Scientology's lawsuit
in full proceedings
Nauta Dutilh
CSM/lw 50011089
Today, Febrary the twenty sixth of nineteen hundred and ninety six, as requested by:
- the incorporated religious organization according to foreign
law CHURCH OF SPIRITUAL TECHNLOGY,
established in Los Angeles, United States of America,
- the incorporated religious organization according to foreign
law RELIGIOUS TECHNOLOGY CENTER, established in
Los Angeles, United States of America,
- the coporate body according to foreign law NEW ERA
PUBLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL ApS, established at
Copenhagen, Denmark,
all in this case choosing their domicile in 1077 WV Amsterdam,
at 59 Prinses Irenestraat, office of attorney at law Mr. R.
Hermans (society of lawyers, notaries and tax-consultants Nauta
Dutilh), as well as in 2514 JH s-Gravenhage (The Hague), at 107
Parkstraat, office of attorney at law Mr. R. Laret, who is hereby
appointed as prosecutor and will represent plaintiffs as such, on
verbal order of the President of the county court in s-Gravenhage
(The Hague)
SUMMONED IN LAWSUIT:
- the private company with limited liability DATAWEB B.V., statutory established in 's-Gravenhage (The Hague);
- the foundation STICHTING XS4ALL, statutory established in Amsterdam;
- the foundation STICHTING DE DIGITALE STAD, statutory established in Amsterdam;
- the private company with limited liability CISTRON INTERNET SERVICES B.V., statutory established in Alphen aan den Rijn;
- the private company with limited liability INTERNET ACCESS EINDHOVEN, statutory established in Eindhoven;
- the company according to foreign law EURONET INTERNET INC., statutory established in Wilmington, USA, and in Amsterdam;
- the private company with limited liability PLANET INTERNET B.V., statutory established in Amsterdam;
- the private company with limited liability B-ART NOORD NEDERLAND B.V., statutory established in The Hague and in Groningen;
- the private company with limited liability WIREHUB! INTERNET B.V., statutory established in Rotterdam;
- the foundation STICHTING INTERNET ACCESS, statutory established in Slochteren;
- the foundation STICHTING TELEBYTE, statutory established in Nijmegen;
- Ronald Walter VERGEER, acting on behalf of B-ART MIDDEN NEDERLAND B.V. I.O., and residing in The Hague;
- the partnership under firm LUNATECH RESEARCH, statutory established in Rotterdam;
- Michael David PENTOWSKI, partner of the defendant sub 13, residing in Rotterdam;
- Peter Firth MUNRO, partner of the defendant sub 13, residing in Rotterdam;
- Stefan Mark ARENTZ, partner of the defendant sub 13, residing in Rotterdam;
- Peter Alexander KAAS, partner of the defendant sub 13, residing in Rotterdam;
- the partnership under firm SPIRIT INTERACTIEVE DIENSTEN B.V. I.O., statutory established in Rotterdam;
- the public limited company N.V. ENECO, partner of the defendant sub 18, statutory established in Rotterdam;
- the private company with limited liability ROTTERDAMS DAGBLAD B.V., partner of the defendant sub 18, statutory established in Rotterdam;
- the MUNICIPALITY ROTTERDAM (DEVELOPMENT COMPANY ROTTERDAM), partner of the defendant sub 18, residing in Rotterdam;
- the private company with limited liability METROPOLIS INTERNET B.V., statutory established in Dordrecht;
- Karin SPAINK, living in Amsterdam.
TO:
appear, whether or not represented by an attorney, on Februari the twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred and ninety six, at ten AM at the session of the president of the county court in 's-Gravenhage (The Hague), doing justice in a lawsuit, to be held at the Palace of Justice, 2 Juliana van Stolberglaan;
NOTIFYING:
that defendants will be obliged to pay the flatrate amount of fl 330,- on appearance, which can be reduced when the defendants prove to be poor or indigent;
IN ORDER:
to hear the following demands and conclusions made:
- Plaintiff sub 1, hereafter to be called 'CST', posesses the
copyright on various confidential, published (non-confidential) as
well as unpublished (confidential) works, created by the in 1986
deceased L. Ron Hubbard. These works refer to the teachings and
activities of the Church of Scientology, a church of American
origine that is established amongst others by churches and
missions in various countries.
- Plaintiff sub 2, hereafter to be called 'RTC', is worldwide
(with the exception of the United States of America) the exclusive
licenseholder of the copyrights of the works mentioned above and
proxy to maintenance of these rights.
