. It is not
fair dealing for a rival in the trade to take copyright material and use it
for his own benefit. Such as when the Times published a letter on America
by Rudyard Kipling. The St James Gazette took out half-a-dozen passages and
published them as extracts. This was held to be an infringement: see Walter
v Steinkopff [1]. So also when the University of London published
examination papers. The Tutorial Press took several of the papers and
published them in their own publication for the use of students. It was held
to be an infringement: see University of London Press Ltd v University
Tutorial Press Ltd [2]. Likewise when a band played 20 bars of 'Colonel
Bogey' - to entertain hearers - it was not fair dealing: see Hawkes & Son
(London) Ltd v Paramount Film Service Ltd [3].
In this case Mr Vosper has taken considerable extracts from Mr
Hubbard's work and has commented freely on them. I will give some
illustrations. On p 28 of Mr Vosper's book, he gives a quotation from Mr
Hubbard's 'Axioms and Logics'. I will emphasise the words taken:
'Scientology Axiom One is the assumption upon which the rest of the
subject stands. "Life is basically a static, [and this is further defined]
a Life Static has no mass, no motion, no wavelength, no location in space
or in time. It has the ability to postulate and to perceive."
'Hubbard has redefined in modern, scientific-sounding terms the ancient
Hindu Vedanta concept of a soul or spirit that, whilst appearing to
inhabit the physical universe is of a distinctly separate order.'
Another illustration is on p 141 of Mr Vosper's book:
'Hubbard in his book "Introduction to Scientology Ethics, 1968" states:
"A Suppressive Person or Group becomes 'Fair Game'. By Fair Game is meant,
without right for self, possessions or position, and no Scientologist may
be brought before a Committee of Evidence or punished for any action taken
against a Suppressive Person or Group during the period that person or
group is 'fair game'."
'Would a Scientologist who takes it into his head to murder a declared
Suppressive Person be regarded by Scientologists as fully within his
rights? That murder has not occurred as far as is known, is not to the
credit of L. Ron Hubbard's Ethics but more to the credit of police and
courts of the old-fashioned, repressive type.'
Those illustrations enable me to state the conflicting arguments.
Counsel for the plaintiffs says that what Mr Vosper has done is to take
important parts of Mr Hubbard's book and explain them and amplify them.
That, he says, is not fair dealing. Counsel for the defendants says that Mr
Vosper has, indeed, taken important parts of Mr Hubbard's book, but he has
done it so as to expose them to the public, and to criticise them and to
condemn them. That, he says, is fair dealing.
It is impossible to define what is 'fair dealing'. It must be a
question of degree. You must consider first the number and extent of the
quotations and extracts. Are they altogether too many and too long to be
fair? Then you must consider the use made of them. If they are used as a
basis for comment, criticism or review, that may be a fair dealing. If they
are used to convey the same information as the author, for a rival purpose,
that may be unfair. Next, you must consider the proportions.
To take long extracts and attach short comments may be unfair. But,
short extracts and long comments may be fair. Other considerations may come
to mind also. But, after all is said and done, it must be a matter of
impression. As with fair comment in the law of libel, so with fair dealing
in the law of copyright. The tribunal of fact must decide. In the present
case, there is material on which the tribunal of fact could find this to be
fair dealing.
Counsel for the plaintiffs took, however, another point. He said
that the defence of 'fair dealing' only avails a defendant when he is
criticising or reviewing the plaintiff's literary work. It does not avail a
defendant, said counsel, when he is criticising or reviewing the doctrine or
philosophy underlying the plaintiff's work. In support of this proposition,
counsel for the plaintiffs relied on the words of Romer J in British Oxygen
Co Ltd v Liquid Air Ltd [4]:
'I am inclined to agree with [counsel for the plaintiffs] that, in this
proviso [as to "fair dealing"] the word "criticism" means a criticism of a
work as such.'
But, when you refer back to counsel for the plaintiffs' arguments,
you will see that all he means is that the criticism must be a criticism of
the plaintiff's work, and not of the plaintiff's conduct. I do not think
that this proviso is confined as narrowly as counsel for the plaintiffs
submits. A literary work consists not only of the literary style, but also
of the thoughts underlying it, as expressed in the words. Under the defence
of 'fair dealing' both can be criticised. Mr Vosper is entitled to criticise
not only the literary style, but also the doctrine or philosophy of Mr
Hubbard as expounded in the books.
Counsel for the plaintiffs took yet another point. This was on the
bulletins and letters. These, he said, were not published to the world at
large, but only to a limited number of people and, in particular, to those
who took classes in Scientology. He said that, whilst it might be 'fair
dealing' to criticise the books, it was not 'fair dealing' to take extracts
from these bulletins and letters and criticise them. He quoted again the
words of Romer J in the British Oxygen case [5]:
'. . . it would be manifestly unfair that an unpublished literary work
should, without the consent of the author, be the subject of public
criticism, review or newspaper summary. Any such dealing with an
unpublished literary work would not, therefore, in my opinion, be a "fair
dealing" with the work.'
I am afraid I cannot go all the way with those words of Romer J.
