RTC's version of
"The Works"
or
"How the Psycho-Political Terrorist Group did not keep the invisible space aliens that are crawling all around inside your body secret"
After the dust died down from its leaders having been sent to prison several decades ago, Scientology was doing a fine business as a mind-control cult. The group claimed that it had that special something that could give people a leading edge over their competition. The basic courses of communications, management, etc. were straightforward enough. The advanced courses, for which the organization charged thousands of dollars, naturally remained a corporate secret. As a matter of fact, the main strength of the religious corporation back then was that nobody knew what their big secret was. If they would have known, they most likely never would have signed over their life savings to the cult.
Then one day the aliens arrived and told Arnaldo Lerma, a member of the Scientology Brainwashing Cult from 1968 to 1977, that they would do something for him. They would give him what he needed to help kids, which is what he was when the cult offered him the leading edge in 1968, from being sucked into the Scientology confidence game. For this the aliens provided Lerma with the materials he needed.
As with any secretive Nazi mind-control cult, Scientology has multiple versions of the same event. One of Scientology's accounts, from a web site, "Religious Freedom Watch," which portrays Lerma as an "anti-religious extremist," says that Arnie
Lerma
claims to be a proponent of free speech yet only manufactured this
argument after he was sued for copyright infringement. The
copyright
owner filed suit against Lerma whose free speech defense was considered
and rejected by the judge. The court entered a permanent
injunction
against Lerma, who paid $12,000 in fees and costs to the plaintiffs.
The quotes in the following are from Civil Action No. 95-1107-A in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, Religious Technology Center vs. A. Lerma, The Washington Post, Marc Fisher and Richard Leiby.
The Religious Technology Center listed the "Trade Secrets" that were infringed upon in Exhibit A of their allegations in the "List of Unpublished Literary Works".
| WORK | REG. DATE |
REG. NUMBER |
| 1.OT I | 09/01/87 | TXU 303-382 |
| 2. OT II | 09/17/87 | TXU 303-388 |
| 3. OT III | 01/30/87 | TXU 290-496 |
| 4. OT IV | 08/10/95 | TXU 690-902 |
| 5. OT V | 08/10/95 | TXU 690-899 |
| 6. OT VI | 08/10/95 | TXU 690-906 |
| 7. OT VII | 08/10/95 | TXU 690-904 |
| 8. •Power | 09/01/87 | TXU 303-386 |
| •.End Phenomena | 09/01/87 | TXU 303-386 |
| •Power the Power Processes | 09/01/87 | TXU 303-386 |
| 9. •. NED for OTs, Series 1 | 11/10/86 | TKU 257-326 |
| • NED for OTs, Series 34 | 11/10/86 | TKU 257-326 |
| • NED for OTs, Series 35 | 11/10/86 | TKU 257-326 |
| • NED for OTs, Series 36 | 11/10/86 | TKU 257-326 |
| 10. Sunshine Rundown |
09/01/87 | TKU 303-384 |
The above "Trade Secrets" titles, which look like they are written in some sort of military code, are actually about space aliens. Not just the aliens flying around in spaceships, but the ones that are up to no good, the invisible ones that are crawling around behind your eyeballs, inside your eardrums and in your armpits, making you see things, hear things and that make you smell bad. Those are the really nasty buggers that Scientology can protect you from if you give them your savings. That is what Scientology's trade secrets consist of.
According to "Religious Technology Center" (RTC), the Washington Post, Lerma, Leiby and Fisher "engaged in extensive, intentional copyright infringement and trade secrets misappropriation, targeting Scientology materials belonging to RTC." The space alien titles listed above are the "Scientology materials."
According to RTC, "Leiby, Fisher and the Post have engaged in their own direct infringements of plaintiffs copyright interests and misappropriation of plaintiffs trade secrets, while at the same time, aiding, supporting, encouraging and facilitating blatant acts of infringement and misappropriation by Lerma, his associates and others acting in concert with them, who have acted not for any even arguably legitimate business purposes, but rather to attempt to destroy or otherwise interfere with the peaceful exercise of religious rights enjoyed by Scientologists across the United States and throughout the world." The "peaceful exercise of religious rights" referred to in the previous sentence are the "rights" of people to give their life savings to Scientology in exchange for learning about space aliens. One of the problems here, of course, is that even after the entire world learns about Xenu and the space aliens, you still have a perfect "right" to give Scientology hundreds of thousands of dollars for "the Works". While you are giving away your children's inheritance, you may even say that you are engaging in the practice of your religion. You were free as a bird before Lerma posted "the Works", and you are free as a bird afterwards. It makes no difference if you are a Scientologist or a Zoroastrian.
