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Dutch Court Rules That Linking Is Legal In Scientology Case
touretzky writes "The Court of Appeal in The Hague today rejected all of Scientology's claims in appeal in Scientology's action against XS4ALL, Karin Spaink and ten other internet providers. As a result,
Karin Spaink's website, which Scientology sought to remove from the Internet based on copyright claims, is entirely legal in the Netherlands. The court also overturned two lower court rulings, one of which said that linking to material that infringed a copyright was itself actionable. The other ruling said that ISPs that failed to act on credible notification of a copyright violation could be held liable for that. The Appeals Court felt that this was too vague a standard, and thus posed a threat to free speech. More info at ScientologyWatch.org."
It seems to me that the two lower rulings being overturned is a great achievement. Linking to remote content almost defines what the web is! And making ISPs into police is always just asking for trouble. Well done the Hague!
Disclaimer: The above comment was made while under the influence of too much coding and not enough sleep.
A religion that has trade secrets is a little frightening. And if you believe even a fraction of what the Xenu people have to tell, it's more of a public service than anything else to expose the nonsense propaganda that this organization spreads.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Hmm... the article seems to center more on "common carrier" arguments and paraphrasing of the original work, the paraphrase of which is posted as content on the site, rather than linking, but regardless...
It amazes me that the "Church of Scientology" continues to pursue this, after the well-known Usenet debacle. I don't see how it helps their image at all, trying to force people not to discuss their "religion". This activity only adds fuel to the fire. Surely they have their share of lawyers or PR consultants on board, doesn't the basic concept of sticking to your points and ignoring/downplaying your opposition's get on the strategy table?
The disturbing part here is Scientology's continuing attempt to treat opposing views or information as derivative products of their ideas, and shut them down as if they were an IP violation. Maybe what Enron should have done is patent the concept of cooked books, and sued anyone talking about it.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
What makes you extend this to posting an entire album? What about fair use? Simply because the website posted portions of copyrighted material doesn't mean it's illegal. Also, another important thing is parody. I'm not familiar with the website, but if it could in any way be construed as a parody, it would be completely legit.
We aren't against all copyrights (most of us anyways). We just don't like it when copyright owners try to make us use their information exactly as they wish and not to critique it with excerpts.
Everyone does (assuming you don't have permission from $BAND). However, the court upheld the right to post links to other sites, which is not the same thing.
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
This is an amazing victory for free speech. The COS is a rich dangerous cult that is amazingly adept at using the courts to silence its victims. It really is incredable that the good guys won in this case.
I first read that as "Thinking ruled is legal in Scientology Case" and thought "It's about time!". Oh well. I wouldn't dare think anything about the case... Hold on... Someone's at my door.
This makes me proud to be a dutchmen. And proud to use the excellent services from xs4all. They always have been a strong supporter of both privacy and free speech and are willing to back it up. Even though they went from a hacker provider to one of the major league telco subsidairies.
xs4all keep up the good work!
Disclaimer: This opinion was created without the use of any facts
Based on what the article says, what you are really saying is that if you posted a review of $BAND with a link to the illegal posting of the entire album that your ISP should be held liable for copywrite infringement. That argument doesn't wash with me; the ISP should be considered a common carrier and nothing more.
This has nothing to do with Scientology and everything to do with protecting those entities that provide access to content providers. The fact that some copywrite holders (RIAA, Sceintology, etc) think that it is easier and cheaper to attach the bandwith provider than it is to attach the content providers does not make such actions justified. This is a good decision that should be mirrored in the US. I've got my fingers crossed....
kevin zollinger - kevin@mailsoap.com Spam Free Email!
Scientology = a satanic cult.
;-)
They never call it that, but that's what all of the teachings really are. Their basic ideas is that you are the center of the universe, and anything you do to anybody to obtain your goals is OK. And their rituals (with the E-meter) are just as strange. The only reason for giving it a different name is that "Scientology" is able to recruit celebrities, while those same celebrities typically avoid anything with obvious satanic connotations.
(of course the way Bill Gates manages Microsoft often reminds me of Scientology, but that's a separate topic
Copyright is fine. Just as long as it will expire in a reasonable amount of time (20 years).
Patents are okay, too. As long as they aren't for software or "business methods".