Although a literary work may not be published to the world at large, it may,
however, be circulated to such a wide circle that it is 'fair dealing' to
criticise it publicly in a newspaper, or elsewhere. This happens sometimes
when a company sends a circular to the whole body of shareholders. It may be
of such general interest that it is quite legitimate for a newspaper to make
quotations from it, and to criticise them - or review them - without thereby
being guilty of infringing copyright. The newspaper must, of course, be
careful not to fall foul of the law of libel. So also here these bulletins
and letters may have been so widely circulated that it was perfectly 'fair
dealing' for Mr Vosper to take extracts from them and criticise them in his
book.
It seems to me, therefore, that Mr Vosper may have a good defence of
'fair dealing' to raise at the trial.
2 Breach of confidence
Counsel for the plaintiffs claimed that Mr Vosper in the book was
using information obtained in confidence and should be restrained from so
doing. During the first part of the argument, I felt there was very little
evidence to show that Mr Vosper was using any confidential information. But
counsel pointed out that, in "the Mind Benders' there is a passage from
which it can be inferred. In the book, Mr Vosper says at p 119:
'Owing to the restimulative nature of the materials comprising the Solo-
Audit and Clearing Courses, there is a heavy security clamp on it. When a
student enrols on these courses, he signs a declaration not to divulge to
any non-Clear [that is one of Mr Hubbard's invented words meaning someone
who is not a Scientologist] any of the data which is given to him.
Insanity, severe illness and possible death is foretold for anyone who is
not yet ready for it, who happens to even glance at the Solo-Audit or
Clearing Course worksheets.'
In view of this, I think there is ground for thinking that Mr Vosper
may have used information knowing that Mr Hubbard claimed it to be
confidential. Nevertheless, he may have a good answer. We have had several
cases in this court recently about confidential information. The law will,
in a proper case, intervene to restrain a defendant from revealing
information or other material obtained in confidence, such as trade secrets,
and the like. This depends on the broad principle of equity that he who has
received information in confidence shall not take unfair advantage of it:
see Seager v Copydex [6]. But the information must be such that it is a
proper subject for protection. As I said in Fraser v Evans [7]:
'There are some things which may be required to be disclosed in the public
interest, in which event no confidence can be prayed in aid to keep them
secret.'
In this case counsel for the defendants has drawn our attention to
the nature of these courses for which confidence is claimed. The plaintiffs
themselves say that: 'the material contained in these courses can be
dangerous in untrained hands'. Counsel for the defendants took us through
the books and said that they indicate medical quackeries of a sort which may
be dangerous if practised behind closed doors. They are so dangerous, he
said that it is in the public interest that these goings-on should be made
known. The closed doors should be opened for all to c see. We cannot decide
on it today, as this is only an interlocutory application. But, I think that,
even on what we have heard so far, there is good ground for thinking that
these courses contain such dangerous material that it is in the public
interest that it should be made known.
3 Remedies
The judge fully appreciated that Mr Vosper might well have good
defences; but, nevertheless, he granted an injunction to prevent him
publishing the book. The reason was because of two decisions by judges of
first instance. Donmar Productions Ltd v Bart [8] decided in 1964 but
reported in 1967 and Harman Pictures N V v Osborne [9]. Those cases do seem
to suggest that, in an action for infringement of copyright (and also it
would appear in any other action for the infringement of a right) when a
plaintiff seeks an interlocutory injunction, he has to do two things: first,
he must establish a strong prima facie case that he owns the copyright or
other right; but, secondly, having done that, he need only show an arguable
case that the defendant has infringed it or is about to infringe it. In the
words of Goff J in Harman's case [10], the plaintiff -
'does not have to show that he is likely to be successful or more likely
to be so than the defendant, but only that he has a case reasonably capable
of succeeding.'
We are told that practitioners have been treating these cases as
deciding that, if the plaintiff has an arguable case, an injunction should
be granted so that the status quo may be maintained. The judge was so told
in the present case, and that is why he granted the injunction.
I would like to say at once that I cannot accept the propositions
stated in those two cases. In considering whether to grant an interlocutory
injunction, the right course for a judge is to look at the whole case. He
must have regard not only to the strength of the claim but also to the
strength of the defence, and then decide what is best to be done. Sometimes
it is best to grant an injunction so as to maintain the status quo until the
trial. At other times it is best not to impose a restraint on the defendant
but leave him free to go ahead. For instance, in Fraser v Evans [11],
although the plaintiff owned the copyright, we did not grant an injunction,
because the defendant might have a defence of fair dealing. The remedy by
interlocutory injunction is so useful that it should be kept flexible and
discretionary. It must not be made the subject of strict rules.
But here, although Mr Hubbard owns the copyright, nevertheless, Mr
Vosper has a defence of fair dealing, and, although Mr Hubbard may possess
confidential information, nevertheless, Mr Vosper has a defence of public
interest. These defences are such that he should be permitted to go ahead
with the publication. If what he says is true, it is only right that the
dangers of this cult should be exposed. We never restrain a defendant in a
libel action who says he is going to justify. So in a copyright action, we
ought not to restrain a defendant who has a reasonable defence of fair
dealing. Nor in an action for breach of confidence, if the defendant has a
reasonable defence of public interest. The reason is because the defendant,
if he is right, is entitled to publish it; and the law will not intervene to
suppress freedom of speech except when it is abused.
I would, therefore, allow this appeal and remove the injunction.
MEGAW LJ.
