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4,000 Anti-Scientology Videos Yanked From YouTube
An anonymous reader writes "From the EFF webpage: 'Over a period of twelve hours, between this Thursday night and Friday morning, American Rights Counsel LLC sent out over 4000 DMCA takedown notices to YouTube, all making copyright infringement claims against videos with content critical of the Church of Scientology.'"
Aren't DMCA notice senders supposed to be legally responsible for the accuracy of the notice? Where is the consequences for blatant abuse?
It's really simple - critique =/= infringement.
Correct me if I'm wrong but it's a big no-no to use the DMCA knowingly falsely, right? Not that I think anything will come of it...
Hubbard-approved
Other than a strange misuse of the DMCA I mostly feel sorry for whoever had to go through and delete all those videos that quickly. They must have a hell of a dedicated workforce in that department.
In Soviet Russia meme tires of you!
By abusing the DMCA they can get slapped pretty heavy. Especially in light of the latest ruling that copyright owners must explicitly consider whether a suspected violation is fair use. Certainly if any of the folks that got harassed decide to litigate back they may well have a decent case.
From the article: "YouTube users responded with DMCA counter-notices. At this time, many of the suspended channels have been reinstated and many of the videos are back up."
Good for those YouTube users for responding with the counter notices.
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
bankrupting them through legal expenses? Time to mirror the content folks.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Will we see DMCA Takedown notices claiming news stories like these infringe on the property of the lawyers who issued the original DMCA Takedowns? :P
Actually... I really shouldn't joke about that. It may just happen...
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
You can't win, Hubbard. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Of the clear abuse the law has provided.
More examples like this and the DMCA may get repealed, castrated, or at least altered to require judge approval of each takedown notice....
Out of curiosity, why is it that people get bent out of shape about this 'religion'?
I got to witness an anonymous rally in San Diego about a year or so ago and it was just silly. Yes, you and I may know the whole thing is a crock, but isn't there supposed to be freedom of religion?
Not looking to start a pissing contest, I'm just wondering where people get their priorities.
Just go to http://www.xenu.net/ and all will become clear.
pi = 2*|arg(God)|
For those who don't know about Scientology, this AFP news article summarizes the typical non-Scientologist's view of Scientology activities: The controversial Church of Scientology will be tried in a French court for "organised fraud".
This WikiNews report explains more about the current story: the alleged "rights group" does not exist as a physical entity.
hasn't scientology been exposed as a cult already?
they give science and ologies a bad name.
They're using their grammar skills there.
and anyone who tries to expose the scam gets declared "fair game", although they don't use that precise term anymore...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
We think Disney is bad? Imagine if the bible were copyrighted. It'd run the eternal life of the author plus 75 years. But with a religion so blatantly a business like scientology, what will copyright be like _next_ century?
Get the facts on their video channel. Nice advert to go with this article.
Here's a short breakdown.
If you go to a group of Christians, and ask questions about their beliefs, they may engage you in a debate on Christian theology, they may give you a Bible to read, and so forth, but you can generally access these materials for free. If you go a group of Muslims and do the same thing, you will likely get the same results. Same goes for the Jewish religion, or Mormonism, or Hinduism.
If you go to a Scientology center and ask questions about their beliefs, what it will come down to is "Here are some classes you can take, they cost many thousands of dollars". Scientology is not willing to give away their beliefs just as every other major religion is willing to do so. Scientology is not willing to discuss their beliefs in an open and free environment, as the other major religions are willing to do. And Scientology hides many tenets of their beliefs behind copyright and trade secret laws.
That last one is the big one. You don't officially learn about their secret beliefs until you have paid many thousands of dollars and been sufficiently indoctrinated into the Church of Scientology.
Compare that to the other religions. To the best of my knowledge, there is no super-secret ultra-eyes-only version of the Bible that only the elite Christians get to read. There is no "not for the viewing of non-believers" version of the Qu'ran that only the most devout Muslims get to read. But there are secret Scientology documents which explain core beliefs of Scientology that the general rank and file of the CoS do not have access to.
And then, when people try to promulgate that information, it irks the CoS leadership. Because, for some reason, they don't want it spread that they believe that a galactic overlord named Xenu did all the wacky poor-scripted science-fictiony things he did many millions of years ago, here on Earth. (Excuse me, it was called Teegeeack then, according to these docs.) Because then people would go, "Wow, this reads like it was written by a hack science fiction author." (Which, you know, is what the guy who founded Scientology was.)
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
They have an explicit doctrine of destroying critics through the legal system. They also believe that if a person is deemed "Suppressive" to the cause of Scientology, they have the right to lie, deceive, or even kill the person with impunity.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
... leaving them with 250,000 more to send.
