Reply to Milne's 'Big Win' posting
a.r.s, March 14, 1996

Posted, and mailed to Andrew Milne and Karel Jeelof (our local version of Andrew)

milne@crl.com (Andrew Milne) wrote:

> ANOTHER COPYRIGHT VICTORY FOR CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY
> TODAY: IMPORTANT RULING IN THE HAGUE, HOLLAND

I am tempted to believe that this posting is a forgery and was not posted by Andrew Milne, spokesperson for Scientology on Internet. Because if this posting is real, Andrew is dangerously wrong.

> This afternoon, the District Court in The Hague issued a ruling
> which, once and for all, settled the issue of

If Judge van Delden settled the issue "once and for all", Andrew, then why has your cult started another procedure against me and the fifteen Internet providers, with exactly the same claims as you have put forward in this lawsuit? Are are you going to retract this new lawsuit now, Andrew?

> whether or not the
> copyrighted, religious Scientology texts owned by the Church

Ah but Andrew, you must have misread the ruling. The judge merely stated: in this lawsuit I assume that Scientology owns the copyrights to OT II and OT III. He did not 'assume' any other copyrights, Andrew.

> could be copied and posted on the Internet as had been
> done by some Dutch individuals.

You still don't get the difference between postings and a homepage, I see. Let me enlighten you: the subject of this court case was homepages, Andrew.

> With this ruling the Court added another victory to the
> Church's string of legal successes in protecting the copyrights to its
> writings against infringers whose lawlessness threatens the Internet.

Oh dear. Do you call this a legal success? Please allow me to quote from the verdict, Andrew: "This leads to the conclusion that the claims must be rejected. Plaintiffs will, as the party that has been ruled against, be condemned to pay the costs of this suit."

And I need not remind you, I think, that you were the plaintiffs and I was one of the defendants. Wordclear "total loss", Andrew.

> Here is the bottom line according to an immediate review of the
> decision by copyright experts on both sides of the Atlantic:

The bottom line said, and I quote again: "The President rejects all claims." (Well, it's not really the last line of the ruling. The judge goes on the explain that you have to pay our tow sets of lawyers fl 2830, each. Andrew, do you know what this means? You OWE us.

> Religious Technology Center (RTC), a Church of Scientology with the
> duty to enforce the Church-owned copyright, was successful with its
> lawsuit to stem the illicit and wholesale publication of copyrighted
> Scientology material on home pages in Holland.

Apparently it was not illicit, Andrew. Nor was it wholesale. As soon as you made your copyright claim plausible, I adapted a part of the Fishman Affidavit and replaced OT 2 and OT 3 with a summary of my onw, interspersed with comments and quotes. These quotes have been legally approved of, Andrew, and it's a lot more than the 42 words you sued the Washington Post over.

Also, OT 1, OT 4, OT 5, OT 6 and OT 7 are allowed to remain exactly as they were, Andrew.

You know what? I am the first person in the world with a legally approved Fishman Affidavit on my homepge, Andrew. And I'm SP 6. I won.

> The Court's decision
> today made it abundantly clear that the home pages represented
> copyright infringements and by saying so, the Court's ruling
> effectively prevents a repetition of the illegal act by the likes of
> Karin Spaink, an Amsterdam based reporter.

A quote from the ruling about me, Andrew:

"It is a matter of fact that defendant sub 23 until recently had a number of passages from the above mentioned works on her Internet homepage. It is also a matter of fact that defendant, when the plaintiffs - after thereto pressed by the defendants - had given a better basis for their copyright claims, has modified her homepage drastically. That she now violates the copyright of any of the plaintiffs has not been made plausible. Inasfar as she still is quoting literally from protected works, these passages are nothing more than quotes that, considering the context in which they are being used, fall under the exempt ruling of art. 15A of the Copyright Law."

Could it be that Julia Rijnvis, the Dutch Scientology spokeswoman, has lied to you in order to save herself from RPF?

> Spaink escaped more severe
> consequences for her illegal actions because her lawyers saw "the
> writing on the wall" and made her remove her home page three days
> before the hearing in January.

"More severe consequences", Andrew? More severe than being acquitted on all counts? More severe than your cult being ordered to pay me costs?

And I don't need to remind you that you only came forward with proof after seven months, Andrew, and that you have meanwhile dropped all claims as to OT 1 and OT 4 - 7. Meanwhile, you've been acting all these months as if those claims, many of which you have failed to prove, were undisputed all along and you have even raided a provider in the Netherlands on the 'strength' of it.

> At the time she admitted she had broken the law.

Oh no; at that time you admitted that you would have to back up your claims in some way, Andrew. Had you immediately done so, I would have cooperated earlier and your cult would not have been the focus of so much bad publicity, Andrew. Nor would you have given me a reason to wrote a book on your cult, Andrew, which I will now proceed to do. It will be a book about your misbehavious on Internet. And yes, I will go into great detail, Andrew, and I'll probably quote from OT 3 as well, as I am allowed to do.