=========
I agree. There are a few matters to which I wish to add some
observations. First, I wish to say something with regard to the matter with
which Lord Denning MR has dealt at the end of his judgment, in relation to
interlocutory injunctions. I very much doubt whether the passage in
Halsbury's Laws of England [12], cited by Ungoed-Thomas J in his judgment in
Donmar Productions Ltd v Bart [13], was intended to state as a general
proposition that different standards of proof are to be applied when the
court considers, first, the question whether the plaintiff has a right, and,
secondly, the question whether, if the plaintiff does have the right, that
right has been infringed. It is true that in certain special cases one can
approach the matter in that way. Suppose, for example, the plaintiff's claim
for an interlocutory injunction is based on his contentions that he is the
owner of a piece of land and that the defendant has trespassed on it. If the
defendant does not dispute that the piece of land belongs to the plaintiff,
then it may, in some cases, require only the slightest evidence on the part
of the plaintiff of the fact that the defendant has gone on that land to
entitle the plaintiff to an injunction. The defendant in those circumstances,
if he has a defence at all, has a defence to the action only on the basis:
'I have not gone on that land.' In those circumstances there is no reason
why an interlocutory injunction should not normally be granted against him
if there is some evidence that he has in fact done so. But, to change the
example, if the plaintiff's case is: 'You, the defendant, trespassed on my
land', and the defendant's defence is 'True, you are the owner of that land,
but you gave me a licence to walk over that land' - then, although the
plaintiff's right in one sense is not disputed, in that he is the owner of
the land, the question, and the whole question is: is there a licence? It
may be that the onus of establishing that is on the defendant; but this is
not a question of onus of proof. In such circumstances in my judgment it
could not rightly be said that, once the plaintiff has established that he
is the owner of the land, it only needs a mere possibility of success in
connection with the assertion of the absence of a licence to entitle him as
of right to an interlocutory injunction. It must be looked at on the whole
of the case; the existence of the right and of any defences that are
asserted in relation to the admitted existence of that right. In addition,
one has to take into account the evidence of the alleged breach, the facts
relating to the alleged breach, and even then there is no firm and invariable
criterion which can be laid down on the basis of the prospects of success in
the action because frequently one has to consider also the balance of
convenience, as well as the status quo. One can readily imagine a case in
which the plaintiff appears to have a 75 per cent chance of establishing his
claim, but in which the damage to the defendant from the granting of the
interlocutory injunction, if the 25 per cent defence proved to be right,
would be so great compared with the triviality of the damage to the plaintiff
if he is refused the injunction, that an interlocutory injunction should be
refused. To my mind it is impossible and unworkable to lay down different
standards in relation to different issues which fall to be considered in an
application for an interlocutory injunction. Each case must be decided on a
basis of fairness, justice and common sense in relation to the whole of the
issues of fact and law which are relevant to the particular case.
Now I come to the first of the main issues in the present appeal;
that is the question of the copyright. The principal submission by counsel
for the plaintiffs, related to the construction of s 6 (2) of the Copyright
Act 1956. As I understand his argument, it was that criticism 'whether of
that work of or another work' (words used in that subsection) cannot be
taken to apply to criticism which is criticism of something other than the
work itself. That may be an acceptable proposition, but it is only an
acceptable proposition when one has defined with reasonable clarity what is
meant by 'criticism of something other than the work itself'. Counsel for
the plaintiffs did not suggest that 'criticism' in this subsection was
confined to what I would call literary criticism; that is to say, criticism
of the style - the literary style - of the work in question. But if it is
not confined to that, it must surely then cover criticism of the ideas, the
thoughts, expressed by the work in question - the subject-matter of the work.
What is the subject-matter of the works which are relevant in this appeal?
The subject-matter of each of them is some facet of the doctrine, the
practice,the training, and the code of ethics or discipline of this
organisation, the Church of Scientology of California. To my mind there can
be no doubt that the criticism contained in the book, 'The Mind Benders', is,
on a fair reading, a criticism of that subject matter by reference, in part
at least, to its exposition in those works. It is in that context that the
quotations from those works are used.
It is then said that the passages which have been taken from these
various works - in particular, from the one of them described as
'Introduction to Scientology Ethics' - are so substantial, quantitatively so
great in relation to the respective works from which the citations are taken,
that they fall outside the scope of 'fair dealing'. To my mind this question
of substantiality is a question of degree. It may well be that it does not
prevent the quotation of a work from being within the fair dealing subsection
even though the quotation may be of every single word of the work. Let me
give an example. Suppose that there is on a tombstone in a churchyard an
epitaph consisting of a dozen or of 20 words. A parishioner of the church
thinks that this sort of epitaph is out of place on a tombstone. He writes a
letter to the parish magazine setting out the words of the epitaph. Could it
be suggested that that citation is so substantial, consisting of 100 per cent
of the 'work' in question, that it must necessarily be outside the scope of
the fair dealing provision? To my mind it could not validly be so suggested.
In this present case, having considered what we have been shown of the
passages taken from the various works in relation (because I think this test
must also be applied) to the nature and purpose of the individual quotations,
I find myself unable to say that the plaintiffs have made out a case that the
quotations are so substantial that this does not fall within the fair dealing
provision. To my mind the plaintiffs have failed to establish to the required
degree, in relation to an application of this sort and in relation to all the
other factors that have to be taken into account, that they ought to be
granted an interlocutory injunction in relation to the alleged breach of
copyright.