I never understood the Plaintiff's legal logic behind these "linking" equals "copyright violation" cases. (I get the overall logic of "We are powerful. You are not. We'll make you shut-up if we don't like what you say." But, it is the logic in the legal briefs I don't get.)
As far as I am concerned the A tag of HTML is just a citation format. If the link is a copyright violation, why aren't citations made in MLA or Blue Book formats similar copyright violations? The idea extends to deep-linking cases. If deep-linking allows you to skip past the ads on a web page and is supposedly illegal because of that, why aren't pin-point citations (where you cite both the book and the page on the book where the quote is from) illegal?
I'll accept that a trade secret case could be filed, but copyright? If it is a link, it is not a copy; it is a citation, i.e. a pointer to the original "copy" of the web page.
I haven't bothered to do any research on this (because it has yet to directly affect my life). Has any defendant advanced the A tag as citation argument? Did the judge buy it?
Here is what dictionary.com says:
scientology: log in for this definition of scientology and other entries in Webster's Millennium(TM) Dictionary of English, available only to Dictionary.com Premium members
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
You haven't been here long enough...
All copyrights are bad except things copyrighted by the GPL.
The courts actually ruled that free speech is more importatnt than IP. Now, if only the USSC could follow suit...
#define DRM chmod 000
I think a litmus test for all future court cases should be: "If the case is brought by the Church of Scientology, it must have no merit."
God is real unless declared integer.
Ought to deal with Scientologists the same way. If their work is so secret that they cannot have it published, then perhaps they are consorting with Baphomet too!
This is my sig.
Considering how important I take this ruling to be (it's a ruling upholding fair use and against strong-arm tactics; and it sets a nice precedent) for the web, I'm surprised this isn't being covered in the news in the Netherlands...it didn't even make regional tv.
I wonder if it makes the back pages of the papers...
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Rob Malda: "Our lawyers have advised us that, considering all the details of this case, the comment should come down"
o t3-summary.html
Here is the document that Slashdot removed when COS threatened them with the DMCA: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/Declaration/
Hosted right here in the USA by Dr. David Touretzky, research professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Not the same at all.
May I suggest following the link? The "Fishman Affidavit" is a court record - a public document. Here, I'll help you out a little:
When Fishman was then brought to court, he used parts of Scientology-documents to prove he had been brainwashed by the Church. These Scientology documents thereby became public material: anybody could go to the court library and read them. The Church, fearing that its sacred secrets would be revealed, had some of their people going to the library every day to borrow these documents, thereby preventing other people (read: non-Scientologists) from reading them. Nevertheless, the Fishman Affidavit got copied (it was also available through the clerk of the court, for a mere $36.50). Somebody retrieved the affidavit via the clerk, scanned it, and posted it to the net. The Fishman Affidavit has been travelling on the Internet ever since.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
... And their rituals (with the E-meter) are just as strange.
Not really. Their main purpose is four-fold:
1. Provide a means for subject to discuss problems with another human being (on some very basic level, it does help, I suppose).
2. Pass a low current through subject to introduce a sense of euphoria, which is both addictive and lowers resistance (heh) to interrogator's questions.
3. Alert interrogator to any issues which may weaken hold on subject.
4. Provide information on subject to be used if hold on subject ever looks like it may be broken.
So, what happens in the U.S. if a organization is ever certified as a "religion" by mistake? Is any means available to undo it?
This proves once more that XS4ALL is one of the greatest ISPs in Europe and possibly the world. No, I'm not affiliated with them, other than being a very happy customer.
Let's face it, how many ISPs would stand by their customer against a rich and dangerous opponent? How many would simply have pulled Karin Spank's site at the first hint of trouble, without caring whether the complaint was justified?
XS4ALL was started by the Dutch hacker group "hack-tic" in a time when Internet access was not available to the general public. Although they are a commercial entity and were bought by the national phone company a few years ago, they remain faithful to the spirit in which they were founded and to their original goals: to promote full, uncensored and unconstrained Internet access for everyone.
Technically, they're great as well -- in my five years as a customer, I've only had a handful of short outages and all of them were caused by the ADSL infrastructure rather than the provider. Power users who want to run Linux, set up a home network and run their own web/mail server are not just allowed, they're encouraged. There's an on-line service page through which you can maintain things like spamfilters, a firewall (off by default, but easy to turn on and heavily promoted) and an experimental IPv6 tunnel. They run a number of game servers themselves and during Gulf War II, they participated in a digital TV trial which offered several Arabian stations in addition to BBC Worldnews etc.
