Letter from the Church
From: "Homer W. Smith"
Subject: Letter from the Church
Date: 1997/08/09
Message-ID:
Organization: Art Matrix - Lightlink Electra Gateway v2.4
Newsgroups: misc.int-property
ART MATRIX - LIGHTLINK
PO 880 Ithaca, NY 14851-0880
(607) 277-0959 Voice
(607) 277-8913 Fax
(607) 277-5026 Modems
homer@lightlink.com E-mail
jes@lightlink.com E-mail
08/09/97 2:01pm
Dear Folks,
We have received notice from representatives of the Church of
Scientology that we are in violation of their trademarks via hosting
the domain name scientology.de registered with the German Internic by
Bernd Luebeck of the German Free Zone association.
The letter we received is appended below, and the full story
below that.
My present guess is that the Church has failed to get the German
Internic to put the name on hold, as they did with scientologie.org.
Scientology.org was hosted at the US internic and the Church got them
to place the name on hold, where it remains on hold.
I presume that the Church has also failed to get the legal owners
of the name to withdraw it. Thus they are attacking us as a last
resort.
If I were in fact to remove the domain name from our system, the
Free Zone would move the hosting of the domain to a german provider
where presumably the Church would have a harder time getting it
removed.
It should be pointed out, that the Church has not shown us
convincing evidence that they own the copyright or trademark to the
term SCIENTOLOGIE, and we have been shown evidence that they do not in
Germany.
The term 'Scientologie' was coined by A. Nordenholz, a German
Philospher in the early 1900's, predating L. Ron Hubbard's use of the
term.
Dr. Nordenholz wrote a book called, "Scientologie, Science of
the Constitution and Usefulness of Knowledge.."
The rights to this book are now owned exclusively by the Free
Zone association.
You can find out more about this book and Dr. Nordenholz at
http://www.scientologie.de
You can find out more about the Free Zone association at
http://www.freezone.org
It should also be noted that the Church is a major opponent of
the Free Zone association, and they have taken exception to the
content of both web pages, which also reside on our system.
I would expect in the future a similar request to remove the web
pages also.
At this time I can not in good faith remove the domain name.
Homer
((My comments in double parenthesis. - Homer))
((From:))
Small Larkin & Kidde
Attorney's at Law
Eighteenth Floor
10940 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA, 90024-3945
(310) 209 4400
Cable SLK Mark - Telex 4961615
Facsimile: (310) 209-4450
August 6, 1997
Thomas M. Small
Direct Dial: (310) 209 4404
((To:))
Mr. Homer Smith
25 Fairview Square
PO 880
Ithaca, NY 14851-0880
((Subject: )) Re: SCIENTOLOGIE.DE
Dear Mr. Smith,
Our client, Religious Technology Center, recently became aware of
the registration of the subject domain name (scientologie.de) by the
organization identified as Freie Zone E.V. ((sic)) in Germany. As in
the case of SCIENTOLOGIE.ORG, Bernard ((sic)) Luebeck is identified as
"Administrative Contact" and you are identified as "Technical
Contact".
As you well know, SCIENTOLOGY and SCIENTOLOGIE are registered
trademarks and service marks of our client. Despite our earlier
demands that you stop servicing domain names that are identical fo
these marks, you are presently supporting the subject domain name.
The SCIENTOLOGIE.DE domain name is registered through DE-NIC to access
your computer servers.
Your actions in this respect will lead to litigation unless you
act immediately to stop supporting the domain name in question.
Your prompt response and compliance are required if legal
proceedings are to be avoided. Unless we hear from you immediately,
we will assume that further proceedings are necessary.
Very truely yours,
Thomas M. Small
TNS/vi
cc: Chris Michaels, Esq. (Our attorneys.)
========================================================================
>From: Root Administrator
To: System Notices
Subject: SUBPOENAED
SYSTEM MOTICE: sn32.script
gopher://lightlink.com in sn-l, or newsgroup light.sn-l
PLEASE DO NOT DEPEND ON OUR EQUIPMENT OR BACKUPS TO PROTECT YOUR DATA
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is very long and for your entertainment only.
Those of you with domain names that infringe on major trademarks
(macdonalds.com) will find this interesting.
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY
We have been subpoenaed by legal representatives of the Church of
Scientology to give deposition concerning an anonymous posting of some
of their trade secret sacred scriptures to the net through an
anonymous remailer I was running at rahul.net before lightlink was
born, in April of 1995.
Since that time almost all of their highly copyrighted and trade
secret theology and practices have made their way to the net using
similar remailers (not ours!) and the Church wishes to find who is
behind these infringements.
They are not suing us, we are merely being deposed as part of a
an ongoing suit presently under way in California against another
netizen and out spoken critic of the Church, Grady Ward.
The remailer at rahul.net is no longer operational, not because
of this particular incident, but because of one too many calls from
the White House occasioned by spams of their mail system objecting to
the CDA.
"Mr. Smith? This is White House Security..."
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY II
We have received a fax from other legal representatives of the
Church of Scientology concerning the registration of scientologie.org
and the presence of their home pages on our system, the Dr.
Nordenholz "Scientologie" home page.
The Church is demanding that I withdraw the registration of the
domain name and take down the home page stating that both are
infringments of their clients trademarks, servicemarks and copyrights.
Apparently in 1934 a German philosopher named Dr. A. Nordenholz
wrote a book called Scientology, Science of the Constitution and
Usefulness of Knowledge. This was some 15 years before L. Ron
Hubbard used the term for his new religion.
In German it is spelled Scientologie.
This book was written in German and is a rather obscure and
difficult tome on philosophy, epistomology (study of knowing) and
ontology (study of being). You know, questions about "The Big What
Is."
The original title of this work was,
Scientologie: Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und der
Tauglichkeit des Wissens.