I turn to the question of confidentiality. Lord Denning MR has
referred to one passage which occurred in some of the documents put before us
in relation to 'fair game'. I think it is right, in fairness to the
plaintiffs, that it should be said that it would seem that that particular
provision has disappeared from the latest, or 1970, edition of the book
'Introduction to Scientology Ethics'. It is right in these circumstances
that something should be said about the history of that provision. So far as
the documents before us are concerned, it appears chronologically for the
first time in what is described as the 'Hubbard Communications Office Policy
Letter of March 1, 1965', under the heading, 'Justice. Suppressive Acts.
Suppression of Scientology and Scientologists. The Fair Game Law'. That
document defined 'Potential Trouble Sources'. They were persons who were
active in Scientology, or persons known as 'preclears', who remained
'connected to a person or group that is a suppressive person or group'. A
'suppressive person or group' is then defined in the document as 'one that
actively seeks to suppress or damage Scientology or a Scientologist by
'Suppressive Acts'. 'Suppressive acts' are then defined as 'acts calculated
to impede or destroy Scientology or a Scientologist and which are listed at
length in this policy letter'. I should refer to some of these 'suppressive
acts', the carrying out of which turns a person, for the purpose of this
document, into a 'suppressive person or group'. 'Suppressive acts' include
'proposing, advising or voting for legislation or ordinances, rules or laws
directed toward the Suppression of Scientology . . .' So that if a voter in
this country were to have the temerity to cast a vote in a Parliamentary
election for a candidate who had indicated that he was minded to propose
legislation which would 'suppress' Scientology, that person would be guilty
in the eyes of this organisation of having committed 'a suppressive act'.
Again, 'testifying hostilely before state or public enquiries into
Scientology to suppress it'; 'reporting or threatening to report Scientology
or Scientologists to civil authorities in an effort to suppress Scientology
or Scientologists from practising or receiving standard Scientology';
'bringing civil suit against any Scientology organisation or Scientologist
including the non-payment of bills or failure to refund without first
calling the matter to the attention of the Chairman . . .'; 'writing anti-
Scientology letters to the press or giving anti-Scientology or anti-
Scientologist evidence to the press'; 'testifying as a hostile witness
against Scientology in public'. If words mean anything, that meant that in
the eyes of this organisation a person became 'a suppressive person' - 'a
suppressive person' guilty of a suppressive act - if, however truthful,
however much compelled by process of law, he should give evidence in a court
of law hostile to the organisation of Scientology. And this is the
organisation which is seeking to have its documents treated as confidential
by the order of the court. It went on to include among 'suppressive acts':
'1st degree murder, arson, disintegration of persons or belongings not guilty
of suppressive acts'. There can be no doubt that the last five words relate
to the preceding word 'persons'. What does that mean? That it was, in the
eyes of this organisation in 1965, 'a suppressive act' to be guilty of
'first degree murder', provided that the person you murdered had not been
guilty of suppressive acts. The implication is obvious. Yet another
'suppressive act' is, 'delivering up the person of a Scientologist without
defense or protest to the demands of civil or criminal law'.
In the 1968 edition of 'Scientology Ethics' those provisions remain
substantially the same, and they continue at that date to include the 'fair
game' provisions which I have mentioned as having been included in the
'Justice policy' document of 1965. In those years it was provided that
suppressive persons or groups became 'Fair Game':
'... by Fair Game is meant, without rights for self, possessions or
position, and no Scientologist may be brought before a Committee of
Evidence or punished for any action taken against a Suppressive Person or
Group during the period that person or group is "fair game".'
Well, it may be that there is or was some explanation of that general
provision, as of the related 'first degree murder' provision, which will take
away from it the meaning which to any ordinary person it would carry; namely,
that here was an organisation which had laid down a criminal code of its own
and by that criminal code it treated and required its adherents to treat,
persons as outlaws deprived of any protection or sanction so far as the
Scientological organisation was concerned if they had been guilty of
'suppressive acts', and no Scientologist was to be condemned, under the
ethical code of Scientology, for any action - I repeat any action - which he
might take against such 'fair game'. It is right that this should be
mentioned: in the latest edition of the Scientology Ethics, which appears to
have been published in the year 1970, the provisions as to 'fair game' have
now been removed from its code of ethics.
Most of the matters which I have mentioned earlier, as being examples
of 'suppressive acts' still remain as 'suppressive acts'. They come under
the heading: 'High Crimes (Suppressive Acts)'; but the provisions as to
'fair game' have disappeared from the code. One other respect in which
'suppressive acts' have changed since the original policy document is this;
the last five words have disappeared from that extraordinary example of a
'suppressive act': '1st degree murder, arson, disintegration of persons or
belongings not guilty of suppressive acts'. So that the Scientology
organisation has now changed its provisions, from those that previously
prevailed, in such a way that 'first degree murder' may now apparently be
regarded as a crime within this organisation, even though the murderer is a
Scientologist, and even though the victim is one who, in the eyes of the
organisation, has committed a 'suppressive act', such as having written a
letter to a newspaper adversely criticising Scientology.
Having regard to the matters which we have seen and, bearing in mind
counsel for the plaintiffs' observations that he came to this court
unprepared to deal with matters of that sort, to my mind it is here
sufficiently clear that, whatever explanations may be given, assuming that
the words used in relation to 'suppressive acts' mean what they on their
face appear to mean, counsel for the defendants is more than abundantly
justified in his proposition that there is here evidence that the plaintiffs
are or have been protecting their secrets by deplorable means such as is
evidenced by this code of ethics; and, that being so, they do not come with
clean hands to this court in asking the court to protect those secrets by
the equitable remedy of an injunction.