> The decision today also forces anyone who still maintains the
> same home page, to remove it forthwith unless they want to subject
> themselves to a lawsuit by RTC where the outcome is virtually
> pre-determined.

Not at all, Andrew, not at all - by virtue of this lawsuit, all homepages like mine are legally approved of. What's more, some people even read the verdict to say that the unabridged version of the Fishman Affidavit is legal as well.

> The Court left no doubt today that the postings by Karin Spaink, the
> one individual user who had been sued, had been a copyright violation.
> Having said this, the judge, in effect, appeals to and relies on
> Spaink's good judgement to not repeat the illegality and, giving her
> the benefit of the doubt in this regard, he feels there is no threat of
> a repetition of the violation.

He did not give me the benefit of the doubt, Andrew. He plainly stated that your lawyers' insinuation that I would change my homepage overnight and would proceed to put back the unabridged version was not based on any reasonable suspicions, Andrew.

> With today's ruling, Religious Technology Center was able to establish
> an additional, important legal holding regarding Internet access
> provider liability in holland. Similar to the California decision by
> Judge Whyte in the RTC v. Netcomm, et al., case, the District Judge in
> The Hague indicated that access providers do have a liability if they
> fail to take appropriate action if it is shown that they were
> adequately informed of the ongoing infringement.

That's not what the judge said, Andrew. He said that access providers are common carriers and are not responsible for what their users do. If a user acts illegally, providers may perhaps be expected to take steps, provided that they have been supplied with adequate proof, as the providers that were defendants here were clearly not.

> Despite its many eventful holdings, the decision was only a first and
> preliminary decision in what is called a Summary Proceeding in Holland.
> This is a fast procedure designed to bring about immediate relief in
> the face of an ongoing violation of someone's rights as was the case in
> the instant subject matter.

Yes. And you lost it. You may appeal, Andrew, but I would advise against it.

What's more, and I notice that you have failed to mention it, is that you've lost your trade secret claims so bad that the judge did not care to argue against them. He simply refuted your claim that it is unpublished material. He ruled that the parts from the OT's that were included in the Fishman Affidavit are considered to have been published legally, by virtue of being part of an open court file.

He also didn't waste his breath about your claim that hyperlinks should be forbidden, Andrew, and refused your claim that providers should give the names and addresses of the participants in the Dutch Protest to your cult.

> A couple of weeks ago, the Religious
> Technology Center already lodged the Main Case in court in The Hague.
> This proceeding will enable the Church to present even more proof about
> the copyright infringements,

Provided you give them more proof than you've done until now. Also, you made the fatal error of still accusing me of having the original OT 2 and OT 3 of the Fishman Affidavit on my homepage; they were gone when you filed the suit, Andrew, as you well know. I expect to be acquitted again.

Will you pay for this suit, meanwhile? Our lawyers noted that you have still not paid costs for the December 1995 suit, Andrew. Your lawyers vouched for your payment, Andrew. Don't you think you'll antagonize your own lawyers when they're the ones who end up having to pay for your frivolous December lawsuit?

> A spokeswoman told the media in Holland after the pronouncement of the
> decision that the Church is ecstatic that this latest litigation was
> successful in ensuring the Church's rights are clarified

Ecstatic? I saw her face when the judge pronounced verdict, Andrew, and she looked none too hapy.

If this is your definition of a win, Andrew, I wish you many happy celebrations, as have other posters here on a.r.s.

> and its detractors were once more "identified as an egotistical
> lot that has no respect at all for the law and other people's rights."

Dirty liar. You slanderer. That was not how I was identified, Andrew.

> She added that
> the decision also helps the Internet as a whole because "it protects
> the interests of creative people hwo often saw the fuits of their labor
> destroyed or ripped off by Internet anarchists who couldn't care less
> about what happens to the Internet in the long run.

Precisely because I care about the Internet, I put up a Fishman homepage and have defended my right to do so; do you hear me, Andrew, Julia and Leisa? And I have added more creativity to Internet than the three of you have in your little finger.

> Through their illegal acts, hoodlums are often able to keep creative
> people away from the `Net, and this deprives Netizens of the many
> great things these people have to offer."

"Hoodlum"? Me? I take it you are referring to your own organisation, with your rm-group message which tried to kill alt.religion.scientology; with your illegal raids on access providers; with your frivolous lawsuits; and with your eternal slander and libel.

Just for clarity's sake, I'll include the final ruling of the judge, as pronounced on March 12, 1996, in court of The Hague. The full ruling is available, in English, from

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/cos/verd1eng.html (text deleted)

Copyright Karin Spaink.
This text is offered for personal use only. Any
other use requires the author's written permission.