I say go to it. The only way these jokers can know which videos to hit with a DMCA is to watch them. Maybe if they're exposed to anti-CoS messages enough, it'll start to crack through the brainwashing, and they'll free themselves.
So keep posting those videos, folks! It's good karma.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Damn you to hell.. my first Rickroll
The Unicode standard is over 20 years old. Why does Slashdot not support it?
Yay! I was wondering when Scientology was going to wield a big wad of cash to make this go away. Good for them, they are only proving the videos have information they do not want seen. I just hope the Anonymous movement against the church of Scientology can use this to pick up some momentum.
And this has been another installament of Captain Obvious!
How is this not a blatant abuse of the system in order to silence free speech? By this logic, it is perfectly within the legal rights of Google to shut down websites which oppose their ideals and corporation. Nice try Scientology... but ultimately an epic fail. Good job jacking up the PR (again).
"The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec^2" -Marcus Dolengo
Part of the process of filing a counter-DMCA claim involves revealing your personal information to the party who initiated the DMCA complaint [http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hlrm=en&answer=59826]. Given the Co$'s history of harassment, perhaps this is just a way of gathering information for retribution?
Do the anti-Scientology posters to youtube have to reveal information about themselves to Scientology Inc. through their counter-notices? Isn't this just a way for Scientology to get the identities of the posters?
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
This makes me VERY ANGR--- --- This post was removed by legal request of the Church of Scientology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF9Um2GwgMQ
Ooh, let's see...
There's the fact they separate their adherents from their families and then extract money from them.
There's the whole forced labour, separation from family and cruel punishment of children in their care thing (particularly look up Jenna Miscavige-Hill, neice of the current head of the CoS)
Umm, there's the fact that people have died in their care whilst being locked up and denied medical care
There's the fact that they have managed to get some state and national backing for their joke of a rehab scheme. Which, by the way, they claim is the most successful rehab scheme on the planet (without providing figures or evidence), whereas in fact its techniques basically involve a lot of the same psychological breakdown and cod science as scientology itself. This is sick, IMHO.
There's a lot of other stuff.
This is NOT about freedom of religion, or who believes what. This is about a dangerous organisation that have comitted felonies to try and wipe their record from government agencies and generally display a lack of respect for laws and lives, and yet is still in many coutries treated as a tax-exempt, legitimate religion.
Believe what the fuck you like, but you can't support the continued existance of the church of scientology.
It's my view that the people complaining most are the same Christians who hate Jews, Muslims and any other religious believers that don't follow their God.
I have no religion* and they hate me too.
*not strictly true, I told the government I was a Jedi, so I must be.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Take a look here
They've done a lot of bad stuff, including infiltrating government agencies to try and purge records about them, resulting in felony convictions for a fair few.
Consider the possibility that the main aim of CoS was not simply to remove those videos, but to gather information about the people who posted them. Google DMCA Counterclaim information: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=59826
2. Provide your full name, address, telephone number, and email address, and the username of your YouTube account. ...
What happens next?
After we receive your counter-notification, we will forward it to the party who submitted the original claim of copyright infringement. Please note that when we forward the counter-notification, it includes your personal information. By submitting a counter-notification, you consent to having your information revealed in this way.
CoS files false takedowns, Anonymous critics file counter-claims, CoS gets all of their personal information.
And yes, they do collect personal information and do exploit it to threaten and silence their critics. See, for example, the case of G. Allen. Allen was a regular guy who stopped by to look at the Anonymous protesters in February, with no real interest in the group, and then received a threatening letter from CoS because they ran his license plates and dug up his information to harass him.. and harass him they did. http://blackfish.biz/allen/?p=246
present day... present time... hahahaha...
Soon they'll be breeding us like cattle! You've got to warn everyone and tell them! Scientology is made of people! You've got to tell them! Scientology is people!
Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48, and am what some people call "mentally retarded".
Try visiting whyaretheydead.net, it will tell about the people Scientology has killed.
Try googling Operation Snow White, you'll find out about how Scientology infiltrated the IRS and shortly afterwards gained tax-exempt status.
Try visiting Tory Magoo's website, she's an high ranking ex-Scientologist. Read about how she was denied her epilepsy medicine by Scientology.
Want to know what they've done to me personally? I'll give you a clue, us non-Scientologists give a damn about each other.
If you can read this you've gone too far.
Could u still find them alive in the google cache??? I know google wont bend over for these arseholes
You've been moderated informative whilst revealing top secret Scientology scripture. Prepare for a DMCA takedown.
Don't forget the hungry lions...
Would make a good movie theme for Tom Cruise actually!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I mean come on when you have a cult like CoS this needs to come out. I can't believe youtube(which is owned by google) is allowing this sort of nonsense to continue. I can't support youtube any longer if they are going to continue to infringe on free speech, i suggest you all do the same.
