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Independent Scientology Copyright & Trademark issues

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Independent Scientology Copyright & Trademark issues

From the South African Independent Scientology blog Scientologists back in comm:

Copyright & Trademark issues
https://backincomm.wordpress.com/2014/11/19/copyright-trademark-issues/#more-2692

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In November last year we published an article about the website www.stss.nl. where LRH materials are available for free.

STSS stands for (True Source Scientology Foundation / Stichting True Source Scientology). The website was set up by Max Hauri, the Chairman of STSS. When you first visit the site there is a disclaimer that you will have to agree to before being allowed access. You basically agree to use the material for personal spiritual gain and that you are not a member of the church or any of its organisations. Once you click the “accept” button you will be able to download everything. And it does seem like everything: All LRH books, Scientology dictionaries, the OEC volumes, the Tech volumes, course packs for training and specialist course packs.


From their “about” section:
“The STSS (Stichting True Source Scientology; Stichting being a dutch word meaning foundation) is a foundation under Dutch Law that was founded because Scientologists world-wide need every form of support and protection they can get when they want to follow their religious beliefs outside the Church of Scientology (CoS).”​

A number of our readers and others who intend carrying on with their Scientology journey outside the RCS have raised the issue of copyright and how this might affect them. An enquiry was made to Max regarding this and he responded with the following letter. He gave permission for it to be published it on BIC:

Dear friends

Sometimes I’m asked about it, sometimes I hear that people are afraid of being sued by the Church of Scientology for copyright infringements. Let me share the experiences we have had with the CofS due to our project of the STSS.

The Stiching True Source Scientology was founded for the purpose that everyone who wants to study or to apply Scientology has the possibility to have access to the unaltered materials as they were written or spoken by L. Ron Hubbard. You can read about it all on the page itself.

We went online with the page www.stss.nl at the end of January 2010. Although we had ourselves prepared and had been thinking of all possible holes in our set up we had an uneasy feeling when we went online. What would the RTC do?

For 13 months nothing did happen. The page was online, people were using it.

Finally on 23 February 2011, I got a letter of a very prominent patent and copyright attorney from Zurich. It is also the company which had registered for the RTC about 150 trademarks.

The letter was impressive. It was addressed to me, as a private person, claimed that I was infringing 57 trademarks, beginning with the assumption that I am not permitted to use the words “Scientology”, “Dianetics”, “LRH”, ending with “Mark Super VII Quantum”. It contained a long list of all my crimes, and of course that I could end up one year in prison and being fined up to CHF 5’000’000.00. They wanted me to sign a paper that in case of infringing any of those TMs I would have to pay CHF 30’000.00 for each instance.

About one month later, 25 March 2011, I got a similar letter from a Dutch attorney, only 3 instead of 8 pages, additionally accusing me for copyright infringements. They also wanted me to sign a paper and to take down the page on www.stss.nl and, starting from 9 April 2011, I would have to pay ¤ 5’000.00 for each day I would leave the page online.

A bit more than a month later I got a letter from a German attorney from Munich, somehow similar. We were really wondering, why from Munich, Germany?

We answered all those letters explaining our viewpoint and that was the end of the story. The expenses for stamps were really small. (If you are interested why our claim that this form of making the materials accessible is not only legitimate, but also legal, you can read all about it on the page itself, in the section “legal”.)

We didn’t change anything on the STSS, and it was online all the time since January 2010. There never was a lawsuit, I never had to pay any fine much less was I in prison.

Remember the book Self Analysis with the story of the Lake Tanganyika were the natives are fishing, using the shadow of wood and ropes?
Let me assure you the tech is free. Free to study and especially free to apply, exactly how LRH postulated and wanted it.

Please be aware the that trademarks are a different subject. Take care of the TMs, take a look what is registered in your country and rename those services, especially when you put it on your website. Some of the registrations are ridiculous, for example “Scientology” and “Dianetics” and also the name of L. Ron Hubbard.

The main reason why we did all the work and took the risk with the STSS was that you can deliver, that there are no stops in it. And we have achieved that point: Wherever you are on this planet, as long as you have access to the internet, you have the tech. If you are in doubt about the copyright laws in your country and you know little or nothing, ask your student to download it for himself and come with it to the course room. In that case the org has no risk at all, it is the student who did it. But don’t worry, no one will do anything to him! If they cannot attack me, with full evidence present, how can they attack someone who only downloaded it and the church has no knowledge of it?

If you want you can make some donations for keeping the page there, but the real exchange you can give is by applying Ron’s legacy. We need everyone! Please audit, train and disseminate, it is really a call to get show on the road.

Max Hauri,
Chairman STSS

So there you have it – Max makes a good point about students downloading the materials themselves and taking these to the academy or group they are studying with. This way you are not putting anyone at risk.

And a last word form LRH – excerpted from “My Philosophy”:
“So my own philosophy is that one should share what wisdom he has, one should help others to help themselves, and one should keep going despite heavy weather for there is always a calm ahead. One should also ignore catcalls from the selfish intellectual who cries “Don’t expose the mystery. Keep it all for ourselves”. The people cannot understand”………… “For I know no man who has any monopoly upon the wisdom of this universe. It belongs to those who can use it to help themselves and others.”

- L. Ron Hubbard

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