For the reasons which I have given and for the reasons which have
been given by Lord Denning MR, I agree that this appeal should be allowed.
STEPHENSON LJ.
==============
I entirely agree. I would only add one further consideration in
favour of refusing the plaintiffs the injunction which the judge granted.
Damages appear to me to be an adequate remedy for any breach of copyright or
confidence which may be proved at the trial; indeed any damage which the
publication of Mr Vosper's book may cause to the plaintiffs is less likely
to result from what he quotes from their literature or discloses from their
material than from the criticism which Mr Vosper makes of them and of their
cult of Scientology as a whole.
------------------------------------------------------------
Appeal allowed; injunction removed. Leave to appeal refused.
9th February 1972. The Appeal Committee of the House of Lords dismissed a
petition for leave to appeal.
Solicitors: Davidson, Doughty & Co (for the defendants);
Lawrence Alkin & Co (for the plaintiffs).
L J Kovats Esq Barrister.
------------------------------------------------------------
[a] Section 6 (2) is set out at p 1026 f, post
[1] [1892] 3 Ch 489
[2] [1916] 2 Ch 601
[3] [1934] Ch 593
[4] [1925] Ch 383 at 393
[5] [1915] Ch at 393
[6] [1967] 2 All ER 415, [1967] I WLR 923
[7] [1969] 1 All ER 8 at 11, [1969] I QB 349 at 362
[8] [1967] 2 All ER 338n, [1967]I WLR 740n
[9] [1967] 2 All ER 324, [1967] I WLR 723
[10] [1967] 2 All ER at 336, [1967]I WLR at 738
[11] [1969] 1 All ER 8, [1969] I QB 349
[12] 21 Halsbury's Laws (3rd Edn) 365, 366, paras 765, 766
[13] [1967] 2 All ER at 338, 339, [1967] I WLR at 741
--
| Chris Owen | Trinity College, Oxford |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| New Sinclair WWW pages: http://sable.ox.ac.uk/~tr95006/sincover.html |
| Howling in the wires - Canter & Siegel, criminal Armenians at law |
Bob Wallert
: A typical $cientology dead-agent trick. As if you didn't already
: know, icecube, Dennis made some postings which he believed to be
: within the terms of the agreement as he had heard it in court. The
: written confirmation had a wider scope than the verbal agreement made
: in court, and covered the postings he had just made. Mr Erlich's
: letter to the court was in response to this and demonstrates the fact
: that, rather than being some embittered zealot embarking on a
: fanatical crusade against your tawdry cult, he is capable of taking a
: pragmatic view of the situation and acting in good faith (he could
: have gone back to court and argued the whole thing - no doubt the
: approach the co$ would have taken in the same situation).
So, you have a different opinion of what was going through Dennis head
when he made the posting which he later had cancelled. The fact remains
that he was already under a TRO for his *alleged* posting of copyrighted
material and he repeated the act while under the TRO, whether it be the
original one or the later one. Previous to even being sued, he was
warned repeatedly but continued to post the material leading to being sued.
As I recall, this was even before the Fair Use issue even came up.
Netcom has removed others from their service for violations of their rules
pertaining to posting of copyrighted works. This is something which is
known to Netcom and now to Scientology lawyers. I know a former Netcom
employee who is disgruntled. He was contacted and provided information
about Netcom's practices in this regard. He indicated that other former
Netcom employees had also been contacted and are cooperating by giving
information not on just this issue but on other matters including the
subject of Netcom Management withholding the news about Metnik having
penetrated their security system at the time it happened.
As Netcom has a policy concerning posts of copyrighted works, it will be
interesting to see how this rule has been applied to other users.
Bob Wallert
Rachel Meredith Kadel
Bob Wallert <ice...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>So, you have a different opinion of what was going through Dennis head
>when he made the posting which he later had cancelled. The fact remains
>that he was already under a TRO for his *alleged* posting of copyrighted
>material and he repeated the act while under the TRO, whether it be the
>original one or the later one. Previous to even being sued, he was
>warned repeatedly but continued to post the material leading to being sued.
>As I recall, this was even before the Fair Use issue even came up.
>
exists -- you don't have to be able to cite the law for it to apply. So
Dennis believed at the time he posted the message that *may* have been in
violation of the TRO that it was *not* covered by the TRO.
When he was "warned" before he was sued, he was being warned against
perfectly legal actions -- and the Scienos refused to give him any
evidence backing up their claim that he was violating their copyrights.
Rachel
--
Not to perambulate the corridors during the hours of repose in the boots
of ascension.
Rachel Meredith Kadel or, for the adventurously inclined, Bean-na-Sidhe
rka...@fas.harvard.edu
Bruce Baugh
In article <icecubeD...@netcom.com>,
ice...@netcom.com (Bob Wallert) wrote:
:By your logic, a shop owner could not take steps to prevent someone from
:shoplifting, such as refusing to allow a person into the store after
:receiving reports that the individual had been putting food into his
:pockets and walking out the store. The theif may not have been caught, but
:the fact that someone saw him commit the violation is pretty strong grounds
:to say that he is a theif, even though not yet proven in a court of law.