In short, if you're a geek, you should move to the Netherlands just so you can get an XS4ALL account.
What I don't understand is the fact that in these deep link cases, the sites didn't take any steps to prevent the deep linking through passwords ro REFERER checks...that's akin to putting a poster of information near a window in your house and suing people who walk by the window and see it. How any judge could rule in their favor is beyond me.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Every Slashdotter knows no-one reads them anyway....
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Sure there is, the GPL. Which is backed up by copyright laws. It would be illigal for me to claim open source work as my own if I did not in fact create it. You get rid of copyright and the GPL can no longer be enforced so there is no more open source since anything you release can be made into a non opensource product.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Actually, they are organized criminials and terrorists masquarading as a cult. Why do you think they run all these front companies? Money laundering and tax evasion. Rread the comments on the site linked in the story, find the really long one where some guy wrote about the 10 odd years of his life he wasted on these creeps, he mentions several said front companies there and the illegal practices they did. Yes, it is in english. You can't miss it, it fills half the page. They are a LOT like Al Qaida, only its an American organization instead of an islamic one.
How to get this site off the web...
Plan a: Sue em!
(if that doesn't work)
Plan b: Get their link posted to Slashdot..... that'll burn their serves off the net!
Seriously, I was approached by the Scientologiests a few years back (before knowing anything about them). I was a little naieve (sp?) , and signed up for a course in Dynetics... What they said seemed very plausible. The people who were running this course did seam a tad strange, almost as if they were in a daze....
After doing a search on Infoseek for dynetics, (Google wasn't around then), I was quite shocked what these people could be up to. I decided not to return, though they phoned me back loads of times trying to persuade me to.
I now consider Scientology akin to a computer virus, exploiting a flaw in the human brain, and spread from one to the next. First the brain is rooted. Trust is gained. And then, over the corse of many months, subsystem after subsystem is taken down. All for the persuit of cash. The net could well have saved me, by downloading info into my head, that prevents rooting by these people.
I can only feel sorry for those who are already taken over by this cult.
yes but no-one would be forced to use their rotten binaries.
... I don't see what that has to do with what I said. Stallman is the "GNU/Free Software" guy, remember? His primary goal is to make the source code for all software available (in fact, he wants to make it illegal to distribute something without source code -- even if I wrote the thing myself.)
He sometimes claims that his purpose is to destroy copyright, but he wants more than that -- he wants copyright replaced with a system that enforces his particular views.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
The trouble that I've noticed with copyright is that it doesn't deal well when something becomes part of mass-culture. Someone or some group creates something that becomes intrinsic in society, yet even after the novelty has worn off, they continue to maintain an iron grip on it. They won't release it to the benefit of society. Disney, the RIAA, the MPAA, and the like are all involved in this. Hell, half of the old TV shows made after '68 are unknown to younger generations. How many kids under the age of fifteen have seen "Scarecrow and Mrs. King", or "Laverne and Shirley", or "Taxi"? Some of the programs that were popular even as little as 20 years ago, ones that made a large impact on popular culture, are not really found anymore, while TV shows before that (which were subject to differing copyright and public domain rules), like "Star Trek", "Lost in Space", "The Andy Griffith Show", and such are still entertaining people today.
New culture can be cool. I've found groups like Space Hog, Chris Isaac, and Love and Rockets to be very entertaining and very talented, but I've also found a wealth of very good music and media from the past, and it doesn't see the light of day anymore unless it was top-40 back in it's heyday. That's just sad.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
You can do that now with a GPLd program, except for claiming that you wrote it (since you have to retain the original copyright notices when you redistribute).
It's too late to remove copyright laws now (anybody who proposed such a thing would be accused of being some kind of communist). However, it would be interesting to go back to the late 18th century when the utility of copyrights was still under debate. If one could inform the people formulating these laws how much feature creep and freedom-restricting expansions the copyright concept would experience over the next 250 years, I wonder if they wouldn't put a clause in the constitution prohibiting copyrights.
