Three Scientology corporations lost a lawsuit against 23 defendants in the Netherlands this month, and must pay thousands of dollars in costs to several of
the defendants. Of particular concern to Scientology is the court's
finding that many documents which Scientology claims to be "sacred
scripture" are not protected by copyright in that country and may be
freely posted on the Internet.
The suit was originally filed several months ago, withdrawn, and then refiled again.
It was brought by the Church of Spiritual Technology and the Religious Technology
Center, both American corporations, and New Era Publications
International, a Danish corporation. All are Scientology
organizations.
The 23 defendants included some Internet service
providers, individuals affiliated with them and a writer, Karin
Spaink. The access providers had permitted subscribers posting the
disputed material to access the Internet. Spaink had posted the
disputed material on her "homepage" on the Internet. A homepage is
a site on the Internet where a collection of information is posted
for other users to access and copy if they wish.
Scientology claimed
that the access providers violated copyright law by not denying
access to the Internet to customers they claimed were posting the
copyrighted material, not making the customers remove the allegedly
copyrighted material, and not providing Scientology with the names
and address of third parties that had posted the documents through
their computer systems.
The documents at issue were confidential
Operating Thetan (OT) levels I through VII, and a published
confidential work, "Ability." Much of this material had been made
public when it was placed in a court file in the United States as
exhibits to an affidavit, and had subsequently been widely
circulated on the Internet before it was posted in the Netherlands.
The access providers claimed that they only provide the
infrastructure for communication between users and cannot be
responsible for the actual content for the messages, any more than a
telecommications company can edit fax or phone traffic over its
lines. Nor, they maintained, did they make an profit from
infringing copyrighted material.
Spaink maintained that once she
received evidence that OT II and III were copyrighted
she removed them from her homepage, but that she never received such
evidence from plaintiffs concerning the other materials.
Additionally she insisted that the OT material had been published
legally in a judicial procedure and that the Ability work had been
published legally in a book. Spaink claimed she had quoted only
portions of the full text of the materials and included commentary,
and that copyright law on fair use and her own right to free speech
permitted such use.
The court found that Scientology held the
copyright to OT II and III and the Ability work, but they had not
proved copyright to OT IV through VII. Spaink did not violate
copyright to those documents, and the context in which she used any
of the copyrighted material was permitted under fair use.
The court
also found that inclusion of the material in the court record in the
United States constituted publication so Spaink's republication did
not violate trademark law.In regard to the access providers, the
court determined that they could "exert no influence over, nor have
knowledge of, what the persons who gain access to Internet through
them, will supply." They could not be responsible for wrongful acts
of users in this particular case because Scientology had not
demonstrated to the access providers that violations of copyright
were occurring.
Scientology must pay approximately $34,000 for costs of the suits to all the defendants represented in court. Spaink expressed skepticism that Scientology would pay its debt, stating, "Even the record costs of the previous lawsuit, in December 1995 (which they are legally requested to pay because they were the ones to start and to drop the suit) have not been paid as of now, even though Scientology's lawyers vouched for it. Because the plaintiffs are all foreign entities, it may be difficult for us to get them to pay this debt."
(From verdict in summary judgment in case number 96/160 by the President of the District Court of the Hague, March 12, 1996 and Internet comments by Karin Spaink.)