Accoding to RTC, the "defendants' acts are the product of spite and religious bigotry. They gratuitously malign a religion and its legal rights to satisfy their own prejudices. They have openly declared their intentional infringements of plaintiff's rights. They have conceded their complicity in these acts and have boasted about making their wilful conduct so pervasive as to overwhelm and sweep aside plaintiffs copyright and trade secret rights." How is the free distribution of religious materials the product of spite and bigotry? Why shouldn't all hotel guests in the world be treated to copies of Gideon's Bible and OT III?
According to RTC "RTC is the owner of certain unpublished and confidential materials and the exclusive licensee under the copyrights in those materials. It has regularly taken all required steps to duly protect those materials under the Copyright Act and applicable trade secrets laws.: "Trade," in the course of normal discourse, is the basic act of commerce.
According to RTC, "Leiby, Fisher and the Post have acted in an irresponsible and unlawful fashion, by publishing portions of plaintiffs unpublished but copyrighted trade." The judge did not agree with RTC on the majority of these allegations, including this one.
According to RTC, "Lerma is a former member of the Church of Scientology." This is true. So all the things that Scientology has written about Lerma are written about a former Scientologist.
According to RTC, "Lerma then violated RTC's intellectual property rights through posting of copyrighted and trade secret materials to the Internet. The infringement and misappropriation by Lerma are and were calculated, deliberate and malicious. After spending hour after hour scanning protected materials into his computer, Lerma, posted no less than 63 pages of protected materials to the Internet on August 1, 1995 and repeated his infringement and misappropriation by reposting the same materials the following day." Now everyone knows about Xenu and the space aliens. This is, of course, in the public interest.
According to RTC, "RTC sent two middle-aged women to visit Lerma and ask him to stop his infringements and misappropriation before having to expend money, effort and the Court's time to enforce the Church's rights." Scientology sends middle-aged women around to help force people to pay for space alien literature. That is bad public relations.
According to RTC, "the documents posted by Lerma were found on his computer's hard drive." As a result, Scientology got a lot of bad public relations for trying to prosecute Lerma.
According to RTC, "Lerma has acknowledged that he is Leiby's agent -- as his 'Net researcher.'" According to Scientology religious doctrine, giving a newspaper negative information about Scientology is a "crime."
According to RTC, "Prior to the seizure on August 12, 1995 ordered by this Court, Lerma delivered to Leiby copies of the Advanced Technology, which he had posted to the Internet on August 1 and 2, 1995..." Again, according to Scientology religious doctrine, giving a newspaper negative information about Scientology is a "crime."
According to RTC, "Lerma requested return of the documents and, on instruction of his then counsel, they were returned to plaintiffs counsel on August 15, 1995."
According to RTC, the above "was actually a ruse. At very time that the materials were being returned to plaintiffs counsel, Leiby, Fisher and the Post had acquired copies of the same stolen records from the clerk's file in the case of Church of Scientology International v. Fishman, et al., No. CV 91-6426 HLH(Tx), C.D.Cal." According to the same item, RTC "had undertaken extraordinary efforts to assure that the confidentiality of the Advanced Materials was maintained, by daily signing out the file containing such materials as soon as the clerk's office was opened for business. Plaintiffs agents maintained possession of the court files until the clerk's office closed every day, repeating this scenario every day - until intervention by the Post on August 14, 1995."
According to RTC, mass reproduction of its "trade secrets" were going on even outside the Internet. It said, "a Post employee ... persuaded the court clerk to take a folder from plaintiff's agent who had checked out the file, and to make copies for the Post. Plaintiffs agent warned the Post employee that the material was protected by copyright and trade secret law and that a copy should not be made. Nevertheless, the Post employee insisted that the clerk make her a copy and a copy was furnished to her. [The Washington Post emloyee] then reproduced a second copy of the material obtained from the Court clerk.