In its place, very strong laws prohibiting false claims of authorship might have been put in place. (This would address the "claiming it as their own" problem you mentioned, and almost nobody would object to such a statute because it's basically fair.) Additionally, only the actual author or his licensees could produce copies labeled as "genuine". Other than that, anybody could produce copies of anything, as long as they weren't billed as genuine.
I would bet that over the centuries, this kind of copyrightless scheme would have supported plenty of content creation. It would tend to favor high quality works since people tend pay extra for genuine copies of the things that they enjoy most. The media industries would be smaller than they are today, but that's no real loss since 90% of everything put out right now is crap.
I can tell you first hand that this organization is evil. Now the people who are within it are generally well intentioned and sincerely believe that they are a part of something that is working to make the world a better place. This is part of what makes it so evil, it uses its own victims to perpetrate its crimes. Make no mistake, the primary victims of Scientology are its own members who are lied to at every turn and discouraged from seeking out or even looking at independent sources of information on the cult. Those like myself who get wise to the scam and leave are viciously attacked whenever we speak out against the cult and try to warn others of its evil. Of course you could say the same thing about any cult and even Amway for that matter. What makes scientology so bad is that unlike some scams that simply go after your money, scientology goes after your life. Scientology will bankrupt you, separate you from your family and friends, literally make you into a slave, and then cast you aside like yesterday's garbage once they've gotten everything they can out of you.
Scientology is essentially a mind control cult bent on world domination disguised as a religion. The only weapon that works against such an entity is the truth, and is it ever working. Scientology has gone from being something that most people think is strange, if they've ever heard of it to begin with, to something that most people despise or at least distrust. I have the deepest respect and admiration for those who have the courage to fight this organization. If even one person is saved from a life of misery it will have been worth it.
If anyone wants to know more about this organization, there is one place that should be able to answer your questions: Operation Clambake at www.xenu.net
We are talking about legal costs for each ISP of less than US$1500. And the costs paid by the plaintiffs when the ISPs are found to do nothing wrong. Why cannot the US legal system be more like Holland's?
Once upon a time I actually did one of those Scientology personality tests (in my defense: it was sort of early in the mid-afternoon and the sun was really, really quite uncomfortably bright and I was really hung-over and ... well, anyway, it's a long story) and it was the greatest thing: I never heard from them again and could always say -- truthfully -- to all those pesky Scientologists accosting you on the street trying to make you take one that I already had.
On the other hand, you know you're really f*cked when not even the Scientologists want you.
The liver is evil and must be punished.
I had a not so good run in with the scientologists. In Australia they hand out pamphlets saying "Free I.Q Test" with an address. Absolutely no details whatsoever saying who they are. Many years ago I actually went to it thinking cool (as if it was legitimate). I did the test and then they went off to mark it.
When they come back they do a one on one interview. I think I got 132 (what they said). She said that's very good, entry level genius. I thought shit okay, then she said now look at this chart. Showed me a chart with different moods labelled on it, she said "you're all over the place, you're an unstable person" - "You have the intelligence but you need to balance yourself out, why don't you come on one of our courses?, $100." Thats when I started to think "Oh I see, get me in for a free i.q test and then try and get me to go on a course, well see you later". I should of knew better. At this point I didn't know who the scientologists were, and I couldn't of cared less, I wasn't going to pay money this way. So I told her I wasn't really interested.
Then she said, well, then do you want to buy some of our books, $9-10 each (Author Hubbard of course). Then I said err no. Then that's when she came out with it, "It's all about trust, you have to trust me".. "Have you noticed John Travolta has been doing alot of movies lately?". Then I started to think, oh, scientologists, I think I saw these guys on the news. I actually had them mixed up with National Geographic.
Then she really got aggressive... "Well, do you have any money on you?", I said, "No I got no money", then she said - "well do you have a card you can get money out of", again I said "No".
Finally, I thought, I gotta get out of this mutha fucker, so I said "Err how about you give me your phone number and I'll call you?", and she said, "No.", and I said "why not?", and she said, "because I know you won't call", then I said "Do you trust me?". Then I got my bag and left, fucking showed her.
As I was walking down the stairs I saw their posters and thought, oh yeah, I think I know who these fuckers are.
Anyway, I blame myself for going and not thinking. Be careful of so called "free" i.q tests - they're out to brainwash you.
Lately I've spotted a UFO cult in my neighborhood, the Raelians. These bitches are everywhere (cults) and you'll be surprised at their membership numbers, it's fucked up society we live in.