Not sure what they actually expected to gain from doing this. They will likely be in legal trouble and now they have just made the anti-Scientology videos more popular than ever. What asshats.
Dirty Fuckin Bastards!
The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 95,000,000 years ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet, 178 billion on average) by mass implanting. He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the principal volcanos (Incident II) and then the Pacific area ones were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged".
His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants.
When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people) captured him after six years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone. The place (Confederation) has since been a desert. The length and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been dispensed with by my tech development.
One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto-running on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc and one dies. So be careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow around and fail to complete one thetan at a time.
In December 1967 I knew someone had to take the plunge. I did and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but only that given here is needful.
One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or to the body.
One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I. It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing. You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some large, some small.
Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error. Good luck.
You wouldn't happen to be a Scientologist (or recently taken a free personality test), would you?
If examples of scientology hurting others (or just being evil) is what you want, here's a few:
According to The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, ed. Brian Ash, Harmony Books, 1977: "... [Hubbard] began making statements to the effect that any writer who really wished to make money should stop writing and develop [a] religion, or devise a new psychiatric method. Harlan Ellison's version (Time Out, UK, No 332) is that Hubbard is reputed to have told John W. Campbell, 'I'm going to invent a religion that's going to make me a fortune. I'm tired of writing for a penny a word.' Sam Moskowitz, a chronicler of science fiction, has reported that he himself heard Hubbard make a similar statement, but there is no first-hand evidence." Hubbard himself was also quoted as driving his people toward financial results.
Here's a quote by the founder himself:
Aside from the above, if Scientology teaches purification of the body, why is Christie Alley so damn fat?
"they have the right to lie, deceive, or even kill the person with impunity" All religions believe that.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I'd like to think we were a stronger democracy than this too.
But I gotta believe my eyes. We The People are allowed to play our little game of self rule so long as we don't get in the way of Big Oil, Big Pharma, the Telco Gang, and the *IAAs, and so on. Which leaves us precious little to play with.
--MarkusQ
The BBC Panorama scientology programme was pretty interesting.
The thing I found most curious was that the celebrities they interviewed seemed genuinely unaware of the science-fiction-Xenu stuff. Some of those celebrities were certainly high enough that you'd expect them to know if that was in there.
I was wondering - but of course, there's no way to prove it without gaining access at the highest echelons - if there is more than one version of Scientology. The "trashy science fiction" version (everything beyond a certain point in the theology) is drip-fed to people who've paid up enough money. The "no scifi rubbish" version (basically, everything except the story of Xenu) is the version that celebrities hear - and they're told "that's all there is to it".
Someone else mark this funny, please!
Unless a post is hilarious, a Funny mod is worth basically -½, since sense of humour varies, and someone else is likely to mark the post -1 Overrated. They might, or might not, depending upon whether the post is funnier on the initial rater's clock, or the modder's.
This is true even is one is the first moderator and others push it up to an equilibrium, since the poster will be short of a point of Karma at any given level of moderation.
Funny should therefore be used ironically. For example, where someone has a hilarious and outrageous political opinion that one would not wish to reward. To act in any other way, one would have to be confident that funny mods would at least insulate against downmods, even if they didn't bring Karma in their own right.
Personally, I agree that funny shouldn't bring Karma unless the post gets to +5, whereupon it is worth a single point. But then, funny mods shouldn't cost any Karma either.
*?!#ing unicode. Well, /. should cope, just as it should understand the <p/> tag. I don't feel like fixing it.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Actually there is a super secret version the Bible. But you only get to see it when you make it to the Cardinal level or higher (i.e. the Pope). Its the same structure. Scientology has many public pamphlets to describe their cult. The same with Christians. Its all marketing.
That's a pretty good name for a company attempting to ensure that some aspect of free speech is squelched.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Where have I seen this before? Hmm.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
In my experience, most of the folk complaining are without religion themselves, not s bunch of "my religion is better than your religion" types.
The CoS is just a sick organisation.
Because everyone who has the time to make videos against the Church of Scientology has a legal dept and funds to boot. EFF will MAYBE fund something in the way of a class action suit (IANAL), but that doesn't mean the bulk of people will know how to bypass a DCMA take-down notice and get their lolz back.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I haven't seen anything where this religion or cult or whatever you want to call it has done anything to hurt anyone.
Then you haven't learned much about the cult. Scientology has ruined lives and gotten people killed. For the latter, they dispense dangerous medical information (especially in psychiatry) that is entirely based on their beliefs. See the Wikipedia article.
Yes, they have very silly beliefs, which is why it is so popular to make fun of them. But if that's all they were, then you wouldn't see these protests or all the news about it. Their beliefs alone (involving aliens, volcanoes, space ships, nuclear bombs and etc.) are harmless. It is what they do about their critics, whom they harass with both legal pressure and some not-so-legal tactics. See Fair Play.
