Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
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

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
Fort Collins, Colorado