Article 82735 of alt.religion.scientology: Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!news.kei.com!eff!news.duke.edu!news-feed-1.peachnet.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!news.moneng.mei.com!uwm.edu!lll-winken.llnl.gov!xanth.cs.odu.edu!maui.cc.odu.edu!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!murdoch!darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU!dc7v From: dc7v@darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU (Damon Chetson) Subject: Kobrin Responds: Legal Action X-Nntp-Posting-Host: darwin.clas.virginia.edu Message-ID: Sender: usenet@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU Organization: University of Virginia X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1] Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 04:18:34 GMT Lines: 132 The learned attorney, Helena Kobrin, wrote me a pleasant email letter this evening informing me that several of the documents in the file I received anonymously are, in fact, copyrighted material. They have been shown to be copyrighted in documents entered into evidence in the lawsuit against Dennis Erlich. Several of the documents are forgeries. She has also said that her client, the Cult, has requested that she begin legal action against me, but litigation will be avoided if I cooperate by deleting all copies in my account and sending her all hardcopies I have made. Since I have no hardcopies, I have nothing to mail her. But I have deleted the entire two files from my account. She also says that "any further disclosures" of this material will be met with legal action by the Cult. I have not disclosed anything about the material, so I'm not quite sure what "any further" means. She also says that "downloading" material is illegal. As I've explained to her, I never downloaded the material. I received it through an anonymous service via email. And then there's this business about legal action! I've done nothing illegal. In fact, I've been more than cooperative. I, suspecting that these documents might be copyrighted, requested clarification from her about them. End of story. I did not distribute the documents in any way, either via email or via ftp or via usenet. It's all a terrific shame, because the documents were hilarious. But they are both trade secrets and copyrighted and, as such, I can not discuss them. Anyone got any money left in their bank account for a Defense Fund. :-) Police Officers, when you come to the door with that warrant, please ignore the mess! I haven't had time to straighten up. But I'll be brewing some coffee for you. :-) ----- Here are parts of the letter which pertain to everyone who has received this material: From daemon Thu Jun 29 23:17:29 1995 Received: from netcom21.netcom.com (hkk@netcom21.netcom.com [192.100.81.135]) by darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU (8.6.10/8.6.6) with SMTP id XAA89456 for ; Thu, 29 Jun 1995 23:17:28 -0400 Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 20:16:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Helena Kobrin Subject: Re: parodies To: Damon Chetson [clip] Only two of the documents included are not authentic writings of L. Ron Hubbard. These documents are labeled as follows: The first says: HCOB of 5 May 80 Issue I OT VIII Series 1 C O N F I D E N T I A L The second says: OPERATING THETAN SECTION VIII and begins with the words: "The following is a suggestion for OT VIII." Both of these documents are forgeries and are not documents belonging to my clients. All of the remaining documents contained in the posting are copyrighted materials belonging to my clients. With the exception of two, they are all also confidential, unpublished trade secrets. There are two copyrighted documents which are published and not trade secrets. One is headed: HCO Policy Letter 19 June 1961 Sec Check Whole Track. The other is headed: HCO Information Letter [A 11 April 1962 Dynamic Processing Checks. Please be advised that you do not have permission to publish or disclose any of the documents which I have identified above as copyrighted and/or trade secrets. Regardless of whether you knew with certainty of the copyright and trade secret status of these documents previously, it is obvious that you were on sufficient notice to make inquiry regarding their status. Having done so, you are now on specific notice of the copyright and trade secrets status of the documents as noted above. The law is clear that such notice is sufficient to hold you liable for any subsequent disclosures of the materials. The characterization of these materials as a parody is a transparent attempt at making a claim for fair use, but these materials are *not* a parody, and their posting is not fair use. With regard to the materials which are trade secrets, there is no fair use defense to trade secret misappropriation. As you are undoubtedly aware, my clients have filed a lawsuit entitled Religious Technology Center, et al. v. Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc., et al. in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California regarding copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation relating to most of these materials. The information regarding the status of the materials has been provided to the Court in that case, and is sufficient proof of their trade secret and copyrighted nature. You are advised that your downloading of these documents into your computer constitutes violation of these intellectual property rights. You are to delete these documents from your computer and any disks and send any copies you have printed off to my office. You are not to provide copies of these materials to anyone else. My clients have requested me to start legal proceedings against you. If you cooperate, litigation may be avoided, which would be preferable for all concerned. However, please be informed that my clients will take any necessary legal steps to protect their intellectual property rights. [clip] ------ Article 84486 of alt.religion.scientology: Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uwm.edu!caen!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!murdoch!darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU!dc7v From: dc7v@darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU (Damon Chetson) Subject: Kobrin Wants to Know Headers X-Nntp-Posting-Host: darwin.clas.virginia.edu Message-ID: Sender: usenet@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU Organization: University of Virginia X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1] Date: Tue, 4 Jul 1995 01:24:07 GMT Lines: 30 The saga continues... Helena Kobrin, cult lawyer extraordinaire, known by Grady as the Ho of Babble-on, wants to know who sent me that copyrighted material. You'll remember from my previous accounts, that the copyrighted material contained information about Xenu and an incident roughly 75 million years ago (give or take some years) in which Xenu shipped thetans to the Earth and blew up a Volcano or something. This is the same information that Leisa Goodman told MTV's Kurt "cool guy" Loder was bogus. So who's telling the truth. Should I believe Leisa Goodman that the Xenu story is not owned by Scientology or should I believe Helena Kobrin? In any case, Kobrin wants me to send the Headers from the anonymous mailing from an anonymous mailer. Unfortunately for Kobrin, everything was deleted *last week* when *she* told me to delete copies of the mailing in my account. I did not think to save her the headers and send them forthwith to her. My fault, Helena! Sorry about that one, but maybe if you had told me originally to save the headers and mail them.... then I probably would have asked for a court order. A word of advice to anyone who has received material like this. Of course you're probably not as adventurous (read: stupid) as I am to request clarification from a cult attorney on the status. But strip the headers immediately. Also strip all identifying marks indicating where the mailing may have come from. Too late for me... I already deleted the material. :-(