"Personally threatened?" That's laughable. I release all my stuff under a BSD-style license, which is "freer" than the GPL -- people can do whatever the heck they want with it. Claiming that someone "feels threatened" when they disagree with something is a classic ad hominem attack.
You claim that he has "saved the world from a potentially very dark place." I don't buy it. His politics haven't done anything but create a bunch of people spouting his rhetoric. His software development has been much more successful, and I respect the amount of work he has put into it, but that doesn't mean that I have to accept his political views.
But this is way offtopic. The original discussion was "would abolishing copyright make the GPL unneccesary?" and somehow you've managed to get it to meander into condemning English-speakers for being untrusting.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
UPDATE: this may be redundant, but the scientology tracts on this woman's website are publicly available court documents, known as the "Fishman Affadavit" because of a court case involving a former scientologist and his contention that he committed crimes because he was brainwashed.
I prefer Neil Postman's view on the subject in that religion is a mechanism for providing order and context to information. Religion might seem like a crutch, but to most it is a means of imposing a comforting sense of order on to the perceived universe.
You could argue that Slashdot behaves much like religion, in that it ranks, orders, and provides emphasis on selected information. Just as Pat Robertson tells his followers that rock music consists of backwards Satanic rituals, Slashdot moderators dish out "-1, Troll" tags to me and put me below the posting threshold. Both of them have a major role in selectively sieving and censoring information.
Actually, I shouldn't compare Slashdot to religion. Slashdot IS a religion.
I can't resist...
"Hmmm, well isn't that special. Posting links to church secrets. Who could be behind this? I just can't imagine who...
Could it be... THETANS?"
Props to the Church Lady :)
Binary geeks can count to 1,023 on their fingers
As far as other claims, just like in slashdotter world, you have to be careful how you post things...most normal people have zero understanding of the subtlies of copyright law...how to make sure you can get your point without violation. The lawyers know people [and often Judges] aren't versed in the particulars. Again a case where the Law refuses to simplify rules, or publish "safe" useages without weeding thru piles of paper.
Of course to me [USA] this means jack squat. We still have to deal with this mess!
And for once, this is 100% accurate:
1. Join our church
2. ???
3. Profit
A cousin of mine once landed in these guy's hands. It took him and his parents four years to get him out, and he never really recovered.
I totally agree with Tokerat.
If you want to restrict who accesses the information you are specifically setting up software to share to a public medium, the onus to track and authorize users should be completely your responsibility.
Why is it that I get a Microsoft ad to go with this article on Scientology.
....
Strange, hmm
Won't work. Ronbots have already created tens of thousands of fake 'homepages' for their victims, sorry - members - on which script generated Success Stories(tm) and links to every conceivable front and incarnation of the criminal organization are automatically posted. Here's a small sample, note the inconspicous domain name -- the whole site is in fact owned by Ronbots.
t act.htm
http://www.oursites.org/andreazastawny/
Now check out the 'contact me' part:
http://www.oursites.org/andreazastawny/con
The form goes straight to the Scientology main organisation's lead generation department -- without as much as a hidden form field designating the pretend-person whom you were 'contacting'. But you can be ever so sure somebody WILL reply.
These tens of thousands of bogus and completely identical sites are designed precisely to spam the search engines, and regrettably it seems to have worked at least on Google.
http://www.xenu.net/
The Church of Scientology knows what they're doing, at least in terms of getting their sites highly listed in Google.
I was doing research on drug addiction, and did searches for 'marijuana addiction', 'lsd addiction', 'cocaine addiction', and 'heroin addiction'.
The first (or second) listed sites for each of those searches turned out to be Narconon sites. Narconon is a Scientology front group. see http://www.crackpots.org/ for more info.
Narconon is not to be confused with Narcotics Anonymous, which is a legit organization. The name similarity is probably intentional (on the part of Narconon).
So the next time you're looking for drug addiction info on Google, keep an eye out for Narconon pages, and if you have no love for Scientology, don't link to them. They seem to be doing well enough already...
However, if you would place a link to another website that has this album for download, you would not be infringing copyrights or doing anything illegal whatsoever.
It boils down to, more or less, the idea that you cannot be held responsible for what others place online... which sounds like a reasonable concept to me.
