Date: Mon, 24 Jul 1995 13:33:14 -0700 (MST) From: James J. Lippard To: Helena Kobrin Cc: primenet-admin@usr5.primenet.com, grifter@primenet.com Subject: Re: your mail On Sun, 23 Jul 1995, Helena Kobrin wrote: > Dear Systems Administrator, > > I represent Religious Technology Center {"RTC"), the > owner of the confidential Advanced Technology of the religion > of Scientology, and the holder of exclusive rights under the > copyrights applicable to the Advanced Technology materials. > Among these copyrighted and confidential materials are the > Advanced Technology materials of a certain level known as > "Operating Thetan Section VII," "OT VII." > > We have been informed that one of your computer users, > Jesse Garon (grifter@primenet.com), has posted a segment of > this copyrighted, unpublished work onto the Internet without > the authorization of our client, which, of course, would not > have given such authorization had it been requested. The > header of the posting is included at the bottom of this > message. Mr. Garon's action violates our client's legal > rights in that it is the unauthorized making of electronic > copies of the copyrighted material and the unauthorized > disclosure of trade secrets materials. > > These actions constitute violations of the United States > Copyright laws entitling our client to damages, an > injunction, and impounding of materials and equipment used in > perpetrating the infringing acts. It is essential that you > take immediate and effective action to remove the > unauthorized copies from the Internet, and that you instruct > Mr. Garon to refrain from any repetition of this or > similar actions in the future. > > We understand that the rules of most systems prohibit > subscribers from posting or distributing copyrighted > materials. We are also informed that the usual practice of > systems operators in dealing with violations of their system, > and then cancel the account if the subscriber continues his > or her wrongdoing. > > We request an immediate response from you with a > statement of your willingness to prevent Mr. Garon from > violating my client's rights in the works in question, and > from making other such postings in the future. We would much > prefer to resolve this matter with you amicably if you are > willing to do so. > > Very truely yours, > Helena K. Kobrin > > > > >From netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!news.p > rimenet.com!ip033.lax.primenet.com!user Thu Jul 2 > Xref: netcom.com alt.religion.scientology:90115 alt.religion.kibology:88785 alt > .slack:44214 misc.legal:131542 alt.activism:11075 > Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!news. > primenet.com!ip033.lax.primenet.com!user > From: grifter@primenet.com ('Jesse Garon') > Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,alt.religion.kibology,alt.slack,misc.legal > ,alt.activism,alt.censorship,comp.org.eff.talk,ne > Subject: Re: Helena Kobrin threatens *YET ANOTHER* lawsuit! > Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 00:04:05 -0800 > Organization: Jesse Garon Blues Explosion > Lines: 49 > Distribution: inet > Message-ID: > References: <3uk34u$lcc@nyx.cs.du.edu> > NNTP-Posting-Host: ip033.lax.primenet.com Dear Ms. Kobrin: Thank you for the information. Unfortunately, the article whose headers you supply has been cancelled, and so I cannot examine it. I thus have no evidence that any copyright or trade secret infringement on the part of Mr. Garon has taken place. If you would like us to take proactive action against Mr. Garon, you must provide us with evidence that he has infringed your copyrights or released your trade secrets to the net, as well as evidence that you are who you claim to be. For the latter, a registered letter would suffice; you might also consider using PGP to sign your email and send us your public key fingerprint via registered mail so that we can authenticate your email upon receipt. For the former, you must provide us with evidence that what Mr. Garon has posted does indeed contain copyrighted material which exceeds the bounds of "fair use" and/or is a trade secret. Since it is my understanding that the courts have already ruled that Scientology's religious materials cannot be protected as trade secrets and every example of a quotation from OT7 which I have observed is very small and appears to fall well within the bounds of "fair use," it appears to me that there is a significant burden of proof on your side. I welcome any evidence to the contrary you may have. Jim Lippard webmaster@primenet.com Web Administrator, Primenet http://www.primenet.com/ Phoenix, Arizona https://com.primenet.com/ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 27 Jul 1995 11:20:29 -0700 (PDT) From: Helena Kobrin To: "James J. Lippard" Subject: Re: your mail Dear Mr. Lippard, Thank you for your response. You are misinformed regarding any court ruling that my client's materials cannot be protected as trade secrets, and have obviously been obtaining information from the wrong sources. This is interesting, considering that you ask me to verify who I am, having no reason to believe I am anyone other than whom I say, yet you are probably relying on other utterly unsubstantiated postings for your misinformation regarding my client's materials. L. Ron Hubbard wrote thousands of pages of Scientology materials. Of those, the majority are copyrighted, published materials which can be purchased from bookstores or a Church of Scientology. Certain materials, which relate to advanced levels of spiritual counseling, are referred to as "Advanced Technology," and are disclosed by the Church only to Scientologists who have reached certain levels of spiritual awareness and met the prerequisites for access to Advanced Technology, including signing confidentiality agreements. They are never sold to anyone. The only instances where any material has been exposed has been as a result of the materials being stolen. No court has ever ruled that these materials are not trade secrets. The only courts ever to have directly considered the issue have ruled otherwise. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in 1989 that the Advanced Technology materials may qualify as trade secrets in Religious Technology Center v. Scott, 869 F.2d 1306, 1309-10 (9th Cir. 1989), although it did not make a determination one way or the other. The trial court in that case had earlier personally reviewed the Advanced Technology materials in question in that case and found that they would qualify as trade secrets. Relying on the Ninth Circuit appellate court decision, in 1993, the United States District Court for the Southern District of California ruled, in Bridge Publications Inc. v. Vien, 827 F.Supp. 629, 633 (S.D.Cal. 1993), that the Advanced Technology materials under consideration there *were* trade secrets. My clients received a judgment of $52,000 in that case for trade secret misappropriation and copyright infringement of various materials, both published and unpublished. That court so ruled after full briefing and presentation of evidence. I assume you are not a lawyer, and I do not expect you would be well versed in intellectual property law. Therefore, you are undoubtedly unaware that there is no fair use defense to trade secret misappropriation. The trade secret laws do not provide for such a defense. Thus, even where a work could be subject to fair use under copyright law, it cannot be so under trade secret law. Furthermore, even in the realm of copyright law, the fact that materials are unpublished by the copyright owner is a factor which always weighs against a finding of fair use, even though it does not absolutely preclude such a finding. There has never been a case where use of illegally obtained material has been found to be fair. I can correspond with you by e-mail or by regular mail or both. The means of corresponding will not change the basic facts. You can check with your legal counsel regarding the cases cited above, or I can send you copies of them. I can also send you a copy of the posting in question, with redactions of the text of the OT VII materials, as obviously I will not distribute trade secret materials to anyone. If you will send me your address, I will be happy to do so. The courts noted above have considered the Advanced Technology materials and found them to be trade secrets. I doubt you are more qualified than these judges to make a determination on the subject. I have no idea what you consider "evidence." If you wish to see the registration certificate then I will be happy to send you a copy. You just need to send me your address. I look forward to hearing back from you on this matter. Sincerely, Helena Kobrin