Newsgroups: alt.clearing.technology
http://news.com/News/Item/0,4,37383,00.html
Scientology subpoenas Worldnet
Raising new issues about anonymity on the Net, the Church of Scientology is
invoking a law past last year to force AT&T to disclose the identity of an
Internet service subscriber who allegedly infringed the church's copyrights
online.
Scientology's Bridge Publications, which four years ago helped to forge new
law when it sued Internet service provider Netcom, claims the anonymous
author "made two unauthorized, verbatim Internet postings" of the church's
copyrighted works on the "alt.religion.scientology" Usenet group. Invoking a
provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Bridge Publications filed
a subpoena on AT&T that would require it to turn over the name of the
Worldnet subscriber.
"I'm not aware of anyone who has yet to use the subpoena procedure," said
Eric Goldman, an attorney representing ISPs at Cooley Godward. Goldman added
that the provision gives copyright holders powerful new ammunition to learn
the identity of alleged infringers.
"If they can make a colorable claim that someone is infringing those rights
then they have the power to force service providers to hand over disclosure
information pretty much at the owner's request," Goldman said.
"I'm not sure [the provision] is the death of anonymity on the Net," he
added. "It just makes it easier to squash anonymity if the person was using
weak tools to hide their anonymity."
AT&T spokesman Jonathan Varman said the company had not yet turned over the
information to the church and was "looking to do the best for our customer
and still comply with the court." The subpoena set yesterday as the deadline
for complying.
In a telephone interview, the poster, going by the pseudonym "Safe," said
AT&T had agreed to delay complying with the subpoena until at least tomorrow
to give his attorney time to figure out how to proceed.
Regardless, Dan Leipold, Safe's counsel and an attorney who has done battle
with Bridge Publications in the past, said he was concerned the law was
being misused against his client.
"This individual has not been shown to do anything wrong and yet he's going
to lose his anonymity," said Leipold, who declined to name the author. "He's
worried. He does not want to give up the anonymity because he knows who's on
the other side and he knows what they'll do to him."
Critics have charged that the Church of Scientology employs strong-arm
tactics to silence those who publicly disagree with its policies. Chief
among the alleged tactics are lawsuits and public smear campaigns.
Ava Paquette, Bridge Publication's attorney, did not return phone calls
seeking comment.
According to one of the offending Usenet postings, the church goes so far as
to make it a "high crime" for followers to "Organize splinter groups to
diverge from Scientology practices still calling it Scientology or calling
it something else." In all, the post, which purports to cite the
Introduction to Scientology Ethics, lists 274 "errors, misdemeanors, crimes,
and high crimes" against the Church.
Leipold argued that despite the large amount of text quoted verbatim, the
posting fell under so-called fair use exceptions to the copyright law. Fair
use provisions permit parties to reprint copyrighted work depending on the
purpose, the amount of text quoted, and other factors.
"If you're trying to illustrate the point that they exert control over their
members, you can't do it by quoting only five or six rules," Leipold said.
"You've got to look at what the scope is."
This is by no means the first legal scrape for Bridge Publications over
online criticism of the church. In 1995, the church sued Netcom and another
service provider after one of their subscribers allegedly used their systems
to infringe Scientology's copyrights. Before the suit ultimately settled, a
federal judge in San Jose ruled that Netcom could not be held liable for any
infringement unless it had been made aware of the offending materials first
and refused to take any action.
Although not binding, that ruling, issued by U.S. District Judge Ronald
Whyte, became an influential way of resolving when ISPs are responsible for
the infringement of their subscribers. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act
borrowed liberally from the ruling.
--
-- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (Justice for 36 years)
David Miscavige, Ban Church of Scientology Censorship Software now!
For freedom of discussion of CofS's unethical behavior, go to ...
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/churchofscientologysethics
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Subject: CNET news.com: CofS subpoenas Worldnet (AT&T)
From: "Safe ... http://www.fzint.org/" <Safe2WC@worldnet.att.net>
Date: 3 Jun 1999 20:42:08 -0400
By Dan Goodin
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
June 3, 1999, 3:35 p.m. PT
"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all
subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat
us."
Click here for some additional truth about the Scientology crime syndicate:
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