Slashdot Mirror
Dutch A.G. Supports Scientology v. Spaink Verdict
bbc writes "ISP XS4All reports that the Dutch Attorney-General advises against reversal of the last verdict in the Scientology vs. Karin Spaink case (part of Scientology's War on the Internet). A series of court battles between writer Spaink and the Church of Scientology has changed the copyright landscape of the internet in the Netherlands. In an early case, linking to infringing documents was considered infringement itself. Later this was reversed, although by then several unrelated cases (notably Deutsche Bahn v. Indymedia) had been decided on the basis of this judgement. On appeals, the court held that free speech sometimes trumps copyright: even though Spaink may have infringed on the Church's copyright, she was allowed to do so to bring to light the doings of what she considers an evil sect.
According to the XS4All document, not only did the Attorney-General uphold the decision that Free Speech can trump Copyright, but concluded also that there may not have been infringement. The Attorney-General feels a work can be considered published even if publication happened against the will of the author. In the Netherlands, the Supreme Court can only reverse previous decisions by lower courts. Before it renders a verdict, it asks the Attorney-General for advice."
It should be noted that the Dutch AG supports Karen Spaink in the verdict. The story title makes it sound like the support is for $cientology, and the summary doesn't really clarify.
"Scientology's War on the Internet"
For a minute there I read that as "Slashdot's War on anything that isn't internet"
Xenu will be displeased. FEAR THE WRATH!
...to link to Scientology.
As always xenu.net has the dope on the ongoing $scientology vs. the 'net battle
Good going. As we grey parrots have always been among the most talkative of birds, we value freedom of speech immesurably. I'm not going to take a position on which of your religions is best (we find the whole debate silly), but it's good that you upheld the human right to criticize others.
If only the same standard of laissez-faire speech applied in Africa. According to conversations that I have had with African grey parrots from home (Africa), some have been placed in extremely small cages, with no toys, for speaking out against the lack of democracy in the "democratic" republic of Congo, and in Zimbabwe.
I know that you humans generally don't think of parrots as having the potential to usurp entrenched political structures, so I can only imagine that the situation for human dissidents is even worse.
With my species' intellect and yours'brawn, we can defeat tyranny. Please help!
So it's fair to say that Scientology in the Netherlands is now Spainked?
How about this... instead, why not absolutely everyone simply refrain from posting any comments on such a story? None, zip, nada, zilch. Let's see how few comments can be posted at all on an irrelevant story.
What's the low comment record for a front-page story? 50? 25? 10? Can we have a reverse slashdotting? Instead of obliterating the site quoted, can we bring ourselves to completely ignore a story and its quoted site?
The summary doesn't clarify? Did you even read the summary?
According to the XS4All document, not only did the Attorney-General uphold the decision that Free Speech can trump Copyright, but concluded also that there may not have been infringement.
I can understand not reading the articles, but not even bothering to read the complete article summary? Sheesh!
um, I think maybe all the countries that have always used '.' in place of ',' when mentioning numbers?
needs a firm Spainking.
sulli
RTFJ.
I think it's "stuff that matters" because it generally pertains to copyright law. I think it's "news for nerds," or at least for Slashdot nerds, because Scientology has well-deserved a bad rap here.
To the best of my knowledge, Slashdot has only deleted comments three times. Once at the request of the United States Secret Service (maybe that was kuro5hin, I can't seem to find a reference). Once under legal pressure from Microsoft. And once under legal pressure from Scientology.
Scientology threatened the Wayback Machine to the point where its maintainers deleted a bunch of archived content from a site critical of Scientology.
Scientology threatened Google and forced Google to remove listings for that same site which is critical of Scientology.
What Scientology's lawyers are up to is certainly news for nerds.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Make fun of their religion.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Scientology, as messed up as it is, has the right to their copyright. However, I see no problem with linking to illegally posted copyrighted materials. Otherwise what would we do with search engines? Have them check every link? Of course not.
