Answers
(part 1)
While Scientologists respect the religious beliefs of
others, the Scientology religion includes the core belief and
practice that the spiritual destiny -- indeed, the very salvation
of every man, woman, and child in the universe -- depends upon the
precise application of Scientology religious technology exactly as
set forth in Scientology scripture by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder
of the religion.
Trade secret and copyright laws are the secular vehicle
to protect the core religious precepts of the Church. When these
trade secret rights and copyrights are violated, so are the First
Amendment rights of all Scientologists.
The advanced scriptures of the Church have been
confidential scriptures from the moment the information they
contain was discovered and recorded in writing by Mr. Hubbard (see
"Why does the Church keep certain of its scriptures confidential?").
Mr. Hubbard created these works for religious use by a few
advanced Scientology churches and their parishioners, only when
those parishioners had attained a specific level of spiritual
progress.
It is not at all uncommon for religious organizations to
copyright their texts in order to protect them from alteration and
misuse. For example, the Gideon Bible found in almost every hotel
room in the United States carries a copyright notice. In the
preface to the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, you will
find the following:
"Because of unhappy experience with unauthorized
publication in the two decades between 1881 and 1901, which
tampered with the text of the English Revised Version in the
supposed interest of the American public, the American Standard
Version was copyrighted, to protect the text from unauthorized
changes."
The Church of Scientology has the same motive for
copyrighting its own religious works: to safeguard the integrity
of its scriptures.
It is also far from unprecedented for religious
organizations to go to court to defend the purity of their message
and materials. Among religions which have done so are the
Methodist Church, the Church of Christ, Scientist and the
Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
As far back as the early 1940s, bishops of the Methodist
Church, acting on behalf of themselves and the Church, brought
suit against certain former members who had set up a rival Church
organization and were claiming the right to the property and to th
e use of the name of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (the
previous name of the Methodist Church prior to a union with two
other Methodist Churches).
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found in favor of
the Methodist Church, ruling that:
"The constitutional right of men to worship God does not
give them the right in doing so to make use of a name which will
enable them to appropriate goodwill which has been built up by a
religious society with which they are no longer connected."
And, in a 1986 case involving the First Church of Christ,
Scientist, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia noted
that "Religious works are eligible for protection under general
copyright laws, and for decades Science and Health [the
central theological text of the Christian Science faith] was
unproblematically the beneficiary of that security, as more than
thirty editions and translations of the Bible currently are."
Although the vast majority of Scientology literature is
available to be read and studied by anyone, the materials covering
the most advanced levels of religious counseling are restricted to
those who have already attained certain specified, earlier levels
in their spiritual progression.
The belief and practice of preserving the
confidentiality of these scriptures is as fundamental to
Scientology as the belief in the Resurrection is to Protestants,
as a literal interpretation of the Bible is to Fundamentalist
Christianity, as strict adherence to the dietary laws of the Torah
is to certain Jewish groups or as the belief in the absolute
sanctity of life -- including fetal life -- is to a devout
Catholic.
It is a central belief of all Scientologists that people
must be properly prepared -- spiritually and ethically -- to
receive these materials and that premature exposure would impede
the spiritual development of individuals so exposed, an outcome
that is inimical to the goal of Scientology -- the achievement of
spiritual freedom for everyone living on this planet.
To gain access to these materials, more is expected of a
Scientologist than spiritual advancement. Access is not automatic,
nor is it dependent solely upon donations . It is by invitation
only. That invitation is extended to parishioners who have
demonstrated a high level of ethical responsibility as well as
completed certain prior steps of spiritual attainment. This is so
that people of ill-will with motives antipathetic to Scientology
cannot use the materials for purposes contrary to the goal of
spiritual freedom which proper use of these religious works brings
about.
As religious scholars have pointed out, the Church's
practice of keeping a segment of its materials confidential has
well-established precedents in other religions.
According to Dr. M. Darrol Bryant at the University of
Waterloo in Ontario:
"The distinction between 'esoteric knowledge' available
only to initiates, and 'exoteric knowledge' available to all, has
long been part of the religious life of humankind. The distinction
is commonly based on the belief that only those initiated in a
particular tradition or having achieved a certain level of
spiritual development should have access to the esoteric or higher
teachings."
Dr. Lonnie Kliever of Southern Methodist University also
finds this distinction in religions and cites in particular
ancient Judaism, early Christianity, some forms of Hinduism, Zen
Buddhism and Gnostic groups. Dr. Kliever characterizes the Church
of Scientology as having "a [] religious duty and legal right" to
keep some of its materials confidential.