So there are mechanisms to deal with this kind of situation.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I'm sorry to say it has happened. I had the displeasure of seeing Stephen Kapp rip off some free software, and I've heard of him doing it to other people too. And he's not the only one; I heard of something similar happening to Samba.
Well, this doesn't go back quite that far...
A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 5TH OF FEBRUARY 1841
by Thomas Babington Macaulay
On the twenty-ninth of January 1841, Mr Serjeant Talfourd obtained leave to bring in a bill to amend the law of copyright. The object of this bill was to extend the term of copyright in a book to sixty years, reckoned from the death of the writer.
On the fifth of February Mr Serjeant Talfourd moved that the bill should be read a second time. In reply to him the following Speech was made. The bill was rejected by 45 votes to 38.
Though, Sir, it is in some sense agreeable to approach a subject with which political animosities have nothing to do, I offer myself to your notice with some reluctance. It is painful to me to take a course which may possibly be misunderstood or misrepresented as unfriendly to the interests of literature and literary men. It is painful to me, I will add, to oppose my honourable and learned friend on a question which he has taken up from the purest motives, and which he regards with a parental interest. These feelings have hitherto kept me silent when the law of copyright has been under discussion. But as I am, on full consideration, satisfied that the measure before us will, if adopted, inflict grievous injury on the public, without conferring any compensating advantage on men of letters, I think it my duty to avow that opinion and to defend it.
The first thing to be done, Sir, is to settle on what principles the question is to be argued. Are we free to legislate for the public good, or are we not? Is this a question of expediency, or is it a question of right? Many of those who have written and petitioned against the existing state of things treat the question as one of right. The law of nature, according to them, gives to every man a sacred and indefeasible property in his own ideas, in the fruits of his own reason and imagination. The legislature has indeed the power to take away this property, just as it has the power to pass an act of attainder for cutting off an innocent man's head without a trial. But, as such an act of attainder would be legal murder, so would an act invading the right of an author to his copy be, according to these gentlemen, legal robbery.
Now, Sir, if this be so, let justice be done, cost what it may. I am not prepared, like my honourable and learned friend, to agree to a compromise between right and expediency, and to commit an injustice for the public convenience. But I must say, that his theory soars far beyond the reach of my faculties. It is not necessary to go, on the present occasion, into a metaphysical inquiry about the origin of the right of property; and certainly nothing but the strongest necessity would lead me to discuss a subject so likely to be distasteful to the House. I agree, I own, with Paley in thinking that property is the creature of the law, and that the law which creates property can be defended only on this ground, that it is a law beneficial to mankind. But it is unnecessary to debate that point. For, even if I believed in a natural right of property, independent of utility and anterior to legislation, I should still deny that this right could survive the original proprietor. Few, I apprehend, even of those who have studied in the most mystical and sentimental schools of moral philosophy, will be disposed to maintain that there is a natural law of succession older and of higher authority than any human code. If there be, it is quite certain that we have abuses to reform much more serious than any connected with the question of copyright. For this natural law can be only one; and the modes of succession in the Queen's dominions are twenty. To go no further than England, land generally descends to the eldest son. In Kent the sons share and share alike. In many districts the youngest takes the whole. Formerly a portion of a man's personal property was secured to his family; and it
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
I'm distressed by this court's decision. For example, if I were to post an entire album by $BAND along with a critique, everyone would agree that this was copyright infringement.
It's a good decision. The point raised by your hypothetical situation is entirely different than the one that was decided just now. IMO it's a very good thing that at least in the Netherlands, the courts seem now to limit the ability of copyright holders to use legal procedures to hook in people who at the very least are not primary copyright-infringers. The decision limits the scope for IP holders to abuse their IP rights by treating them as tools to intimidate people from doing lawful things.
What seems a great pity is that some of the results of reported litigation have seemed linked to whether the defendant's activities are intrinsically sympathetic, not so much whether they breach the core purpose of the IP laws. The result is for example that litigation prospects for filesharing/ searching software can apparently be damaged by linking this activity -- fairly or unfairly -- with activities that Judge Joe Public finds generally unsympathetic.
In this kind of environment, these Scientology cases actually look like good news for parties representing freedom. The Scientology parties are such unattractive litigants, that their attempts to use IP rights as pretexts to bolster their unsavoury activities are likely to produce decisions in favour of freedom that limit the abuse of IP rights.