- Plaintiff sub 3, hereafter to be called 'NEPI', has amongst
others the exclusive right to publish a number of the non-
confidential works worldwide (with the exception of North and
South America) and is proxy to maintenance of these rights.
- The works concerned in the present procedure are commonly
known under the names of 'Operating Thetan I' to 'Operating
Thetan VII' (OT I to OT VII), hereafter to be called 'the OT-
works', and consist partly of series of independant works. As a
consequence of the teachings of the Church of Scientology, these
works are solely accessible for selected members of the church,
who have reached a certain level of spirituality and who are
invited by the Church to partake in religious meetings where a
limited use of the OT works is made. These members are held to
strict secrecy, by means of secrecy-declarations to be signed by
the selected members. Secrecy of the OT-works is applied with
the greatest possible care; neither the teachings nor the practice of
the Church of Scientology allow others than the above mentioned
selected members to study the works. These selected members
are not even allowed to make copies or take notes. The works
have never been made accessible to the general public with
permission of the owner.
- The OT-works have been registered at the United States
Copyright Office (USCO). Because the documents concerned are
confidential, the transcripts filed have been 'masked' conforming
to USCO-regulations, in order to preserve their confidential
nature.
- The non-confidential work concerned in the present procedure
is known as 'The Scientologist (Ability major I)'. This work has
been registered at the USCO in 1955 under the name 'Ability'. At
this moment, the work is published by NEPI as a part of the so-
called 'Technical Bulletins' (Volume 3).
- In 1993, a defendant in a legal procedure in the United States
has submitted a written testimony, the so-called 'Fishman
Affadavit'. Appendix F of this declaration contains a duplication a
considerable part of the published, non-confidential work 'Ability'.
Appendix G of this declaration contains a duplication of a
considerable part of the unplished non-confidential OT-works.
Plaintiffs have not given permission to incorporate these works in
the Fishman Affadavit. They have immediately resisted possible
unrestrained access to the OT-works by third parties.
- RTC has filed three procedures in the United States that also
refer to the publication and/or duplication by third parties of (a
number of) OT-works. In these three procedures the judges have
ruled that, pending the procedures, no more unauthorised
publication and/or duplication of the OT-works may take place. In one of these proceeding, the judge recently ordered that the works referred to are copyrighted and that placing them on the Internet infringes upon these copyrights.
- The Internet is a worldwide network of computers and
computer networks that in recent years is also being widely used
by private persons. The communication between the computers
that are part of this network proceeds by a certain standard.
Access can be obtained through various (whether or not
commercial) organizations, amongst whom are the so-called
'Internet access providers'.
- Once on the network, a large number of options are possible,
amongst those access to electronic databases, the use of e-mail
(electronic mail), partaking in discussion groups, bulletin boards
and access to the World Wide Web. On this Web it is possible to
construct the so-called 'homepages', e.g. create one's own
documents and making them available to third parties.
- Every file (such as for instance a homepage) that is
accessible through the World Wide Web has its own indication,
the 'Uniform Resource Locator' (URL). This URL is a unique
'address' that makes it possible for third parties to open the file
using certain software, the so-called 'World Wide Web browser'.
If one for instance accesses a homepage, it appears on the user's
computer screen. Therefore, the URL shows what file is
concerned and where (i.e. on which computer system) it is
located; the name and/or address of the one responsible for
making the document available through the Internet is
nevertheless usually not traceable.
- The URL's mentioned above can (by means of a computer
language that is also referred to as 'hypertext') be in included in
mentioned homepages that can be accessed with the browser. This
is also called a 'link'. On the screen, such a link looks like for
instance a differently coloured word or an image. By activating
(for instance with a mouse) such a command/link, the file that is
indicated by the link is transferred to the computer of the user that
activates the command and shown on his computer screen. This
file can be another homepage, but also any other form of digital
information.
- The defendants sub 1 up to and including 22 hereafter to be
called 'the providers', are Internet access providers. Their
computer systems offer users the possibility to access the Internet.
Defendant sub 7, hereafter to be called 'Spaink' uses the services
of one or more of these providers.
- Plaintiffs have noticed that the Fishman Affidavit, of which
considerable parts of the unpublished, confidential OT-works and
Ability are a part, are being published and/or duplicated on the
Internet through the systems of the providers, by a number of their
users, amongst whom Spaink.
- The Internet homepages that users place on the Internet can
afterwards be accessed and 'downloaded' by third parties that have
access to the Internet. This means that infringing publication
and/or duplication of the mentioned works in the sense of Artcile
1 of the Copyright Law of 1912 is taking place under the
responsability of the users, amongst whom Spaink.