Rev. Dean Kelley of the National Council of Churches in
the U.S.A. quotes examples from the Bible to illustrate the
principle of keeping advanced spiritual knowledge from adherents
who are not yet ready to understand or utilize it. Two biblical
quotes which he used are:
"But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual
men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. I fed you with
milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet
you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh (I Corinthians
3:1-2, Revised Standard Version)."
"For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you
need someone to teach you again the first principles of God's
word. You need milk, not solid food; for every one who lives on
milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child.
But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their
faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil (Hebrews
5:12-14, Revised Standard Version).
Dr. Bryan Wilson, Reader Emeritus in Sociology at Oxford
University in England and one of the world's most distinguished
students of religion, points to numerous historical examples of
religions which maintain scriptures that are accessible only to
selected initiates. He interprets this practice as "a broad
educational principle of not exposing to advanced ideas those who
have not yet demonstrated their mastery of elementary principles."
Dr . Wilson concludes that to introduce advanced Scientology
materials prematurely to the Scientology student would be "disruptive
of his progress in attaining the enlightened consciousness towards
which all his endeavours are directed."
Dr. Jeffrey K. Hadden, author of numerous books on
religion and Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia,
has explained that a religion's right to keep certain of its
scriptures confidential is constitutionally protected:
"To deny a religious group the right to protect its
esoteric knowledge, indeed its most sacred texts, runs contrary to
history and the American experience. It constitutes a denial of
that group the protection of the Free Exercise Clause of the First
Amendment of the Constitution of the United States."
Many other treatises, authored by similarly
distinguished experts in religion, portray numerous religions
throughout the ages which have maintained confidential scriptures
that were revealed only after specific stages of religious
learning had been completed.
By theft. The Church has never published its advanced
religious scriptures or allowed them to leave its custody and
copies of any part of them that exist outside the Church were
obtained illicitly.
More than a decade ago, a few people conspired to steal
and did steal some of the materials as part of a plan to start a
competitive church. The Church took immediate action. The stolen
materials were seized. The leader of this band of thieves was
later arrested in Denmark, where the theft had taken place. He was
convicted for the theft and, after serving time in prison, was
deported. The same result -- prison -- awaits the other thieves
should they ever return to Denmark.
However, before such arrest and prosecution occurred,
the thieves had transmitted copies of the stolen materials to a
group of apostates in the United States. From time to time, these
thieves and their associates have attempted to disseminate these
materials, but have been prevented from doing so by the Church.
The outcome has included raids, seizures and also judgements
affirming that the confidential, unpublished scriptures are
protected by copyright and trade secrets laws.
Eventually, this tiny clique of apostates connived to
dump a small portion of the materials into a court file and later
posted this portion to the Internet. (See also "How can it be a
copyright and trade secrets violation to publish extracts from
documents obtained from a court, as the Washington Post
did?" and "Is the Church's trade secret claim weakened because of
its opponents' claim that parts of the confidential, unpublished
scriptures had been exposed to the public before?").
Law and justice require that these thieves be enjoined
from using or distributing the materials that they have stolen and
that these materials be returned to their rightful owner, the
Church. These individuals are exactly the kind of people who would
not be given access by the Church to these materials because they
are spiritually unprepared and ethically unworthy. Religious
practices are the exclusive province of the faithful and of
ecclesiastical precepts, not of apostates and criminals who
declare war on religion.
According to The Uniform Trade Secrets Act:
"'Trade Secret' means information, including a formula,
pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, or
process, that:
"1) Derives independent economic value, actual or
potential, from being generally known to the public or to other
persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use;
and
"2) Is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under
the circumstances to maintain its secrecy."
The Church considers its advanced levels of religious
counseling confidential and has obtained rulings in federal court
that they are to be afforded trade secret status.
In May 1993, the US District Court in San Diego, in a
case in which three Church of Scientology organizations brought
suit against an individual who had misappropriated Scientology
materials, held that, "information contained in religious
organizations' materials was trade secret... [and] was disclosed
only to those who had acquired requisite level of spiritual
training.... The court finds that as a matter of law, plaintiffs'
'Advanced Technology' qualifies as a trade secret, and that no
factual dispute exists regarding defendant's misappropriation of
these works through the courses offered to her students."
The court also found that the Church had taken all
reasonable steps to keep the materials secure.
That judgment is now final.
Furthermore, in a separate case in 1985, Judge Mariana
Pfaelzer of the United States District Court of the Central
District of California stated that, "the body of material that is
at issue here clearly meets the definition of a trade secret and
of a set of trade secrets, and I don't have any trouble finding
definitions in the Ninth Circuit that would clearly make it a
trade secret."