There is a reason you see all those people in the protests wear masks, and that is because of policies like Fair Game. If they didn't wear masks, their lives and their families lives would be in danger, or at least risking serious harassment.
In fact, Slashdot has suffered the wrath of the cult of Scientology: Scientologists Force Comment Off Slashdot. Someone posted some of the cult's "scripture" in a comment, and Slashdot was forced to remove it on claims of copyright. There's one way that Scientology has negatively affected you. They already attacked an online community you participate in. They have also put legal pressure on search engines, including Google and Yahoo, to have results critical of Scientology removed.
See also, The Unfunny Truth About Scientology
Or the YouTube version.
You've been moderated informative whilst revealing top secret Scientology scripture.
I don't think the Xenu bit is exactly top-secret anymore.... there was this episode of South Park you see......
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Not all religions. The mainstream denominations of Christianity have believed that at once but some of *us* do believe that that goes against our holy writ. (My usual expression is "Whatever happened to 'love thy neighbour' ?")
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Here's a short breakdown.
If you go to a group of Christians, and ask questions about their beliefs, they may engage you in a debate on Christian theology, they may give you a Bible to read, and so forth, but you can generally access these materials for free. If you go a group of Muslims and do the same thing, you will likely get the same results. Same goes for the Jewish religion, or Mormonism, or Hinduism.
Minor nitpick - The Mormon church has fairly significant secret doctrine that you have to join and climb the heirarchy to find out about. Mormons I've talked to who are still members of the church will generally deny this, many of them sincerely because they aren't 'initiated' enough to know about it. But many ex-Mormons left the church over secret doctrines and ceremonies that disturbed them.
Not to say that Mormonism is as poisonous as Scientology though.
It also opens them up wide to perjury charges, so it doesn't come without cost. Granted, there aren't a lot of people well-healed enough to take on Co$ lawyers, but when they use a scattershot approach like this, they have no idea who they might be shooting.
"It's my view that the people complaining most are the same Christians who hate Jews, Muslims and any other religious believers that don't follow their God.
I have no religion* and they hate me too."
You know that's not true. The Scientologists have made enough enemies online to have people spew hatred against them. If you respond to every criticism of your organization with lawsuits, even against websites that are just reposting other people's words, you'll end up making lots of enemies.
My family maybe Catholic, but I consider myself Atheist, and haven't followed Catholicism for a long time. I haven't liked Scientology for a long time, and it has nothing to do with my high school teachers attempts at defining cults. Come on - these bastards threatened THIS site with lawsuits over their "sacred OT3".
I have no problem with most Christians, aside from the ones that want their beliefs enforced by law. I have no problem with most Jews aside from the most conservative of Jews, and the ones that believe they are completely justified in their occupation of Palestine. I have no problem with most Muslims aside from the ones that again want their morality enforced by law, the ones that feel women should be subjugated to a different set of law, and the ones that support the likes of Bin Laden and irrational aggressors in Palestine.
And if you have no religion, but still believe in some social conservative horseshit, I won't like you either.
You go adhere to some fictional neo-Buddhist code Inda. There's no hate against that.
... or they might make me sit through Battlefield Earth again. :-(
Excellent insight. The Rolling Stone article on Scientology a year or two ago made a similar point.
Imagine joining a Christian church where they didn't tell you about the death and resurrection of Jesus until you well into the church time-wise.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
The fact that it was necessary to display "This is what scientologists actually believe" on the screen while parodying the cult of scientology on Southpark speaks volumes. This is the show that puts a nuke up Hillary Clinton's snatch and a hamster up Mr Slaves ass in front of a class of school kids.
In Christian Scriptures there is a section that says:
"Where your money is, there is your heart."
Church of Scientology seems to use this to their advantage by getting people to literally "buy in" before really telling people what they are all about.
Once you've spent $10,000 on something you are going to want to believe just so you don't lose all that money.
If a brave congressman read all thier so called "doctrine" into the public record would this break their so called claim of propriety?
I mean the Bibble is pretty much avail for all to quote as much as you like in order to be a religion all works must be copyright free, otherwise IT IS A CULT!
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
greed, fear & ego are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of yOUR dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes.
Holy smokes! You don't let up!
When are you going to figure out that nobody listens when they are bludgeoned? You won't wear people down, you'll just teach them to grow comfortable in filtering out your white noise. Heck, I find the kinds of topics you spew on about fascinating and worthy of exploration, but I can't even get through the first sentence of your sermon on the mount howling.