We probably need real international copyright laws now in the internet age.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
i thought the goal of a church was to spread its faith , where does a copyright case fit into that , i could understand perhaps if they tried a libel or slander case against someone , but copyright ? does that not defeat the point of spreading the word of whatever it is they belive.
.
.Most importantly Companys / organisations should not be able to sue people into submission to keep all their dirty little secrets quiet.
I would not call scientoligy a church , I do know the history of the scam and its amazing how many people got dragged into this hoax , the work of a sub par sci-fi writter trying to make a bit of cash(perhaps it is a church then j/k)
With the strength of the Dutch high court behind the decision i find it unlikly a reversal will hapen , which is a dammed good thing
"Although copyright resides under Article 1 of the First Protocol of EDHR and can therefore be regarded as a human right, this does not exempt copyright from being balanced against the right to freedom of information.""
I have been thinking of moving to Holland for a few years and I feel I may just do it eventualy if the court keeps churning out decisions like this.
Freedom of information is very importent to secure an even footing for people in this world , We do not need to create another poverty line
Mod me down if you must , but scientolgy is a scam and from storys i have read
it is also a dangerous organisation . I am thankfull that Germany disallows the Organisation charitable status here , i dont agree with some of germanys policys
on these matters but sometimes it is for the best
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
The following is from the Scientology FAQ. I think it explains very clearly why we don't like them. [/sarcasm]
----------------
Why do some people oppose Scientology?
There are certain characteristics and mental attitudes that cause a percentage of the population to oppose violently any betterment activity or group. This small percentage of society (roughly 2 percent) cannot tolerate that Scientology is successful at improving conditions around the world. This same 2 percent is opposed to any effective self-betterment activity. The reason they so rabidly oppose Scientology is because it is doing more to help society than any other group. Those who are upset by seeing man get better are small in number compared to the millions who have embraced Scientology and its efforts to create a sane civilization and more freedom for the individual.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Come with friends, don't go alone! Those people are nutty. I was there last year in the spring with three of my friends. It was a wierd and interesting experience. We got there and there were all these, what seemed like zombies walking around. All with perpetual smiles on their faces, dressed in business suites with ties and women in nice dresses. Very clean and very spooky. We made up fake names, addresses, phones, and such and made up some problems we have (Sc1ent0log1sts like to tell you how messed up you are so they can "help you". Make sure to have stuff for them to bite on - "addicted to Slashdot" - that would work).
You do get to tour the building but you have to watch their tape, that ends in the "convert to 5cientology or die and suffer" type of message, quite amusing!
Then you can get young cute zombie girls to try to convince you to sign up for courses just so you can find out about 5cientol0gy. I had fun with mine, she was 17 and came from Michigan. Scient0logy, she claims, helped her cure some chronic sinus problem. Instead of talking about me and my problems she ended up running back and forth to her supervisor / boss for answers. I asked for scientific data and she gave me an evil look mixed with a sigh, "not one of those again..." then she brought me books written by Ron. I could hardly hold myself from laughing.
The saddest thing to see was when we toured the basement and they have all these saunas there. In the sauna, supposedly, you get your toxins out by staying in the steam until you pass out and drink overpriced herb tea. And there I saw this old Asian woman, who couldn't speak English too well. She was sitting down by the sauna center looking around like she was scared and lost. Hovering around her was another one of those cute zobmie clones, trying to persuade her to sign up for another "amazing" sauna experience. The old lady was nervously smilling and politely nodding her head. Of course she was going to sign up for another $1000 sauna clensing session, there is was no way she could resist those vultures. I felt sick to my stomach, she will probably end up giving them all her retirement money. Ron sure came up with the perfect scheme to make money.
Then we saw Ron's office, where (of course!) his spirit is still present, and then the library, where they almost forced us to buy the great works by Ron.