Some comments while reading http://www.rechtspraak.nl/uitspraak/frameset.asp?u i_id=51205 (it's in Dutch, the ruling of Sept 4th 2003) combined with the things I read about the whole thing earlier.
:) and non-commercial
Karin Spaink (the woman in question) has posted the Fishman affidavit in response to the Usenet debacle back then but when it became clear that it contained too much copyrighted work to be legal, she removed it and in stead posted a commentary on the whole case, including some quotes from the copyrighted (and supposedly highly secret and worth big bucks to Scientology) works.
Because she was quick enough to remove the entire Fishman affidavit and the court didn't think she would re-post it, the court only focussed on the article with quotes that was left on her site.
Scientology says OT II and III are illegal to publish and Internet providers should remove them immediately, also posting links to such copyrighted works is illegal
The court agreed that linking and publishing copyrighted works was illegal and providers should give out names and addresses of violators.
Spaink & providers claimed copyright was not with Scientology but that was not proven
Quotes are legal if they are from a rightfully published source
Court says some of the works are not rightfully published (i.e. not supposed to be public).
EVRM (European treaty on the rights of humans?) could overrule copyright in cases of great importance
Spaink's article is a serious article on a serious subject (-my words
Court thinks Scientology is not afraid to deny democratic values and the secrecy of the works are also meant to exercise power over its members and to prevent discussion. (!!)
Forcing providers to remove or make unavailable the articles by Spaink, is 'disproportional'.
Providers are providing the technical means for publishing, they are not publishers themselves (compared to e.g. book publishing companies)
It is not proven that the articles of Karin Spaink violate copyright.
Court does not rule about the whole Fishman affidavit, as Spaink has already stopped publishing it and shows no intent to do it again.
Again, just quick notes and IANAL. It's also worth reading earlier court decisions as this is a follow-up (appeal).
The problem with a Trade Secret case would be that if it is already published on their web site, it can hardly be called a trade secret.
, etc. Our bodies are infested with these brainwashed spirits and they deceive and control us. They are colled BodyThetans. Anyone who has not been cleansed of BodyThetans is under Alien Mind Control.
The things the Scientologists are suing over are NOT published on the Scientology website.
To summerize, CoS is suing websites that say Sicentology is a UFO cult, for posting that CoS teaches that millions of years ago an intergalactic overlord called Xenu solved an over population problem by rounding up billions of people, deep freezing them, hauling them to earth, laying them out around volcanos, and then setting off nukes in those volcanoes. He then magnetically trapped the spirits of the people he killed and "brain washed them" with movies of modern life, Job-family-WhitePicketFence-Consumerism-Obedience
Scientology is not attacking these statements because they are FALSE. They are attacking these statments because they are ACTUAL SECRETS of Scientology.
The reason Scientology is exceptionally dangerous is the idea that anyone who has not been cleansed of BodyThetans is under Alien Mind Control. Assuming you have ever watched any SciFi movies you should realize that it is OK to deal with people under Alien Mind Control by any means neccessary. Generally you just lie to them, but it is perfectly OK to kill them when they get in the way. CoS's other tactics include lawsuits, threats, and invented charges (such as pedophilia) to discredit their enemies.
It is "regrettable" that they have to do terrible and criminal things to people who are non-members of Scientology, but we are all under Alien Mind Control. It's like the Matrix, until we have been liberated we are all the enemy.
Another specific teaching - when someone says anything negative about Scientology they do NOT respond to what was have said (what they have said it most likely true), what they do is discredit the speaker. This is known as "dead agenting". They hire private investigators and even illegally invade government databases to find damning information about that person. If they can't find anything they MAKE IT UP. Instead of responding to charges against CoS they say that the speaker is a drunk/communist/ex-felon/pedofile, that he lied about X, or was wrong about Y. That speaker is then discredited - he is a "dead agent". His statements will no longer be believed even if they are true.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Both scanned and HTMLed versions of the document are available on my web site at Carnegie Mellon.
For News picked up the story, as did the New York Post. But the local papers in Tampa and Clearwater, Florida (where a major Scientology bas is located) have not covered the story. I think they're afraid to touch it, even though their own readers' lives are at risk. Maybe someone should ask the Tampa Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times why they've lost their nerve.