Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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!
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
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...
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.
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
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.
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...
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.
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.