This is a good metaphor. I believe strongly in individual and
communal action to secure one's own safety, within reasonable
limits. Clearly we do not have to, and should not have to, wait for
official sanction in every instance. However...
:The same thing applies to the Net and Erlich's actions. Because it has not
:yet been proven in a court of law that he violated the copyrights does not
:mean that a normal person cannot see what was posted and realize that
:plenty of evidence exists - enough to realize that Erlich is an infringer.
The evidence I have seen presented, by Scientology advocates and
critics, seems to me to make a solid case that Erlich was _not_
infringing. The people most needing to be watched carefully to
prevent further shoplifting (to use your metaphor) are
Scientologists, not Erlich.
bruceab@teleport.com___________http://www.teleport.com/~bruceab/
List Manager, Christlib, for Christian and libertarian concerns
Preview S.M. Stirling's forthcoming novel DRAKON at my home page
Finger me for PGP 2.6.2 key. "Proclaim liberty throughout the land."
(Old 2048-bit key replaced by 2001-bit key; get new public key!
And deepest thanks to all who helped identify some problems.)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2
iQEPAwUBL6kcTW2zeqFxTZxhAQGN2gfPSc0ESg5B8Pbrb1rxlbqZ2UqAWWROuRfw
Ro9dSSa5l8+ZJrXIWy1KYf8XEcVY5L2OUXKP1DZo6TE5b0VX2IuEMnjh0W4yULnX
o6MSZWm0Af0xhQVKFdGJA56+NwLLm91ovtcNru62TC6rD7NyKRQ8Xej0qLM4sJ/M
FRDlMnurn12H7CQvCig7sLNsYGqISkLGjT6rPTaenMpoHmTQQA70Ej1xcZezMVG6
wwcGtMEG8r5h9mFx+bxM/NTs1lKyVBm0+5W+FA+zOrnB2h+qlXxteyNx4lQfJBib
9ihNU/LQs8GHR0muE5F75oA04JMtDA7NrwgjNjALLVE55Q==
=mIV+
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Rick Sherwood
: fence, particularly Ms. Kobrin, even acknowledges the existence of Fair Use
: of their "sacred scriptures".
Jon, you are way of the loop on this one. Dennis was practicing fair use,
he was offering a challange and he got called.
Woodyx
Brad Templeton
henry <anon...@nyx10.cs.du.edu> wrote:
>it is a case of prior restraint, an attack on the rights of
>literary critics, an attack on individual expression of religion,
>an attack on the net community, a threat to free speech on the
>net, a calumny, a libel and a lie.
>
>you ought to know better than to be fooled by anyone making
>fraudulent claims of copyright violation. i KNOW you know
>your copyright law very well.
Actually, most of what I know about this case came from attending a
presentation by the attorney the EFF hired to defend the sysop of the
BBS that Erlich used.
While his main focus is whether that BBS (and netcom) should suffer
co-liability, I think from what I saw that it is far from clear whether
Erlich violated copyrights or not.
I do know that the judge issued a restraining order against him, so there
are others who think this is far from a clear case. Some of the sample
postings I saw struck me as violations -- assuming that the materials
posted were properly protected by copyright. Today, post-berne, they would
be, but I have no knoweldge of how well the CoS registered their
copyrights on these items.
Many of the comments were clearly fair use in my opinion, some were less
clear. I didn't see them all.
I can't say I've got a favourable impression of the Scientologists, but we
must be careful not to vilify the enemy. Even if they are criminally
harassing Erlich, we want to see this case ruled on the facts regarding
copyright infringement, not the morals of the Church of Scientology.
--
Keith Justified And Ancient Cochran
he just lets Netcom default to the normal distribution line. So who
is posting this?]
In article <noodleD8...@netcom.com>,
Rick Sherwood <noo...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Jon Noring (nor...@netcom.com) wrote:
>: fence, particularly Ms. Kobrin, even acknowledges the existence of Fair Use
>: of their "sacred scriptures".
>
> Jon, you are way of the loop on this one. Dennis was practicing fair use,
Thank you for admitting that, "Woody".
--
"Everybody says; 'Fool! Fool! Nothing you can do!'". Well, there actually is
something you can do. Contribute to the Dennis Elrich Defense Fund. Subscribe
to alt.religion.scientology and ask for more details.
henry
In article <icecubeD...@netcom.com>,
Bob Wallert <ice...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Dick Cleek (dcl...@pharos.uwc.edu) wrote:
>: ge...@netcom.com (Greg Andrews) wrote:
>: >gr...@netcom.com (Grady Ward) writes:
>: >>Netcom does not have an opinion as to the copyright status of the
>: >>laugable criminal cult doctrine of Xenu, Marcab aliens, and so on.
>The same thing applies to the Net and Erlich's actions. Because it has not
>yet been proven in a court of law that he violated the copyrights does not
>mean that a normal person cannot see what was posted and realize that
>plenty of evidence exists - enough to realize that Erlich is an infringer.
post ONE piece of evidence, you pathetic liar.
i put you on notice. you have seven days either
to retract your lies or prove your statement.
you will ignore this, because you're a worthless
liar, and you can't produce any evidence, because
you don't have any, because none exists.
PROVE IT!
