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Google vs. DMCA and Scientology
Uebergeek writes "This article at the NYTimes (free registration, blah blah) details how google is dealing with the many complaints it gets from organizations when one of its links potentially violates a copyright (or just irritates the copyright's owner).
Specifically, it talks about how Google is dealing with the Scientologist's complaints about the list of the Operation Clambake site... now Google features a prominent link to another site that shows the complaint that the Scientologists filed, along with the delisted links."
" How long will the DMCA be used to trample freedom of speech, expression, and fair use, until Congress gets it into their thick skulls that this is BAD LEGISLATION, and repeals it?
Maybe the overwhelmingly negative response to CBPTBA (or whatever) will act as a wakeup call."
All I can say is that if these sorts of laws continue to be passed and abused, methinks the IP hoarders will be "the first against the wall when the revolution comes" (to "fair use" some Douglas Adams).
The fact that the DMCA *IS* most definately being used to stifle free speech, in the terms of POLITICAL speech (as $cientology IS a religious lobby), should ALONE merit review....
But, alas, so long as the RIAA/MPAA/$cientologists, et all, get to INITIATE the cases, they will continue to get to handpick the judges and courts.
Which will get us more sham trials like the DeCSS case.
What is needed is for us to somehow file a CLASS ACTION against those enforcing the DMCA, on a first amendment basis, and based on the copyright/fair use provision of the Constitution.
I had such high hopes for the Felten case, because for once our side would be the initiator, instead of the defendant... I beleive it was a mistake for him to go ahead and GIVE his speech, because to not do so would have made it easier to show that he was INTIMIDATED into silence by DMCA saber rattling.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
This took about .5 seconds, try searching news stories on yahoo.
http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html
From news.yahoo.com is the same story, no registration required.
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Scientology isn't really much of a religion at all, really. It's an MLM scheme that has found posing as a religion to be highly conductive to its fraudulent business practices.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
The acronym to remember is BITE and it's all about control.
I suggest having a look at Freedom of Mind and their resources.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
This also illustrates why we need many search engines. Google, whose size and popularity makes it a prime target, also makes them a prime place to publicize the censorship. Other engines can still link to the articles. For instance, it is still possible to find these links.
http://www.scientology-lies.com/
http://www.primenet.com/~cultxpt/cos.htm
http://www.xenu.net/
If we have many search engines, and other places to find links, it will be difficult for the oppressor to squash the resistance.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
[Scientology is] an MLM scheme that has found posing as a religion to be highly conductive to its fraudulent business practices.
I suspect Multi-Level Marketing was copied from proselytizing religions rather than the other way around. I'd match my grandparent's Jehovah's Witness study group of about a dozen fanatics against an entire Amway marketing convention. (Of course, there's no financial payback for recruiting more JW's, but it gets you higher in the queue for those 144,000 seats in heaven, and JW's should be so focused on heaven they don't mind a little poverty now...)
From what I've heard of the origins of Scientology, it began approximately 1950 as an alternate form of psychotherapy (Dianetics) invented by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. The medical profession tried to get it banned. I don't see any scientific basis to Dianetics, but then I don't see any scientific basis to the medically approved psychotherapy of that era either, nor anything to indicate that Dianetics was more harmful than orthodox treatments of that time such as lobotomies, electroshock, or endless discussions of the patient's toilet training. So it's possible the MD's just didn't like the competition...
When L Ron Hubbard found out he wasn't going to be able to beat the AMA in court, he reconstituted Dianetics as a "religion", making it untouchable by the law. The problem is twofold:
To make it qualify as a religion, Hubbard apparently felt it had to have beliefs just as wacky as Christianity (Noah's ark, for instance). So he tossed in a bunch of science fiction about ancient alien civilations (like running the worst of Doc Smith through a blender 8-). The problem: some people actually _believe_ this bull****.