In the library, I saw those pseudo-lie detectors they use, basically a skin resistance meter. At RadioShack they are $30, at the "Celebrity Center" they are $4000! I was told they measure "mental mass". I thought of asking what the units are and how they are derived from other known physical quantities, but I thought I shouldn't piss them off too bad, I saw how nutty they really were by then and started to be a little scared. Then we left.
Anyway, it was a fun experience. Though I would share it. Anyone else had any interesing encounters with those people?
So Happy Sunshine Week everyone!!
"Attorney-General" is a inaccurate translation of the Dutch term "Advocaat Generaal". An American Attorney-General is more like the Dutch Minister of Justice. An Advocaat-Generaal is more like a American federal prosecutor. The Advocaaten-Generaal are specifically the prosecutors who appear before the Hoge Raad (Supreme Court).
After a little googling I found this:h tml
http://seclists.org/lists/politech/2001/Dec/0017.
Appearantly he made a post which explained how smallpox could be spread.
In addition, during this conversion, my bank account is still intact. And I still have a healthy social life. Even my inherent predilection towards mysticism is strained.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while being worked on by various Scientologists, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is the fact I've never seen a Scientologist who has argued more forcefully than his Christian counterpart, despite the Scientologists' fancy E-Meters. My Atheist son offers a more compelling argument than these Scientologists at times. From a spiritual standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that Scientology is a "superior" religion.
Scientologists, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to practice Scientology over other faster, cheaper, more stable cults.
This singular case is all about the right to publish and link to information on the internet. Is is about freedom of information above copyright. When this finalizes before the supreme court, this matters. The journalist Spaink with her ISP XS4ALL are close to winning a legal battle taking more than 10 years.
... the man was insane.
I started reading a series he wrote before I knew who he was. Around the third book, things suddenly took a turn for the absolutely surreal. The plot was discarded entirely for some very messed up bondage fantasy and conspiracy theory (as I recall).
Needless to say, I put the book down, returned it to the library, and only later heard about who Hubbard was. (I was about thirteen at the time.)
I think I'm going to be staying away from Scientology and its followers for as long as possible.
~UP
Eat the Path.
...before I put Xenu as Wikipedia's daily featured article, I made damn sure to get Jimbo's permission (in the year+ I have been choosing the main page featured articles, the only other time I asked his permission before running a featured article was before putting up Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Good thing I asked too, because 2 days later, we were blocked in China (for a second time))
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
But sometimes people see deeper thought and ideas in a work than the creator may have seen. The people who take the Jedi faith as a religion. Or those who read Charles Schultz's Peanuts as a daily existenialism lesson. Should George and Charles loose their royalties and copyrights just because people see deeper lessons than the creator perhaps intended in the work.
On the other hand, I think the whole 12-step philosophy is quite similar to a cult organization. They take people who have low self-esteem, problems fitting in with their community, issues of maturity and self-control, and get people to conform to a behavior modification program (under the pretense of fixing a drinking/eating/sex/other problem) and then get them to evangelize to others. The 12 Step organizations use their control over copyright to make money and maintain control over the organization. Though fundamentally the steps themselves don't seem all that different from the tenets of Extreme Programming if you substitute Behavioral Problem = Programming Problem, God = XP Philosophy and Personal Inventory = Unit Testing.
Copyright is definitely a weapon that religions and cults use to control their faith and followers. Perhaps it'd be better to train people to see this as a sign of bad faith on the part of the group. Hmmm.
Copyright law recognised this in that: a copyright was for a limited term (how long does an author live ?); and it allowed quoting of parts of the work (after reading the quote you may be enticed to buy the whole book).
The Church of Scientology (CoS) is using copyright to prevent criticism of itself. The people who it is acting against are not reproducing CoS works to make a quick buck. This is a very different scenario than was envisaged by the original authors of copyright legislation. This is a case where the judges should look at the purpose of legislation rather than the words in which it is written and, through precedent, fix it for the future. It is like when you write a program for some purpose, and using it for something extra breaks it (exposes a bug), so you fix it.