> Bob Wollert
you worthless liar. mark my words. you will not
produce any of this 'evidence' because you are nothing
more or less than a common liar, a calumnious creep.
h
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6
iQCVAwUBL6neI9OUGUXWNqytAQFV0gP/TnKOZ8xYhOZQ+/0IaVLn5tc3JPRNwpo2
xOveKYrY2PiRN/o0D2cWEfYSD/qlyr+uSb9sAAoXpjFuyVBv2k5ndx1UIbY1z9+4
O//SJl2RA68mRc8GNy764nFC1NGzubNR+Ix0ERyGvn4tT1KDPOjw5lHM0TS2x4SL
qGU+5g0Xnrk=
=t5B4
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
William J. Evans
=== Nothing above this line is part of the message. ===
br...@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton) wrote:
: Even if they are criminally
:harassing Erlich, we want to see this case ruled on the facts regarding
:copyright infringement, not the morals of the Church of Scientology.
Not the _what_?
Signatures Follow. (tm)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2
iQCVAwUBL6qENO7FqQNEGv6lAQHkKwQAtFHKSgWOjJt/Yy7Ln49sLhvuscd1q0Lj
8xGcpMsSpdXok98hOBliST3m42juWfPn8JveX6o83KLhkU9KkjoVFZAx2Y0PzXy9
MCDq7Fz0UCzURbHjhyrK4BA9dRjzB2qI41tUPOsCZn6dGD7/FEfOEMLzE+XninIV
B+wULoKqm2s=
=OqBt
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--
Bill Evans P.O. Box 4829 Irvine, CA 92716 (714)551-2766 _ /| ACK!
Email-To: w...@acm.org -- PGP encrypted mail preferred. -- \`o_O' /
Finger w...@netcom.com for public key (and Geek code). =( )=
PGPprint: FB D0 1C 1D EF DC 26 BA B3 9E 84 0B 40 D6 59 9C U
Brad Templeton
William J. Evans <w...@acm.org> wrote:
>br...@clarinet.com (Brad Templeton) wrote:
>: Even if they are criminally
>:harassing Erlich, we want to see this case ruled on the facts regarding
>:copyright infringement, not the morals of the Church of Scientology.
>
>Not the _what_?
>
I don't like them any more than you do, but vilification of your opponent
is not the way to do things here. It may be standard fare for net flame
wars, but that doesn't make it good.
At *best*, it is sinking to the very level you would criticise.
Jim Hill
(Ron Newman) wrote:
> In article <jthill-0405...@jthill.slip.netcom.com>,
> Jim Hill <jth...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >Even in that imo unlikely event, the case is so full of unanswered
> >questions that the judge tossed Netcom and the other provider off your
> >list of defendants on day 1.
>
> This is not correct. Judge Whyte released them from the temporary
> restraining order, but did not dismiss them from the case (yet).
Whoops. Time to downgrade that paragraph from gale-force to a light
breeze. Thanks for the correction.
Stuart P. Derby
:Stuart P. Derby <sde...@crick.ssctr.bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:
::The following is a reprint of the entire text of section 107 of
::title 17, United States Code.
:
:No it isn't. A sentence was added a few of years ago at the end.
:I'll add it below.
:
::----------------------------------------------------------------------
::Section 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
::
::Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, the fair use of a
::copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or
::phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for
::purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching
::(including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or
::research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining
::whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair
::use the factors to be considered shall include--
::
:: (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether
::such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit
::educational purposes;
::
::(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
::
::(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation
::to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
::
::(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value
::of the copyrighted work.
::----------------------------------------------------------------------
:
:Add this:
:
: "The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a
: finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration
: of all the above factors."
:
:--Tim Smith
Aaargh. A reminder to me to never trust the bureaucracy (and always cite
my sources). The entire text of that post was cut-and-pasted from the
Copyright Office's on-line version of Circular 21, at:
gopher://marvel.loc.gov/00/copyright/circs/circ21
including the "entire text" sentence. However, the Cornell server has
that additional text at the end, as you stated. I would suspect that
the Cornell version is correct.
Mea culpa.
-Stu Derby
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stu Derby | WHERE IN THE WORLD IS DAVID MISCAVIGE??
sde...@bcm.tmc.edu | And what is the Church of Scientology trying to hide?
I speak only for myself.
Andrew Halvorsen
: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
: post ONE piece of evidence, you pathetic liar.
: i put you on notice. you have seven days either
: to retract your lies or prove your statement.
: you will ignore this, because you're a worthless
: liar, and you can't produce any evidence, because
: you don't have any, because none exists.
: PROVE IT!
: > Bob Wollert
: you worthless liar. mark my words. you will not
: produce any of this 'evidence' because you are nothing
: more or less than a common liar, a calumnious creep.
: h
: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
: Version: 2.6
: iQCVAwUBL6neI9OUGUXWNqytAQFV0gP/TnKOZ8xYhOZQ+/0IaVLn5tc3JPRNwpo2
: xOveKYrY2PiRN/o0D2cWEfYSD/qlyr+uSb9sAAoXpjFuyVBv2k5ndx1UIbY1z9+4
: O//SJl2RA68mRc8GNy764nFC1NGzubNR+Ix0ERyGvn4tT1KDPOjw5lHM0TS2x4SL
: qGU+5g0Xnrk=
: =t5B4
: -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
at least he knows not to take his mask off, when spamming. I've heard
spam in the eye hurts something fierce... =)
--
-ttyl
-andyh
|------------------
| NetCruisers |
| CLICK HERE |
|for a good time |
| |
------------------|
:link to Good Times:
NFS server nac9-n3 responded...for a brief history in time.
henry
In article <D821E...@clarinet.com>, Brad Templeton <br...@clarinet.com> wrote:
>>you ought to know better than to be fooled by anyone making
>>fraudulent claims of copyright violation. i KNOW you know
>>your copyright law very well.
