Path: netnews.worldnet.att.net!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!howland.erols.net!feed1.news.erols.com!insync!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!nntp.uio.no!solace!news.ifm.liu.se!usenet From: Johan Olofsson Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic,alt.religion.scientology Subject: Copyright and free access to official documents in Sweden (was: Today's bulletin) Followup-To: soc.culture.nordic Date: 13 Nov 1996 00:20:46 +0100 Organization: Lysator Computer Society, Linköping University, Sweden Lines: 254 Sender: jmo@lysistrate.lysator.liu.se Message-ID: References: <3287F8C7.1E7E@dodo.pp.se> <56a1v7$14u@toralf.uib.no> <56a3fb$3h6@ratatosk.uio.no> NNTP-Posting-Host: lysistrate.lysator.liu.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.32 Xref: netnews.worldnet.att.net soc.culture.nordic:21183 alt.religion.scientology:169326 (Follow up set to soc.culture.nordic!) oyvindse@ulrik.uio.no (\yvind Seland) writes: > Note: I am not trying to start a discussion about scientology on > soc.culture.nordic. At most I suggest that we confine this discussion to be > about the attempt from a US-congressman to interfere with Swedish laws. > People interested should read alt.religion.scientology Agreeing (almost) totally I continue to play my self-appointed role as guardian of the s.c.n. annals and archives: (I _am_ aware of the possibility that more than one contributor find my attempts rather boring.) The following quotes are (slightly edited) from a.r.s. I feel them to be not quite accurate, but lack myself the necessary knowledge in political science to criticize it. The Finnish-Swedish Offentlighetsprincipen ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: ["Offentlighetsprincip"] Swedish Press - Gothenberg Post 04 Oct 1996 From: noring@netcom.com (Jon Noring) Date: 1996/10/09 Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientolog,misc.int-Property,misc.legal.computing,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.society.civil-Liberty,misc.legal Message-Id: Saw the following post on a.r.s. For those American IP attornies who don't understand Swedish law, and are aghast that the Parliament can disseminate COPYRIGHTED materials to whoever comes in and asks (except when they are classified for national security reasons), Swedish law has a legal principle called "Offentlighetsprincip". I've enclosed an edited private e-mail from a Swedish individual (not Zenon, and who prefers to remain anonymous), wherein it describes "offentlighetsprincip". It's an amazing principle, and one which we sorely need here in the U.S. (U.S. IP attornies -- any opinions on whether the U.S. should have such a principle?) [ ... ] And now, the "tutorial" on "Offentlighetsprincip"... When thinking of the Swiss legal system, you have heard of their oddity: the bank secrecy. But you [probably] have not heard about ours: the "offentlighetsprincip", the principle of publicly. It's our juridicial oddity, and it's so peculiar, it's better not to translate it. The US equivalence is the Freedom of Information Act, but it's better not to use that parallel, because all US citizens will only get the wrong impression. The offentlighetsprincip is divided in two parts: the right for whoever it may be, to be present as listener at court and other public proceedings. The rule is from the 15th century, and is of course no oddity at all. Most legal systems state the same. But the other part is it: the right, whomever it may be, to anonymously and without giving any reason, "immediately and on the spot" read public papers in courts and federal and municipal agencies, and get copies, and publish them irrespective of the wishes of the original author. The offentlighetsprincip is part of the constitution of the Kingdom of Sweden. It has been since 1766; thus the offentlighetsprincip for public papers is 22 years older than the US constitution. But as Sweden has prefered to rewrite instead of using amendments, it has since been rewritten in 1774, 1809, 1946 and 1976. There is of course also elaborate rules, a thick law, when public papers must be classified. But the basic principles from 1766 have never been changed. And when the computers came, data information became as public as information on paper. The offenlighetsprincip is truly revered. When Sweden applied for membership in the European Union, our government said, Sweden was prepared to negotiate about exactly everything. Except the offentlighetsprincip. If the Union didn't accept that as a precondition, Sweden wouldn't apply for a membership. As Finland was part of Sweden in 1766 and 1774, they have had more or less the same rules, but Norway has never. Since twenty years other countries have followed with Fredom of Information Laws, Denmark e.g. But all those are tame compared with our constitution. And why is the offentlighetsprincip revered by even the poorest citizens? Because in other countries the journalists are depending on leaks, but when a whole group of politicians, judges or bureaucrats all are corrupt, there aren't any. But in Sweden all journalists, it's part of their professional pride, dig up the facts nevertheless. Their mud digging achievements the last twenty years are impressive: one Prime Minister elect, three Ministers of Justice, half a dozen Regional Govenors, half a dozen of the highest Police Commanding Officers, at least one parlamentary member a year, and several dozens of local municipal mayors and managers. All sacked. In most cases they hadn't been more corrupt than e.g. using their official taxpaid VISA cards for small private expenses, but that didn't calm the public outrage, and they got sacked and scoffed at nevertheless. The average Swedish citizen is ruthless, almost cruel, with corruption precisely because that we have had this offentlighetsprincip for 200 years; an incomparable effective instrument against fraud. With such an effectivness, the offentlighetsprincip is of course hated, hated, hated among politicians and bureaucrats, but they can't even show the slightest hint of that opinion, beause in that case, they won't be reelected. It would be a political suicide. Our constitution states the following steps (the word paper stands also for data files and data information and the word agencies includes courts): 1. A paper arrives into an agency, or a paper is written ready by a civil or municipial servant. 2. This constitutes the paper "a common public paper", and as such, it is irrevocably archived for eternity. (With exceptions stated in a separate law.) 3. The paper's existence is registered. If some part of it is classified, that is flagged in the register. 