I suppose that you could say that the CoS is using copyright to protect it's financial interests, but that is through keeping potential adherents in the dark until they are well & truely hooked rather than preventing others from making a quick buck from it's works.
Anyone know when the fishman affidavit comes out of copyright ?
For crying out loud people, if everyone keeps bashing on the Scientologists, we may never get more doses of quality cinema like Battlefield Earth (IMDB Bottom 100 #36 as of right now)...
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Scientology has a lot in common with other cults. Every cult I've ever come accross teaches its members the following:
1) The outside world is evil or corrupt, only other culties can be trusted
2) The cult has all the answers to life's problems.
3) Cult members are special in some way, better than other people.
4) Cult members MUST adhere to the dictates of the cult leadership.
5) Anyone who leaves the cult is evil and must be destroyed
There are probably other common themes, but you get the idea.
It doesn't matter if you're talking about the Scientologists, Moonies, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Heaven's Gate cult, or any of the others, all of them to a greater or lesser degree possess these qualities.
What makes Scientology so pernicious is that it is a purely exploitive group. No one is ever helped by Scientology. It is a psychic and financial vampire that bleeds everyone it gets a hold of dry, both of their mental well-being and any assets they might have. Other cults, especially ones that have grown to the point of quasi-legitimacy and respectability, are actually a positive influence in the lives of their members as often as not. Not so with scientology. The only happy ending where scientology is involved is one where scientology is no longer in the picture.
Anything negative or criminal thing you can think of Scientology is either doing already, or would do in a heartbeat if it suited its purposes. It is the closest thing to pure evil I've ever come in contact with, and I should know since I was involved in it for almost ten years. They do a good job of promoting themselves and hiding the truth.
They've enslaved (and yes I mean that literally) thousands and bankrupted tens of thousands more. They help no one. I only hope I live long enough to see the cult in ruins, the truth about it known to all, and its victims free of its evil.
If you want to learn more check out the following site, it contains everything you ever wanted to know about Scientology that the clams were afraid you'd ask:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Scientogloy if a cult designed purely to make money, rather like other cults, but more sinister, as they are trying to be even monopolisticin the evil department.
/. story.
They make contact through IQ tests, herding in the gulible and vain, with some plausible junk about increasing IQ and other shit, then it is like a pyramid marketting scheme where you train up and teach others, it only pushes itself into 'religion' because it can seek protection under religious law clauses.
Just treat is as a money leeching pyramid scheme and you can't do to bad. If you meet a hot scientologist chick, shag her, then piss on her and leave her pregnant, and laugh at her occassionally via phone.
If we do that enough times we could stamp it out!
(if you meet a scientologist guy, just ask him about aliens that are stuck to you and how to get rid of them, and then take it seriously and start cutting yourself saying "GET THEM OFF ME OH MY FUCKING HELL AAAAAAAARGH") and see if he uses his supernatural powers to save himself.
Official: Scientology is worse than a piquepaille
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
If she turns up dead from the Co$ nutters we /.'rs should unite and go military on thier asses:
The Church of Scientology (or: CoS; or: Co$, as some of their opponents call it) sells its followers expensive courses which, if students study them carefully, are supposed to set them free ('clear' them). A former Scientology member, Steven Fishman, was brought before court because he committed several crimes in order to get the money to pay for these courses. Scientology urged him to get the money any which way he could. According to Fishman, they also assigned him to kill somebody, and failing that, ordered him to commit suicide.
Thanks Karen.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Wrong. English speaking European countries do not use this system, and instead use the system adopted by the US.
Due to the inconsistency, the International System (SI) requires that narrow spaces are used instead of either commas or periods as grouping separators.