You sound like a lunatic, and not because of your concerns or your content. You're scary, and not because you're telling people things they don't want to hear, but because, simply put, you sound like you've done too many drugs and that parts of your brain have been destroyed. This can only lead people to associate your subject matter with brain damage and sickness. It is natural for people, on an instinctive level, to avoid people who show outward displays of disease and by association, the subjects and activities they immerse themselves in. --If you truly want to communicate, you have to stop shouting and start listening. It's a two way street. Until you learn this, you're going to be all alone in the wilderness talking to yourself, which is I suspect all you're really trying to do anyway. I even suspect that you might be doing this specifically to instill fear of inquiry in people. It would certainly not be the first time knowledge was attacked in this way. Question your impulses, because they are NOT helping.
-FL
Yes, but unfortunately, my time machine is in the shop, so I'm living in the now, rather then living in the 11th century.
It's possible that 1000 years from now, Scientology will be just as accepted as Christianity, and their documents/religious texts will be as available then as the Bible is available now.
Right now, I can go to practically any moderate-sized bookstore and find multiple copies of the Bible. I can also find the Qu'ran, the Old Testament, probably stuff on Hinduism, Buddhism, Native American beliefs, and so on. But I cannot find, say, the OT III documents, because the CoS hides those away and only lets people who they think have earned them (i.e. paid thousands upon thousands of dollars and been indoctrinated into the higher echelons of the organization) read them.
Is that wrong? Technically, no. It's their "religion" and they can run it the way they want to. But name me one other religion that hides their main religious documents behind the concept of trade secrets. And it's what lengths they go to in the name of protecting those (IMAO) obviously ridiculous stories that irritate me.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
A whole bunch of anonymous should join up and then destroy the church from the inside out.
As long as no one gets addicted to that much power.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Is why the folks at the national agencies aren't doing anything about it. I mean, they have clearly crossed the line. Where are the ATF and FBI guys that acted in Waco when you need them?
I mean I am here from the Perseid Branch of Galactic investigations to destroy Scientology for spreading lies about our lord and master Xenu. I don't think they can run my plates and find out I am from another star system, I wonder just how good their Private Dicks are.....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
All religions believe that.
That's the dumbest thing I will have read today. When was the last time you heard of, say, the Quakers declaring jihad against unbelievers?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
am i being intolerant?
no: intolerance of intolerance is not intolerance
scientology is not interested in your rights and freedoms. scientology is intent on enslaving gullible fools. opposing scientology is about protecting rights and freedoms
read this, get a primer on why you should oppose this fungus:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-06-24/news/Scientologys-Crushing-Defeat/
this nonsense should be outlawed
am i being too harsh on an alternative religion?
a system of overt financial enslavement is a valid religion in your mind?
why must the definition of a free society include tolerance of institutions hellbent on purposefully destroying rights and freedoms?
if a con man duped you into writing him a check, do you have to tolerate that crime in the name of free expression?
then why don't you see that is all scientology is and that you must stand against it in the name of your cherishing of human rights and freedoms and dignities?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
You may not be aware of this, but the Pope speaks only for the Catholic church. There are many Christian groups (read: every Protestant denomination, Mormons, and others) that use the standard Bible - the same one you can buy at Borders - as the ultimate basis of their theology.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Nit-pick - it's "well-heeled", as in "rich enough to afford good (well-heeled) shoes" (though I suspect your mistake was a typo).
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Because it has practices like "Fair Game", which basically means an organized harassment campaign against its critics.
They are free to believe in their bullshit, that's not an issue. However, immoral things done in the name of religion are still immoral, and scientology is amongst the nastiest religions on the planet in that regard. It's not that they are necessarily more malicious than, say, Islam; it's that their style of abuse is well suited for the modern world.
Well, I'd say that preventing a bunch of lunatics who've demonstrated their willingness to abuse their power numerous times from gaining any more power is a pretty high priority.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I was wondering - but of course, there's no way to prove it without gaining access at the highest echelons - if there is more than one version of Scientology. The "trashy science fiction" version (everything beyond a certain point in the theology) is drip-fed to people who've paid up enough money. The "no scifi rubbish" version (basically, everything except the story of Xenu) is the version that celebrities hear - and they're told "that's all there is to it".
I think it's more along the lines of how much a person can take in the beginning. Even most credulous people would laugh at being introduced to thetans and xenu right away; it takes years of brainwashing to build up the right foundation to be introduced to the scifi aspects.
I think that the sanest alternative, given the separation of church and state and that the church does not pay taxes, is that materials published by any non-profit or charitable organization should not be copyrightable.
This is my sig.
By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper - whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating it - an attorney or unrepresented party certifies that to the best of the person's knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances:
(1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation;
(2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law;
(3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery; and
(4) the denials of factual contentions are warranted on the evidence or, if specifically so identified, are reasonably based on belief or a lack of information.
I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
Did they put "This didn't really happen" on the screen during the scene .. and
Is anything in the SouthPark CoS parody inaccurate ?
davecb5620@gmail.com
I wonder if it costs more for a bunch of random people to open fake youtube accounts and post these videos or for their lawyers to post DMCA take downs. Maybe we could win the war by losing 10 million battles.
lol: You see no door there!
