Path: wn3!worldnet.att.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!nntp.uio.no!funny.bahnhof.se!seunet!news2.swip.net!mn6.swip.net!mn5.swip.net!news From: Zenon Panoussis Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: The CoS' brilliant case planning Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 21:13:54 +0100 Organization: - Lines: 101 Message-ID: <33076A82.1DD0@dodo.pp.se> NNTP-Posting-Host: dialup115-8-3.swipnet.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit NNTP-Posting-User: s-40153 X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) CC: Madame Kobrin , The Twit Here is a story that ars may find amusing, while some judges and scientologists probably find less amusing. The backround is that the court of appeals for middle- Sweden sealed the NOTs in September under the statute of secrecy in courts for trade secrets. After that, I filed the NOTs with the parliament, where they became public once again. The NOTs were also filed with three other authorities, were stolen from them and were re-filed. They have been public all along at these places and copies have been made available to everyone that has requested one. Yet, the CoS has continued to claim that the NOTs are "confidential". And a ridiculous situation has arised, with the NOTs being public at four authorities, including the administrative section of the primary court of Stockholm, but sealed in the judicial section of the same court. Public at the 8th floor and sealed at the 7th floor of the same building. The situation is so much more ridiculous, but also disturbing, considering that the CoS has not presented a legible copy of the scriptures they claim copyright to and trade secret status for. They have only filed a masked document of about 150 pages and they have been pointing at what I have filed, saying "yeah, that's the same, it's ours". And the courts have so far not bothered to question the validity of such claims as evidence. In an attempt to change the situation, I filed another thick stack of NOTs, which are not copies of the previously filed NOTs. In total some 900 pages of different NOTs are now filed in my case, comprising about 200 individual NOTs documents out of the 55 or so that the CoS claims ownership to. It becomes evident to all (except maybe the judges) that the 900 pages that I have filed so far cannot possibly be covered by the 150 masked pages that the CoS has filed. Which in turn brings us back to the main question: just what is it, if anything, that the CoS has copyright to, and how are we to know? After this latest filing, I requested a copy of it, thereby setting off a merry-go-round of decisions that nobody wants to make. The primary court ruled that I am not entitled to copies of my own filings (Stockholms tingsrätt, T 7-866-96, ab 146). I appealed, and the court of appeals ruled that I am entitled to copies of my own filings, but that the primary court is best suited to decide on the issue of possible secrecy (Svea hovrätt, Ö 516/97 ab 3). So instead of ruling for or against my request of copies, the court of appeals tossed back the case to the primary court. This caused the primary court to issue a ruling in very annoyed language, saying that secrecy applies to the entire 900 pages material (T 7-866-96, ab 151). Of course there are no grounds for this ruling: no-one, not even the CoS, has claimed that the entire 900 pages would consist of trade secrets. Consequently I appealed again, with a motion that the court of appeals once again remands the case back to the primary court (Svea hovrätt, Ö 725/97, ab 1). A ruling should come this week. And for every ruling, no matter which way it goes, the absurdity of the situation becomes more obvious. This apparently insignificant side-case will decide the trade secret status of the NOTs. If it goes my way, it will be definite. If it goes the CoS' way, it can (and will be) challenged again at any time. Indirectly this case will also influence significantly the evaluation of evidence and the question of burden of proof in the copyright case. If I win it, I should be in a position to request a reconsideration of the preliminary injunction against me, the one that forbids me to "infringe upon RTC's copyrights". On the other hand, the injunction protects me from possible criminal prosecution during its validity. Copyright law states that you can't bring criminal charges against a person for a copyright infringement that is covered by a civil injunction. So even if I positively know that I can win a motion to lift the injunction, I will not file any such motion. As for the injunction itself, it only carries a monetary penalty, and I am currently bankrupt. I mention this just in order to make it clear to the CoS that I only abstain from publishing NOTs for the time being BECAUSE I WANT TO, because I CHOOSE to play the game by the rules. Should I at any moment and for any reason feel like spamming NOTs in ars or anywhere else, I am at full freedom to do it. In other words, if the CoS wishes to have a weapon against me, any weapon against me at all, they should motion themselves for the withdrawal of the preliminary injunction. But that's of course something that they can't do. If Magnusson isn't prosecuted, maybe he should go back to law school. Z --- oracle@everywhere: The ephemeral source of the eternal truth...