4. Whoever, and that is literally, whoever it may be, and anonymously and without giving any reason, "immediately and on the spot" is allowed to read the the paper without any cost, and get copies against a fee "without undue delay". 5. But the offentlighetsprincip is part on the right to print and distribute daily papers; the constitution's extreme clear wordings allows a publisher to get a copy of a public paper and print it. No one, not even the government or the parliament or the original author, can stop that printing, and of course not a Californian lawyer. 6. If the publisher or journalist don't keep secret who gave them the hot information, they will be prosecuted. These rules are part of the constitution. 7. If an agency tries to research, use investigators etc., who may have given a certain journalist the hot information, they - the responsible civil servant in the offending agency - will be prosecuted by the Chancellor of Justice. These rules, inclusive the penalties, are also part of the constitution. 8. Just one person, the Swedish Chancellor of Justice, can after the paper is published, sue the publisher, but no one else. The published paper is continously public and may even be reprinted and sold during the trial. (With rare exceptions. It hasn't been any such case since WW II, when a few editions were confiscated for national security resons. Afterwards, the then Chancellor of Justice, who made those decisions, was transfered to another position; in reality he was sacked.) 9. Now observe: just one person can prosecute according to our constitution: the Chancellor of Justice. And he can prosecute just one person: the official publisher. Not the printing company, tobaccionist [?], Internet server company. As long as they just distribute the daily paper, or an article in an already published daily paper. Except the publisher they are all safe, even his employed journalist, who wrote the article. 10. Now - and that happens - someone, let's call her Helena, can require a fee from the publisher pretending she has the copyright, and the publisher has printed more than a fair use of the right to quote. But if she wants to stop the ongoing distribution, she must apply to the Chancellor of Justice; it's complete unheard of, that he has done anything on the grounds, that a publisher has infringed copyright. Helena can't under any circumstances stop any ongoing distribution of publications due to alleged damage on her copyrights. 11. But Helena can sue in civil courts, outside the above constitutional rules, for copyright infringements. If she win, she will get 1000 to 2000 $, no more. It depends on the circumstances, if she will get anything at all. I don't believe it, if the publisher has distributed his paper for free. In one case, a person got about 2 $ in compensation. 12. But, on the other hand, if someone buys the daily paper, and uses the NOTs and OTs in a new competing Church of Scientology number two, and does it for profit in the Hubbard way, Helena can sue and win huge compensation even here in Sweden. That's another thing: To use printed material for own income or profit. 13. The weak point above is that our Constitution only gives real tight protection for printed "periodical" papers, the only media in 1766. But our politicians have tried to keep up to protect also Free Speech, TV and so on, but the protection tends always to be tamer, even if they try to avoid such outcome of all the new legislation. In fact no one knows, if a web version of a printed published paper (i.e. NOTS and OTs) can be prosecuted other than by the Chancellor of Justice. But I belive only he can prosecute, even if we can foresee some legal circus before that is firmly stated. And, observe Jon!, during the whole circus, the NOTs and OTs will be complete public. Our rules differ radically from the US ones. ************************ (end of description of "Offentlighetsprincip") ++ 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! Just send e-mail to majordomo@aros.net, and put the following line in the body of the message: subscribe ebook-list ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: noring@netcom.com (Jon Noring) Subject: Re: 'Offentlighetsprincip' revisited (was Re: Rice & beans) Keywords: XENU, alt.religion.scientology.xenu Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,misc.int-property,misc.legal Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 21:27:18 GMT Message-ID: In article stevea@castlsys.demon.co.uk.no.spam.thanx (Steve A) writes: >Has Sweden joined the EC yet? I wonder what effect their membership of >the EC would have - presumably those documents, now freely available >in Sweden, would be freely available throughout Europe, from Sweden to >Italy, and from Eire to Germany. As I mentioned in a post previous to this one where a tutorial is given on the Swedish principle of "offentlighetsprincip", it was specifically mentioned that one of the conditions for Sweden to join the EC is that this principle is not negotiable one iota. It is held to be virtually sacred in Sweden, thus explaining why the Church of Scientology is having problems getting Parliament to not redistribute the NOTS/OTs on request. I've heard that many newspapers in Sweden have already secured copies, along with innumerable individuals, and that some papers may even publish portions from them. Of course, CoS can sue the newspapers for copyright infringment (a civil matter) if they do post portions, and might even win if it exceeds Fair use, but the award would be very limited if they do. A paper may consider it worth the trouble and effort to do so. We'll see what happens in the next month or two, and it is more likely *if* the Church of Scientology continues to legally harass Zenon. The best thing CoS can do in this case is to quietly drop charges and move on -- if they do, the Swedish public will quickly lose interest in the Zenon matter and I don't believe the newspapers will even bother to post the NOTS/OT since they just are not that interesting (except maybe for some of the OT's dealing with Xenu/Xemu and other sci-fi stuff). Just my opinion, of course. But my question of Zenon and other Swedes, can Americans write to the Swedish Parliament and actually get the NOTS/OT, or does one have to actually visit Sweden and/or be a Swedish citizen to do so? I don't think I'll write the Swedish Parliament, but I'm sure some here will try. Jon Noring (A Norwegian proud of his Swedish brethren) -- 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! Just send e-mail to majordomo@aros.net, and put the following line in the body of the message: subscribe ebook-list