Well, for starters, back in 1995 they attacked USENET en masse, including forged cancels and Hipcrime-like floods of spam.
They forced the shutdown the anon.penet.fi anonymizing remailer in 1996 (back in the age when there was no such thing as a "disposable email account").
In 1997, Congressman Sonny Bono (D-Scilon) had the Copyright Term Extension Act (aka the Mickey Mouse Protection Act) named after him.
In 1998, following Bono's untimely incident with the tree, the cult lobbied hard for (and were the first to use) the DMCA in 1999 (through present day).
In 2001, they attacked Slashdot itself with the DMCA.
In 2002, they attacked Google and the Wayback Machine.
The Internet's freest avenues of communication have been under regular attack from this cult for more than 13 years, and two of the world's worst intellectual property laws have been influenced by this cult. You don't have to have even heard of the cult to have been hurt by it. All you need is TCP/IP connectivity.
Then you haven't been paying attention.
Scientology will be taken to court in France
for "organised fraud":
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/europe/7604311.stm
The term "Church of Scientology" is a pronoun. That isn't a DMCA violation. If so, anyone using the churches name would be in violation, which is absolutely ludacris. The only reason they are doing it is because they are hoping nobody fights them.
My problem with the whole thing is Google responded by complying.
I think you owe it to yourself and your view to read up on the CoS' various misdeeds, before you loop them in with other, more sincere religions. Their creation myth and spiritual theories are horseshit, but that is not different from other religions, and not offensive in and of itself. What the CoS does that is different, is bleed tens of thousands of dollars out of its membership while systematically mounting legal, professional, and personal attacks, many of them illegal, against those who stand in its way OR try to leave the organization.
FYI, I am a militant agnostic (I don't know that which is unknowable, and neither do you). I will wager ten US pesos that 90% of the CoS' opposition group "Anonymous" is similarly unaligned.
Posted anonymously for the above reasons. I live a mile from the local CoS headquarters and I am not sure they have anything better to do there than to harass me.
"Aside from the above, if Scientology teaches purification of the body, why is Christie Alley so damn fat?"
Too many thetans?
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
All those dead alien bodies that were dumped by the billions into volcanoes millions of years ago added an enormous amount of Carbon to the planet that wasn't with earth originally!!! All those bodies burned in the volcanoes causing CO2 to be release, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, thus Xenu caused global warming!!!
Not to mention all those pesky thetans, they must obey the laws of thermodynamics like everythign else in the universe which means they have to give off heat if they are actively trying to attach themselves to living things, so all these thetans are just bleeding heat energy causing the temp to raise even more.
We need to sue the Galactic federation for Global Warming NOW!!
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
xenu.net is a good source for a ton of info, but it's poorly laid out and, really, it's a bit of an information overload.
I usually recommend http://www.exscientologykids.com/ and http://www.whyaretheydead.net/ for a look into the damage done by Scientology.
Redundancy is good And also good.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7604311.stm
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
The ebst way to fight this is to post videos that praise Scientology.
"Are you FRIKKIN' crazy?" you ask?
Nope.
If Scientology doesn't issue takedown notices for the videos praising them, they eventually lose their copyright power over the material. If they do issue takedown notices they look even more ridiculous.
And no, I'm not trying to secretly elicit praise for Scientology. There's no reason why you can't throw in a bit or sarcasm in with the honey. :)
In other news, CoS issues Slashdot with a DMCA takedown notice due to a comment poster using the copyrighted words 'Xenu' and 'Teegeeack'.
Let me open a can of best worms....
The original US constitution didn't give monkeys about religion, it had to be added in later. Which points out the fundamental flaw in the 'do not fuck with freedom of religion' argument. There is no natural law that suggests that this should be guaranteed, and I would imagine that these guarantees were enshrined by people with a religious point of view. Since then this right has been abused in attempts to impose religious nonsense on society.
Now personally I don't have a problem with anyone believing any old nonsense they want to, but when it comes to filling children's heads with this crap and forcing restrictions on one group in society over another, that's another thing.
(I'm not talking about the freedom of assembly right - if someone has a problem with that let them deal with it).
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
The Mormons, Muslims and many Christian groups do exactly the same thing.
Dude, do some research. It's totally a money-grab that enslaves its members and controls their lives. This is the very definition of a cult, harmful in and of itself. Your spouse has to join too, or you are required to leave him/her. Try to leave the cult and it gets worse. You haven't "seen anything", but you obviously have not looked or paid attention. I suggest you go in to one of their offices for a "free personality and IQ test" and see how they come on strong with their sales pitch and insistance.
So Co$ is a modern mystery/gnostic cult. A big one.