It has been alleged by ex members of the Church that after LRH
started using the term Scientology for his new religion, there was a
concerted effort by Church members to suppress and destroy the
original book, repleat with wild stories of breaking and entering and
theft of 'only remaining copies' etc, with other people reporting that
one day their rare and tattered copy just 'disappeared'.
It is a well known fact that the Church has had a history of
cloak and dagger escapades, both with ex members and with government
agencies such as the IRS and the FDA.
It is also a documented fact that ex members have executed
clandestine operations against the Church in order to misappropriate
secret high level theological manuscripts, called The Advanced
Technology. The Church claims these materials are a form of spiritual
technology, or procedures to help mankind walk the road to total
freedom (enlightenment).
Ostensibly the Advanced Technology materials were stolen to give
them wider readership. Apparently twenty years later they ended up on
the net!
However, I have no hard evidence that the Church has ever
responded in kind, in particular against this book written by Dr.
Nordenholz.
As an aside, some of these known escapades have lead to multi
million dollar law suits, and a 15 year life and death legal struggle
between high ranking ex officials of the Church and its present
leaders.
Some of these ex officials have accounts on lightlink and are
posting from lightlink to the net to rectify what they claim are
egregious wrongs inside the Church. Members of the the Church in turn
claim these ex members are (my words) low life scoundrels, criminals
and 'suppressive persons' looking out only for their own self interest
and financial gain, and are not to be believed.
Anyhow it is alleged that eventually all that was left of
Nordenholz's book were badly made xerox copies of copies in the hands
of obscure people in even more obscure and difficult regions of the
world to reach such as deep behind the Iron Curtain.
I am told that the Nordenholz family themselves seemed to have
disappeared from the face of the Earth and that was the end of that
until about two years ago certain members of the Free Zone Association
in Germany set out to find the Nordenholz family and purchase the
rights to the book.
The Free Zone is apparently a group of Independent
Scientologists, who wish to continue the study of Scientology free
from the the purview of the Church.
Since all of the Sacred Scriptures of the Church are also the
highly copyrighted and trade secreted personal property of L. Ron
Hubbard and his assigns, namely the RTC or Religious Technology
Center, there has been significant legal and personal conflict between
the Church and these Free Zone members who wish to study, teach and
practice their religion in peace.
I was approached last December of 1995 by Bernd Luebeck, a member
of the Free Zone Association in Germany, who claimed their group had
found the original Nordenholz family and bought the rights to the book
from them for a sizeable sum of money.
He further claimed that they were working full time to have a
correct and readable translation of the book available for English
speaking people and that they wanted to put this book in the public
domain and on a home page on lightlink.
They also wanted to create a separate home page for the Free Zone
Association, a highly active group of independent Scientologists who
originally formed under the leadership of one Captain Bill Robertson.
Captain Bill was the captain of one of LRH's sea going vessels
during the 60's. Captain Bill eventually had a falling out with
Church upper management, but not with LRH himself, and he took off to
Europe to form a second Church of Scientology called Ron's Org.
Ron's Org people generally refer to themselves as the Free Zone,
a term coined by Captain Bill, and later made generic by many
Independent Scientologists. Captain Bill died in 1994-1995 still
loyal to LRH but adamantly opposed to the original Church and its
upper management.
Towards the end of creating a home page both for themselves and
for the Nordenholz book, Bernd expressed a desire to me to register
freezone.org and scientologie.org.
I queried Bernd about possible trademark conflicts with the
Church as such were heavily in the internic news at that time, but he
assured me that everything would be and that he would take full legal
responsibility for any damages I might incur.
So I sent him the registration forms, and he filled them out and
submitted them to the internic for registration.
The Free Zone people have since built two rather impressive home
pages for these domains which they upload from Germany to their
freezone account on lightlink, and both pages have been widely
publicized on the net in alt.religion.scientology and
comp.org.eff.talk.
points to the Free Zone Association home page, and
points to the Nordenholz home page. At least it did until last
night.
From recent decisions handed down against netcom in an earlier
dispute between the Church and posters of copyrighted and trade
secreted theology to the net, I believe that lightlink can be held
liable if I refuse to take action against copyright or trademark
infringements residing on our web site or news spool after I have been
clearly informed about them. Therefore I have removed the link
between the scientologie.org domain and the Nordenholz home page.
I have not submitted a request to the internic to withdraw the
scientologie.org domain name because I do not own the domain name and
I would be liable to the owners in Germany should I do so without
their permission. I am already in hot water with them for the action
I did take. The Church's proper course of action is against them and
the internic directly, not lightlink.
Further I have not removed the Nordenholz home page from our
system as it does not seem to contain any obvious copyright or
trademark infringements, although I am not a lawyer. It is pretty
clear however, that Scientologie in German does translate to
Scientology in English, and I have been informed that this is in fact
a trademark of the Church of Scientology, but it is also clear that
the name of the book is "Scientology, Science of the Constitution and
Usefulness of Knowledge" and as such the use of the term would appear
to be within a valid context.
Again I am not a lawyer, however I have based my decisions on my
best understanding of the matter.
The responsibility of that decision rests solely with me.
If you are interested in seeing our first draft response to the
Church lawyers, it is available at
There you will also find how to get to the Nordenholz home page,
and judge it for yourself according to it's content.
We have retained counsel on this matter through Chris Michaels at
Barnard, Brown and Michaels, trademark attorney's in downtown Ithaca,
bbm@lightlink.com.
Bernd Luebeck may be reached at freezone@lightlink.com.
I am sure he would welcome your comments.
Homer
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homer Wilson Smith News, Web, Telnet Art Matrix - Lightlink
(607) 277-0959 E-mail, FTP, Shell Internet Access, Ithaca NY
homer@lightlink.com info@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com