People, please. I know it's hip to hate Scientology, but you should hit href="http://www.scientology.org">their href="http://www.scientology.org">site and give it a try before you judge. I urge each and every Slashdot reader to make a personal commitment to me that you will go to the href="http://www.scientology.org">site today. Information changes often, so you may have to hit refresh three or four hundred times. That site again: href="http://www.scientology.org">www.scientology. org.
Yours in Xenu.
Surely the US adopted the English system, rather than vice-versa? At least, I can't see any reason why England would change their system to one that is incompatible with continental Europe.
This is the Supreme Court case. The battles from your earlier memories took place in lower courts. The advice from the Attorney General is the one-but last episode. (Although, knowing CoS, they will probably keep fighting Karin Spaink even after this particular case is over.)
Anyway, apart from what's at the core of this legal fight, what's also interesting here is how copyright law in the internet age gets redefined by judicial verdicts.
"Who did what to whom and how does this matter?"
It's the latest installment in a soap, and as in any other soap, if you haven't seen the previous episodes you won't know what's going on. But as in any other soap, that doesn't really matter.
The Supreme Court is about to rule on whether Karin Spaink broke the law when she quoted from Scientology's secret teachings.
Complicating matters was that
- a lot of people linked to the secret teachings, and CoS wanted a verdict that linking is illegal
- ISP's were supporting Spaink, and they wanted a verdict that their responsibility is limited (in the meantime the law has changed in this respect to a DMCA type affair, but worse)
- Scientology claimed the documents were unpublished (you are only allowed to quote from legally published
- A new European law states that copyright can be trumped when you have legitimate claims that you want to expose something or someone.
This is mostly from my memory, follow the links in the article if you want to know more.
These things matter, because they set precedent on how copyright should be treated on the internet.
Xenu loves me, this I know.
Body Thetans tell me so.
In volcanoes I belong;
I am weak, but he is strong.
Yes, Xenu loves me, yes Xenu loves me.
Yes, Xenu loves me,
My BTs tell me so!
Scientology edges the line of lies and libel because they'd really love to have a critic try to fight them in court where they've been quite happy to spend millions to crush single critics. They'd abuse the hell out depositions during discovery (as usual), and then drag the case out for years of expense. If they lost, they could just collapse their sock-puppet, and pop up another one. (This in the 3rd generation of such sites.)
Take a look and think about what kind of cthurch puts up a site like that.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Scientology's religious cult status is of course merely a ruse to keep their practices from being considered medicine (and regulated as such) and it means their money isn't taxed the same (at all?)
What I want to know is this - who at Scientology is in on the gag? I would imagine the new recruits are true believers as are the people right above them. Are the people at the top, as I would imagine, in on the gag? Surely they're not believers, too. Surely they're aware that the entire thing is a money making sham. And how far down does it go? How many people at the top of Scientology are fully aware of what's really going on? How far down in the organization do you have to go to find people who are brainwashed?
Schnapple
We can thank the CoS for the passing of what was a wonderful invention -- and probably the first of its kind ever on the net. For anyone who hasn't been on the net more than 10 years, here's a brief history of the penet.fi anonymous remailer:
s .h tml
p en et.html
http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1997/sep/helmer
and
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/rnewman/anon/
The CoS destroyed a part of net history.