Historically, mystery cults either become non-mysterious (Christianity) or die out (Isis-Osiris mystery cult, Dionysus mystery cult, Eleutherans, Mithrans, etc, etc.)
Oh, and charging big chunks of change and time to be indoctrinated into the mysteries and even find out what they are? Dates back to at least the ancient Greek philosophers-for-hire that Lucian of Samosata satirized.
Scientology will not survive the long run.
---dragoness
I don't get this hatred for Scientology when other religions on this planet are guilty of much much worse.
And if Scientology is something that you people spend all this time on because of its evils, you need to get out more. Scientology is nothing.
That's not quite accurate. The morman church does keep their temple ordinances secret, but in my experience no one denies this. In fact, it's common knowledge and taught in Sunday school that these ordinances exist and that every member is expected to go through them as part of their preparation for adulthood and marriage. This isn't dependant on climbing some hierarchy. All you need to do is be in good standing with the church (which isn't difficult) and be old enough. BTW, any mormon who wears garments (the "magic underwear") has gone through the temple ordinances.
I disagree with the practice of keeping these a secret, and think it's one of the holdouts from when the mormon church was a lot more cultish than it is today, but this isn't some big secret that the church denies.
That is, unless you were talking about something other than the temple ordinances. If so please provide more information.
Disclaimer: I grew up in the LDS church but became atheist before I was old enough to go through the temple stuff.
Compare that to the other religions. To the best of my knowledge, there is no super-secret ultra-eyes-only version of the Bible that only the elite Christians get to read. There is no "not for the viewing of non-believers" version of the Qu'ran that only the most devout Muslims get to read. But there are secret Scientology documents which explain core beliefs of Scientology that the general rank and file of the CoS do not have access to.
Unfortunately, it's a bit more complicated than that. Esotericism is, at least historically, a common religious practice. Gnosticism, Mormonism, at least a few Buddhist sects, and arguably the Masonic tradition all spring to mind. All of these have the idea that there are truths which should not be made available to the uninitiated, as they are not prepared to receive them correctly.
So this is the complicated problem: there are no really good grounds for condemning Scientology as a religion. The problems arise, rather, from the Church of Scientology as an institution. Letting aside the heavy-handed tactics used to recruit new members and to protect the Church, the fees charged for initiation seem to shift the practice from esotericism to exploitation. It's worth pointing out that very few people have objections to the Free Zone, emphasizing that the primary objection to the Church of Scientology is fundamentally organizational, rather than religious per se.
That it is in fact authentic Scientology scripture is proved by how the cult reacted when OT-3 first leaked. They didn't sue for libel, for publishing malicious lies to the effect that Scientologists believed nonsense; instead, they sued for copyright infringement and trade secret breach.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
No, they don't. Copyright is termed, it doesn't have to be vigorously enforced. Trademark has to be enforced or lost.
That all churches have fanatics, even if they don't require faith in a divine being
Do you mean this site?
"I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write." --Voltaire (Letters, 1770)
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
It's been alleged in the past by former Scientologists and Free Zoners (scientologists independent of CoS) that the celebs are by and large insulated from most of the truth behind the cult. Then again, given CoS's habit of dirty tricks, is it possible that the OT stuff was leaked deliberately (the Xenu story was originally in a Hubbard screenplay in the '70s) to discredit their discreditors?
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
You're confusing trademark enforcement with Copyright. Selective copyright has never been a problem in the courts.
Good thought, but they're two very distinctive concepts.
"The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble. I like my coffee black, just like my metal" - Mindless Self Indulgence
Ah. Oops!
free speech was meant to be free for all, how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ? stand up ?
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
Did anyone else get the advertising banner from Scientology at the top of this post? It said to click the link to see a video that told the real truth about Scientology. I tried clickin but it seems my employer has blocked scientology.org - I can't imagine why!
/. has with them and censorship I'm surprised they agree to show their ads or maybe Cowboy Neal is now a member of their "church"
Considering the past history
I AM A SEXY SHOELESS GOD OF WAR!!!
according to this news article (ansa is the major news agency in Italy), Scientology has been put into judgment for fraud (sorry for the rough translation, but I have no knowledge of english legal words).
google translation (to english) here.
That's a good news for europe
It'll be really funny when they show up with their lawyers, and I show up with a pair of six-guns.
You're probably right, but I've heard other people say the same thing with all sincerity.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
nice to see a government hold them accountable.
Wikinews did an in-depth report and interviewed the accused behind the attempted removal: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Alleged_'rights_group'_tries_to_have_4,000_anti-Scientology_videos_removed_from_YouTube
If the Co$ is sending people letters saying you're violating the law by infringing on their copyright, and it's not true, and they know it, doesn't that count as libel?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
With all the activity this has generated, it seems like there would be an open source alternative to Scientology?