As a religion, Dianetics doesn't need any scientific research to back it, and AFAIC no research has been done. The only obvious change in 50 years was more sophisticated versions of the "e-meter" (sort of a single-channel lie detector) used in "counseling". Meanwhile, psychiatry has done a lot of real experimental research, and is much more effective than it used to be. In 50 years, medically approved psychotherapy has gone from the equivalent of leeches (just 200 years ago the leading doctor in the USA thought bleeding cured _everything_, but at least he didn't do lobotomies), to the equivalent of sulfa antibiotics (pre-penicillin, dangerous and only sometimes effective, but a hell of a lot better than nothing). Meanwhile dianetics has pretty much stood still.
>>Are you going to financially back a lawsuit if one is filed?
>Someone ought to.
This has come up before, I'm sure of it.
While I agree that linking out with an extra layer of indirection to chillingeffects shows less balls than either showing the anti CoS links or showing the cached contents of the anti CoS links, I can see where the mere threat of the costs of the legal battle are enough to cast a chill on Google's management.
I thought there has been legislation, at least proposed, in various states that is intended to combat such legal tactics.
Essentially, if someone uses suits that turn out to be dismissed as frivolous as a way of encumbering you with legal bills to the point where your behavior effectively becomes constrained to their wishes, then you have an additional legal recourse.
But you can tell IANAL, and I don't know which states, if any, have statutes like this, nor do I know how far you have to go before you get to take advantage of them. I doubt they apply to the problem of intimidating DMCA letters, though.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
In case you don't get the joke (like I didn't at first) read: http://www.xenu.net/archive/footbullet/
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I hadn't thought about this before, but this draws from a long line of precedent. I'm taking a class in late Romantic Literature right now, and we're studying Pierce Shelley. We just read his epic "Prometheus Unbound", which actually shares some of the same tenents. The idea that we are masters of our own destiny, and that we have created our own God in order to enslave ourselves was formulated here as a refutation of Christianity. While Shelley's work would also defy Scientology, which places the external force of an cosmic warlord from "outside" as enslaving us, the idea of breaking free from enslavement is still present.
So while Hubbard's load of crap may seem funny and stupid, it does bear some baggage from the best thinkers of the Enlightenment. I think this is some small part of what makes it attractive to many people now, despite its obvious stupidity.
That said, Shelley and all his ilk would have hated Scientology because it degrades its members in to the lowest form of slavery imaginable, which is why we need great sites like xenu.net (which I've been telling everyone I can about) in order to really get the word out.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
If someone ignores the Catholic ban on contraception , the Catholic church does not try to kill them. Circumcision is a medical procedure that is occasionally done without religious requirement. Nevertheless, circumcision does no more than remove the foreskin.
Remember, we live in the 20th century. A church, or any body except a nation, cannot simply declare war on another body legally. Things that were acceptable in the 13th century no longer apply. The court system, for example, is under government jurisdiction, not church. Thus, in the current controversy with child molesters and the Catholic church, the Catholic does not have the legal right to 'take care of the issue' themselves. Government enforces the laws and enforces them upon anyone, regardless of their religious preference.
In the United States, churchs are allowed to pursue their own form of worship as long as that form does not conflict with other laws. (The exceptions are relatively minor and mostly apply to Indian tribes and maintaining a culture.)
Some church heads are elected. The Pope is elected, for example (from the Cardinal College, I believe.) Furthermore, the church body often has the power to get rid of a minister and request another.
And finally, individuals have a right to leave a religion. Scientology does not hold this right and actively works against it, to the point of harrasement, kidnapping, brainwashing, and murder.
Religions are established within some philosophical or theological premise. Scientology, instead, was established to make money. L. Ron Hubbard admitted as such. Scientology actively lies to its members, discourages any dissent, and attempts to silence its critics.
Germany recognizes that Scientology is a scam, and it is thus illegal there. However, in the US, by hiding behind the tax-sheltered status of a church, Scientology has been able to grow and remain a threat for the past several decades.
Scientology is a scam, not a religion.