Like any other religious, non-profit group, to maintain
its operations the Church must receive funds, which come in the
form of donations for services and materials. The small group of
apostates who have illegally posted a portion of the Church's
advanced scriptures to the Internet are trying to render the value
of the secret scriptures nil by making them easily and readily
available in an out of context fashion in a manner intended to
hold the content of these materials up to derision. Their aim is
to discourage people from seeking to learn this material according
to procedures mandated by Church scriptures.
Further, competing churches have arisen in the past, and while
each was ultimately a failure, the apostates who fail to live up
to the Church's standards but still crave its teaching will
attempt to compete again. It was just such an effort to create a
competing church that led to the theft of these materials in 1983
and the imprisonment of one of the thieves.
Financial considerations are one of the issues. The
Church is also interested in: a) protecting its intellectual
property rights, b) maintaining the purity and workability of
Scientology religious materials and c) protecting parishioners.
The Church encourages the widest possible dissemination
of Scientology publications containing all the Scientology
scriptures other than its confidential, unpublished materials,
which comprise a small fraction of the scriptures of the religion.
In addition to the many public information actions described
later, we have donated thousands of copies of Scientology books
and materials to public libraries. This has been done to make it
possible for individuals with limited financial means to learn and
apply Scientology principles to their lives without having to pay
anything. Our library donation program has proved extremely
successful. In fact, it has been calculated that every 29.5
seconds, somewhere in the world, a erson checks out a Scientology
book from a library.
As the copyright expert quoted by the Post
itself stated, just because a document is filed in court does not
mean that it loses copyright protection. If John Grisham's latest
novel is filed in a court case, for example, he does not thereby
lose the copyright.
The same principle applies to trade secrets. There is no
"fair use" of trade secrets. In fact, in 1984, the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled against the Washington
Post when the paper sought to obtain confidential materials from a
court file. In Tavoulareas v. The Washington Post Co, the
court ruled that:
"Public dissemination of confidential discovery
materials not used at trial cannot be justified by a common law or
constitutional right of access or by First Amendment right of free
speech or free press."
The document that the Post obtained containing the
Church's protected materials had been dumped into the court file
after the case was dismissed, solely as a tactical maneuvre to
make it accessible to the media as a "public document" and so
pressurise the Church into "paying off" the other side, to
prejudice the judge against the Church in the post-trial fees and
costs determinations and probably to inflame other members of the
judiciary . These materials played no part in any judicial
decision in the case and the judge expressly excluded
consideration of them on the post-trial issues. The mere presence
of the documents in a court file provided no basis whatsoever for
their copying. As soon as the judge was informed that the Post had
obtained copies of the materials, he sealed the file.
No, not at all. Copyright law specifically and routinely
allows such orders imposed on an infringer who has violated
copyrights and has refused all requests to cease and desist.
Last year, for example, Microsoft Corporation announced
that as a result of raids in California, Georgia, Louisiana,
Maryland, Texas and Virginia, more than 13,000 counterfeit
packages and numerous components were seized. In 1995, Microsoft's
seizures of bootleg copies of their software have continued and in
April, U.S. Marshals seized computers, modems, a satellite dish
and various databases in a raid on a pirate bulletin board.
In 1994, after the Business Software Alliance (BSA),
representing companies such as Aldus, Lotus and Word Perfect,
obtained an order for a raid by federal marshals on the Colorado
Free University (CFU) in Denver for software piracy, the CFU paid
$60, 000 to settle the case.
The BSA says it has filed more than 400 suits and
conducted hundreds of raids against suspected copyright infringers.
The potential damages can reach $100,000 for each willful
copyright infringement. In criminal cases, the offender may face
charges carrying penalties up to $250,000 and a prison term of up
to five years.
In 1992, the Software Publishers Association (SPA) filed
175 suits and recovered $3.4 million in settlements. Currently the
SPA is investigating 1,600 cases of suspected copyright
infringement.
And, it is not just software manufacturers who have
resorted to seizures to protect their rights. Disney, Reebok,
Harley Davidson, Warner Brothers and many other companies have
also done so.
Not in the least. Copyright law is part of the United
States Constitution and predates the Bill of Rights and the
Amendments. The Constitution authorizes Congress:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts,
by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the
exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.
The raids have been carried out precisely according to
copyright law and in accordance with the orders signed by the
judges in each case. Copyrighted material seized in these raids is
not the property of the infringers but has been unlawfully
obtained by them, and belongs to the Church. Any non-infringing
material is returned to its owner.
Where further infringements seem likely, a temporary
restraining order is imposed to prevent these until a hearing can
be held to determine the propriety of injunctive relief, whether
temporary or permanent.
Answers part 2
Overview of Questions
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