It might, at first glance, seem surprising for an organization like Scientology to support a site that regularly covers them fairly negatively, or for said site to accept their ads, but. . . the slashdot editors, I believe, do not control advertising, I think SourceForge.net does, and most businesses will take just about anyone's money. As for the scientologists, it gives them an opportunity to provide their talking points to slashdot viewers.
Coming next: the scientology internet AstroTurf campaign in the comments of /. and other communities and blogs.
It's pure fat man! pure fat!!!
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
To the best of my knowledge, there is no super-secret ultra-eyes-only version of the Bible that only the elite Christians get to read.
What, you've never heard of the Platinum Bible?
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
Where's a class-action lawsuit over the first amendment? This is blatant abuse against the Constitution.
(John Edwards is available to spearhead it now that he's out of politics for good.)
Table-ized A.I.
Don't know why I never noticed this before but Xenu backwards is Unex. Maybe a thinly disguised reference to Unix? Was L Ron a programmer, well obviously, I mean computer programmer? Perhaps he was forced to use Unix which he thought was evil and that's how he came up with Xenu?
Why if these things stayed on You-Tube, they could destroy the Scientology business model.
He couldn't possibly do more in twelve minutes to discourage people from joining Scientology himself.
Hopefully the owners of those videos are all aware of this:
http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca/counter512.pdf
Generate a DMCA Counter Notification to bring the video back, assuming they should not have been taken down.
Mark
These "body tarpnars" cause irrationality because of the huge 3d movie theatre where I assume the tarpnars were forced to watch the Spice Girls movie for millions of years until they thought it was a good movie.
Sadly, this would explain so much of what's wrong modern life...
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Have you seen Battlefield Earth? One of the worst movies ever? The bad guys lose... sorry, did i spoil the ending for you?
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
Except that L. Ron Hubbard wasn't just an individual.
He was the founder.
The biggest reasons mormons got singled out is that they believe that polygamy was ok... after all many of those famous people in that Old Testament had multiple wifes.. Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon who built the temple... but for some reason US culture just couldn't handle the idea. At the time John Smith's claim of getting golden tablets from God that only he could read and describe was as science fiction as giant aliens. It countermanded many things in the Jewish/Catholic/Protestant Bible and couldn't be tolerated.
Exactly.
Freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom to enslave, freedom to defraud, or freedom to deliberately destroy people's lives.
Scientology is EVIL. That's isn't an ad hominem attack or an exaggeration either, but a cold hard fact of life.
It isn't the largest or most powerful example of evil in the world, but it is definitely among the most heavily concentrated.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
The book was just awful. Incredibly bad. The hero's name 'Johnny Hero'...also L. Ron obviously flunked every science course he ever took.
The movie at least sort of worked as comedy.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I love a good parody.
http://www.churchofmyconology.com/
Sounds like a job for Anonymous!
I heard they have good memories.
The Church of Scientology isn't even on my list a problem organization. Some people need to get a grip and need to learn how evaluate things better.
I think once you learn a little bit more, you'll realize that people have evaluated appropriately. Scientology is a lot more than just a money sink for the credulous.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
In general you are correct.
If I was a Mormon or a Scientologist I'd want some parts of my religion secret. Just to keep the laughter down.
As founder of 'The Church of Our Lady of Copious Lubricants' I won't say another thing about our services except that /.ers in general are NOT INVITED.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
All the legal availability means is that, absent other agreements, the US would have no standing to tell another government to require removal
My point is that the United States and/or the several states might have standing to tell the backbone providers to block the server hosting CP or infringing copies.
Let's say I'm some random person. I've uploaded an anti-scientology video, using Tor. The video is taken down due to DCMA complaint. I respond with a fake name/address on the complaint and allege ownership. Wouldn't the video get reinstated, and scientology not have my name? (As long as a real world name/address combo was used, it'd be basically untracable.)
Hell, what's to stop anyone from doing this? From what I've read, the document you sign says you agree under penalty of perjury you are the work's OWNER, not that the name you are using is real.
I don't know what the cost of an improper takedown notice is supposed to be, but if you multiply that by 4000, that should cause even Scientology to say 'ouch'.
And it might be enough to make even the RIAA sit up and take notice.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Keep up the good work, an ounce of prevention is far less scary than a pound of cure!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualites/societe/20080908.OBS0447/la_scientologie_en_correctionnelle_pour_escroquerie_en_.html
[dragged to court for "fraud in an organized gang" ]
so they are taken for what they are
If you go to a group of Christians ... they may give you a Bible to read ... If you go a group of Muslims and do the same thing, you will likely get the same results.
I doubt the Muslims would hand you a Bible.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
...the viability of open source.
...Lorenzo / I'm into kinky crustaceans. I just discovered internet praWn.