- Apart from that, providers are also responsible for this
infringing publication and/or duplication of mentioned works.
After all, they are being presented to third parties through the
systems of the providers. If a user makes infringing documens
available on his homepage, a copy of those documents is present
in the system of the provider concerned. When third parties access
a homepage, the provider offers them a copy of it, that can be
'downloaded' when the user wants to save it on his hard disk.
- When the infringing documents are made available to others
by means of a 'link' that is included in the homepage, which points
at the infringing documents (whether or not present in another
computer system) and which (when activated) makes duplicates
of these documents visible on the screen of the user's computer,
this is also considered as an infringing publication and/or
duplication of said works by the user and the provider.
- By publishing and/or duplicating the OT-works and Ability
without permission, Spaink and the providers are infringing the
rights of the plaintiffs and are therefore acting unlawfully against
the latter.
- The confidential nature of the unpublished OT-works, that
plaintiffs regard as 'trade secrets' as described in US law, prevents
submitting of the works as evidence in the present procedure.
Submitting the OT-works would harm plaintiff's rights and
position in procedures in the United States. In the present
procedure, plaintiffs base their demands on the wholesale copying
of parts of the OT-works, but they are also of the opinion that the
rights of other parts of other parts of the OT-works are violated
by the defendants, because of publication and/or duplication of a
version in the ense of the Copyright Law 1912. In order to prove
the exact duplication, plaintiffs have asked a notary to compare
the masked copies of the OT-works that are mentioned in the
above paragraph 5 with the infringing documents, and allowed the
notary (because of of his professional vow of secrecy) to use the
original works. On the masked copies, the notary has marked
those parts that can literally be found in the infringing documents
that are published and/or duplicated by the defendants. All this
made clear that considerbale parts of the works known as OT II
and OT III have been literally copied. A comparison by the notary
will be produced at the lawsuit. Apart from that, plaintiffs have
offered the defendants to look into the original works in the office
of the plaintiff's lawyer.
- Plaintiffs have suffered damage as a result of the unlawful
acts of Spaink and the providers, and risk further damage.
- Spaink and the providers have been summoned to cease their
unlawful actions. They have not complied to this demand.
- Therefore, plaintiffs have a right to and interest in the
following claims.
CONSEQUENTLY:
if it pleases the President of the County Court in 's-Gravenhage
(The Hague) to pronounce verdict and to:
- Order defendant sub 23 to immediately refrain from any
infringement on the copyrights of plaintiff sub 1 and to remain
doing so in the future, including any publication and/or
duplication of the documents known as Ability and OT I to OT
VII, subsequently to immediately stop and in the future refrain
from publication and/or duplication of the documents known as
Ability and OT II and OT III;
- Order defendants sub 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 en 8:
firstly to immediately stop and continue to do so in the future
any infringement on the copyrights of plaintiff sub 1, including
publication and/or duplication of the documents known as Ability
and OT I to OT VII, subsequently to immediately stop and in the
future refrain from publication and/or duplication of the
documents known as Ability and OT II and OT III;
secondly to immediately remove, when notified of the presence
of those documents on their system or on a system controlled by
them, any infringing documents, including the documents known
as Ability and OT I to OT VII, subsequently the documents
known as Ability and OT II and OT II,
moreover to immediately, when notified of the presence of any
infringing documents, including the documents known Ability and
OT I to OT VII, subsequently the documents known as Ability
and OT II and OT III, on their system (or on a system controlled
by them) ask the users to remove these documents and to deny the
user concerned all further access to their sytem if he refuses to
comply to this demand;
- Order the defendants sub 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 to inform
plaintiffs within three days after the verdict about the names and
addresses of third parties who have made infringing documents
available through their system (or on a system controlled by them)
or will be publishing such documents after the verdict;
the under a., b., and c. mentioned on penalty of fl. 10,000 for
every failure to follow any command given under a., b., and c., to
be paid by the defendant concerned, including the condition that
the defendants sub 5 and 6 will be personally held responsible for
any actions of defendant sub 4;
- Sentence all defendants personally to pay the cost of this
lawsuit.
The costs of this subpoena are for me, usher, fl. 338.25
(signature)
This case is being treated by Mrs R. Hermans en C.S.M. Morel,
Nauta Dutilh, lawyers, notaries and tax concultants, 59 Prinses
Irenestraat, 1077 WV Amsterdam, telephone: ## 31 (0)20-
541.4646, fax: ## 31 (0)20-541.4700, filenumber: 50011089.
(translation by Patricia Savenije)
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