Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Dear Editor:
I would like to make two corrections to your story "Spamming the Globe.
I am the owner of the website www.scientology-kills.net. Your story
stated, incorrectly, that my defense for the name of the website was
"parody". This is not the case. My defense is plain old First
Ammendment free speech and the fact that trademark law is, put it
bluntly, inapplicable in this case.
Trademark law is designated to protect the legitimate owners of a
trademark from having other individuals use their name for profit, or in
a way that is likely to lead the consumer to be confused regarding the
source of a product. There is absolutely no chance that consumers will
confuse my Web page with an official Scientology site.
The cult of Scientology has only one real claim that could stop my use
of www.scientology-kills.net, and that's the claaim of libel. However,
there isn't an angle that particularly worried me, as truth is an
absolute defense against libel claims.
The second correction is an even smaller one. The article said it was
my attorney who answered Scientology's claims. Although technically
this is correct, the attorney representing me in the
www.scientology-kills.net issue was actually an attorney provided to me
by the joint effort between the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(www.eff.org) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, not my
personal attorney. Those two organizations deserve credit for standing
behind me and my use of the domain name "scientology-kills.net" in light
of Scientology's reputation for extremely aggressive litigation tactics.
Ray Randolph
Further facts
about this criminal empire may be found at
Operation Clambake and FACTNet.
Subject: Ray Randolph to LA Weekly, 6/12: Letters to the Editor, re: Henson
From: skanda@postoffice.pacbell.net
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 06:20:12 -0700
Fort Collins, Colorado
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