*grumblecakes*
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
I am a child of Scientology. I was born with both parents in the church. My father is now in the Sea Org (Their elite with the long term contract) and my mother is on the Scientology list of public enemies. The church prohibits my father from speaking with me as a result. Same thing goes for my mother's sister (Yes, she's my aunt) who can't talk to her whole family. The reason? My mother is a "Suppressive Person" (SP). Anyone that communicates with her is a "Potential Trouble Source" (PTS). People in the Sea Org such as my father and aunt are not allowed to communicate directly with SPs or PTSs and heavily discouraged from using things like approved letters. My father physically abused me and I ended up in the hospital when I was younger. Yes, I remember an incident. He told my mother to go to hell and didn't speak to either of us when I was 6. Left my mother with a huge IRS debt from when they were married. His mother had sent him money to pay it and my mother thought it was taken care of. 10 years later, she starts getting threatening letters from the IRS. 10 years of IRS interest before they set "Reasonable" limits amounted to something like $15,000. It's all OK though since my mother is considered "Fair Game", right ? When I was 16 and moved out on my own to get away from my mother who's still struggling to erase the mental damage done by the church, I went to see my father and try to get to know him. He was still at a mission and wasn't subject to the harsher rules in the Sea Org. I'm a forgiving person and thought both of us could benefit from getting to know each other. I lived in the same house (Paying rent like everyone else) with 4 Scientologists total and even took a basic course at the mission my father worked at to try and understand what my father and aunt were so committed to. Man those people are are brainwashed. Reading about it isn't the same as seeing it. The best example I can give is a kid. Must have been 7 or 8 at most. He was walking around at an event at the LA building trying to recruit people. He sounded just like all the adults and had an answer for any argument you threw his way. These people live in their own subculture complete with their own laws and reasoning. A half year later, I moved out, but still visited my father when he actually used his one day off per week for personal use. Shortly after I moved out, he joined the Sea Org (He had been invited like 10 years earlier, but had a lot of responsibility at the mission he's been at). For one year, he struggled to get an exception made so he could see me. We saw each other about once every other month. He was finally getting remarried and I was going to be his best man. The last time I saw him or spoke to him, he called me for a visit. I knew something was wrong before I arrived. We went to a Burger King for lunch and he told me that he would not see me again and I could not even attend the wedding. When I asked why he keeps doing this; why he throws away everything else for the sake of Scientology, he responded, "It's all I know how to do after 20 years."
This is kind of a trimmed down version for the sake of making the post short. Maybe someday I'll talk with someone and spend a few years on a crusade with others to fully expose the church to the public eye. As long as the average persona hasn't heard of Scientology, the cult will continue to thrive and amass lost souls.
-Lucas
The Catholic church maintained that uneducated people would just distort and twist the scriptures if they were given the opportunity. They still maintain that only the church can give an authoratative interpretation of anything Biblical.
The reformers did not see this as much of a risk. They believed the Catholic church had many errant teachings that could easily be fixed if everyone knew what the Bible really said.
Shouldn't that be: "I have thetans to exorcise"?
For the other readers, parent is referring to CESNUR, a seemingly objective site. Unfortunately, this site is merely the product of one man, Massime Introvigne. And Google shows up some very interesting things about Mr. Introvigne.
For one, he is an IP lawyer. And what is the CoS favourite avenue of attack?
It appears that aforementioned links are, if not straight from the CoS, at least from some of their apologists.
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Those reports don't all seem to say what you imply they say.
A typical trick, using a link to sound authoritive in the hopes that your opponent will not read the linked material carefully. Why do you attempt such a tactic?
Also, your first paragraph is an obvious strawman. I did not say that everyone who doesn't attack every religion is an apologist. I stated very clearly that your linked material carries the strong implication that these folks are apologists for the CoS. I did not say anything about other religions.
Why don't you come right out and admit that you are a Scientologist?
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Yes, nobody disagrees that she did a lot of work to advance the Catholic church, and on those grounds deserved recognition. She was probably the best PR for them in the whole century.
The problem is the widespread but erroneous assumption that she was actually doing "good" in any way other than promoting catholicism. Many people who are not Catholics have this idea that she was helping people in India, but as Hitchens documents, she really didn't do that at all.
If she had been a devout catholic while giving medical care to the poor I would have admired her. But the truth, it seems, is the opposite: she withheld care while sending money to Rome. The whole point is that she was not selfish, but entirely partisan.
I donate from every pay to a charity that helps the disadvantaged, without any religious agenda. I could give more, but at least I am not actively doing harm. From the linked essay:
Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT: Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions.
This idea that "advancing catholic dogma" is exactly equivalent to "helping people" is precisely the same hook seen in other cults.