Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,alt.clearing.technology,alt.society.civil-liberty,comp.org.eff.talk,misc.int-property,misc.legal.computing,misc.legal Path: netnews.worldnet.att.net!uunet!in2.uu.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!netcom.com!noring From: noring@netcom.com (Jon Noring) Subject: --> IP Attornies, please reply! [I Plan to Order the NOTS] Message-ID: Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) References: <54merr$l67@hal.cs.duke.edu> Distribution: inet Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 01:36:59 GMT Lines: 73 Sender: noring@netcom23.netcom.com Xref: netnews.worldnet.att.net alt.religion.scientology:154018 alt.clearing.technology:8212 alt.society.civil-liberty:18344 comp.org.eff.talk:23329 misc.int-property:7852 misc.legal.computing:9021 misc.legal:43916 [IP attornies, see my request at the end of this post...] In article gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes: >In article Jon Noring wrote: >>IANAL, but I fully expect the cult to pour big bucks into lots of law firms >>into trying to resolve this matter to their satisfaction because if they >>don't it'll adversely affect their current U.S. litigation strategy claiming >>trade secret protection. >The trade secret issue is dead. Even if the Co$ will seal the documents >in Sweden they will still have to collect all copies. They can't do that. It is not dead. They are still claiming it in some capacity in other court cases and will continue to do so until it is truly dead. I believe they are claiming some vestiges of trade secrets in Grady's case. Maybe Grady can comment on this. They will not give up the trade secret defense so easily -- in my opinion, they will fight it as far as they can if they get an adverse ruling that is binding on them in all their cases. >>It MAY also provide a legal way by which each Free Zoner can obtain the NOTS >>(again, just my opinion, and IANAL -- you do so at your own risk). It is of >>course a violation of copyright to copy the document obtained from Sweden, >>but it is not a violation of U.S. law, as far as I can tell (though RTC will >>be forced to make that claim) to possess and read a copy secured directly >>from the Swedish Parliament with the proper Swedish government stamps. >Even if it is a violation of copyright laws, it is a civil matter. Nobody >can put you in jail for that. Finding, and suing, all the holders of NOTs >from Sweden is going to be a *very* expensive job. Even the Co$ is not >stupid enough to do something like this. True, but oftentimes civil law can be more onerous to individuals than criminal law, due to major flaws in our legal system. And do recall that all the requests for receiving the NOTS from the Swedish Parliament are themselves public documents, so CoS has the right to ask for copies of all the requests, and no doubt they will. From that they will be able to track down some of them, or at the least know where they went. But again, unless the Chancellor rules differently and seals them (unlikely), those in Sweden who received the officially-stamped Parliament version can keep them for personal use or maybe donate them to university libraries and the like (the rumors I've heard is that a lot of Swedish journalists have ordered their own copy). However, they cannot be recopied in excess of whatever Swedish copyright law allows regarding such matters (and copies cannot be sold) because the text is still covered under CoST/RTC copyright (assuming they are the legitimate copyright holders to the materials in question, which for now is the most likely assumption). But, as long as Parliament keeps the NOTS unsealed and available to the Swedish people, anybody can still go to Parliament and get their stamped copy. It remains to be seen if Parliament will stop giving them out because of too high demand stretching their resources -- they may decide that enough have been distributed to fulfill the spirit of the requirements of "offentlighetsprincip", or out of pragmatism simply distribute them to Swedish citizens. Zenon? But even if this happens, there will be many copies already out there which can legally be held by Swedes, and commented on in Fair Use like any other copyrighted document, and used for research by religious studies scholars. Heck, they may become collector's items. :^) But I definitely want to hear from IP attornies as to the legality of a U.S. citizen in obtaining and owning the official Swedish Parliament version of the NOTS which CoS claims are unpublished documents protected under both copyright and trade secret laws. Jon Noring -- OmniMedia Electronic Books | URL: http://www.awa.com/library/omnimedia 9671 S. 1600 West St. | Anonymous FTP: South Jordan, UT 84095 | ftp.awa.com /pub/softlock/pc/products/OmniMedia 801-253-4037 | E-mail: omnimedia@netcom.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Join the Electronic Books Mailing List (EBOOK-List) Today! 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