>Actually, most of what I know about this case came from attending a
>presentation by the attorney the EFF hired to defend the sysop of the
>BBS that Erlich used.
you will note that klemesrud and netcom will almost certainly
be removed from the case immediately. had it not been for a
delaying action by the cult's lawyers it would have happened
already.
>While his main focus is whether that BBS (and netcom) should suffer
>co-liability, I think from what I saw that it is far from clear whether
>Erlich violated copyrights or not.
however, it is entirely clear that the organization which helena
kobrin represents does not own those copyrights and thus has no
claim to the items in question anyway. the document transferring
the intellectual and other property of l. ron hubbard to david
miscavige was a forgery, as both signatories had the same handwriting.
>I do know that the judge issued a restraining order against him, so there
>are others who think this is far from a clear case. Some of the sample
>postings I saw struck me as violations -- assuming that the materials
>posted were properly protected by copyright. Today, post-berne, they would
>be, but I have no knoweldge of how well the CoS registered their
>copyrights on these items.
in this case any literary biographer in the world would now be
opened up to posthumous lawsuits by opportunistic descendants
of the author.
any 60 minutes episode which quoted someone's words in order to
demonstrate the falseness of their position would be opened to
preemptive raids in order to make sure beforehand that they aren't
violating copyright.
this is absurd. restraining dennis' right to criticize the church
of scientology on the basis of an utterly fraudulent copyright issue
is disgraceful.
>Many of the comments were clearly fair use in my opinion, some were less
>clear. I didn't see them all.
dennis offered repeatedly and at great length to cancel any postings
which were copyright violations and not to post copyright violations
in the future, should the cult's representatives simply tell him
which postings were in violation.
not only did they ignore him, though they were obviously reading all
his postings and vilifying him every day, not only did they do this,
but then they went and lied to the judge, stating that he had done the
exact opposite, that he had defiantly refused to stop violating copy-
right and had expressed contempt for the law.
they exceeded the authority of an already-tainted civil writ of
seizure, destroyed property of dennis erlich's without proper legal
authorization, including evidence in the case. this is also a
crime. it is deliberate, flagrant, premeditated tampering with
evidence.
>I can't say I've got a favourable impression of the Scientologists, but we
>must be careful not to vilify the enemy.
nonsense. these bastards are stomping over every rule of netiquette
that ever existed, and threatening the physical well-being and civil
rights of net users. to object to a little harsh language in the
prosecution of this criminal organization is mawkish and namby-pamby
in the extreme.
>Even if they are criminally
>harassing Erlich, we want to see this case ruled on the facts regarding
>copyright infringement, not the morals of the Church of Scientology.
there are no facts regarding copyright infringement. it's a sucker
ploy. they are demanding nothing less than that dennis erlich be
denied to right to express his religious beliefs, a grotesque kick
in the face of civil rights and free speech.
the scientologists have been asked time and time again to produce
evidence of a single clear-cut copyright violation, and they have
refused to do so.
>Brad Templeton, publisher, ClariNet Communications Corp. in...@clari.net
>The net's #1 Electronic newspaper (95,000 readers) www.clari.net/brad.html
> My new personal page ^^^^^^^^^
h
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6
iQCVAwUBL6tG6NOUGUXWNqytAQGCWAP+NxE/sKHAK/uXur3rg74JDTrDcAx9lsFx
42aQcqWwPglCG1t2rkAqbqXkFGkEknBCTLEK+1dETzLzgCvEuvxW1MIGol1P5EpZ
vcIeA3jPeAG7TyjpEwqgiBnErUuvRc6BRqqL8JT/CB/L6gsxuin2vt86H3MFq9K/
q7yByy6Z/5Y=
=dX6d
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Tony Sidaway
ja...@netcom.com "Keith "Justified And Ancient" Cochran" writes:
> [Ok, see? Woody generally doesn't put "Distribution: inet" in his posts,
> he just lets Netcom default to the normal distribution line. So who
> is posting this?]
>
> In article <noodleD8...@netcom.com>,
> Rick Sherwood <noo...@netcom.com> wrote:
> >Jon Noring (nor...@netcom.com) wrote:
> >: fence, particularly Ms. Kobrin, even acknowledges the existence of Fair Use
> >: of their "sacred scriptures".
> >
> > Jon, you are way of the loop on this one. Dennis was practicing fair use,
>
> Thank you for admitting that, "Woody".
Someone tell me this is some sort of spoof!
--
Tony Sidaway SUPPORT DENNIS ERLICH, CRITIC SUED BY SCIENTOLOGISTS
Checks drawn in foreign currency on foreign banks ARE accepted.
Send checks to Electronic Frontier Foundation, 1667 K Street, NW, Suite 801,
Washington, DC 20006, USA. MAKE SURE YOU LABEL YOUR CHECK "DENNIS ERLICH
DEFENSE FUND". Checks should be made out to Electronic Frontier Foundation.
For verification of this info, email sst...@eff.org (Shari Steele)