According to RTC, the Washington "Post was given immediate notice of that order and of the copyright and trade secret status of the documents, and demanded that the Post cease and desist from any copying, distribution or publication of any document from the sealed file. The Post was put on notice that its actions could not remotely be deemed newsgathering, but rather constituted wholesale copying of large amounts of trade secret information in an attempt to sanitize the illicit acquisition of infringing documents which Leiby and the Post had received from Lerma." Actually this event was reported in a number of newspapers, which deemed Scientology's attempts at censorship newsworthy. The part about space aliens made the stories even more interesting.
According to RTC, "On August 15, 16 and 17, 1995, various plaintiff's representatives and counsel demanded the return of the sealed documents acquired by Leiby, Fisher and the Post. In each instance they were refused." According to RTC, Leiby, Fisher and the Washington Post obained copies of the space alien documents before they were sealed.
According to RTC, " Despite numerous letters and oral communications to Fisher and Post counsel, on August 19, 1995, the Post published an article written under the byline of Marc Fisher, entitled, "Church in Cyberspace. Its Sacred Writ Is On The Net. Its Lawyers Are on the Case." Included in the article were several quoted references from the Advanced Materials, and many concessions of legal significance demonstrating the Post's knowing misappropriation and willingness to disregard the rights-of the copyright owner, including that:
(a) the disputed materials were the subject of a sealing order;
(b) the texts of the Advanced Materials are copyrighted;
(c) the texts contain trade secret information; and
(d) details of the extraordinary efforts utilized by the Church to maintain such confidentiality of its sacred scriptures."
The reason the newspaper reported all of the above is because it was newsworthy. Stories about space aliens are rather rare. When their secret documents are published on the Internet, it is in the public interest to read all they can about them. Don't forget to do your own Net Research. Find Marc Fisher's article and read it.
According to RTC, The article also noted the extraordinary procedures utilized by the Church at the courthouse to maintain the confidentiality of the records. Incredibly, the Post article also stated that the Post had consulted lawyers expert in the area of copyrights and intellectual property, who advised the Post that the Post did not have the right to violate the copyrighted materials." The little detail that RTC left was that the Washington Post has the right to write about anything it wants to, even copyrighted materials, be they Scientology's or anyone else's.
According to RTC, it pursued its prosecution under "17 U.S.C. § 501 joined with a claim for unfair competition (emphasis added) through trade secrets misappropriation. In addition, this court has supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367 over the trade secrets misappropriation, as a claim that arises out of the same transactions and occurrences. There is also jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 in that there is a complete diversity of citizenship between the plaintiff and the defendants." Notice that nothing in RTC claims that anyone is interfering with any practice of religion.
According to RTC, "Lerma's access to the Internet is achieved through a service provider which acts as Lerma's gateway to pass his unlawful copies onto the Internet, where they may potentially be recopied by others who access the Internet." So, according to Scientology's representative, RTC, it is possible that the copyrighted stories about space aliens could -- potentially -- be recopied by others who have access to the Internet. RTC is to be congratulated for its stunning insight into the matter, vastly superior anything that is to be normally expected from a Nazi UFO Brainwashing cult. Congratulations!
Another bit of insight by RTC, the "Washington Post is a corporation duly organized and existing under the laws of Washington, D.C., with its principal place of business in Washington, D.C." does not mention space aliens, but is no less brilliant.
According to RTC, L. Ron Hubbard is the author of numerous works on "spiritual healing technology."
Among those works, according to RTC, are the space alien stories listed in Exhibit A, known as the "Advanced Technology materials, which contains confidential and proprietary information ('the Advanced Technology') constituting trade secrets (hereinafter referred to as the 'Works'). " In short, Lerma posted the "Works."
According to RTC, "Initially, L. Ron Hubbard owned all rights in his literary works .... In 1982, L. Ron Hubbard assigned to plaintiff RTC his entire right, title and interest (apart from copyrights) in and to the Advanced Technology, including all rights to use and to license the use of the Advanced Technology in the United States. "
According to RTC, "Following Mr. Hubbard's death in 1986, ownership of the copyrights in the Works passed to his Estate, which granted to plaintiff RTC, on September 17, 1987, an exclusive license in the copyrights pertaining to the Works, with the right and obligation to enforce all the copyrights in those works. A true and correct copy of this License Agreement is annexed to this complaint as Exhibit C."
According to RTC, "All of the assets of the Estate of L. Ron Hubbard, including the copyrights pertaining to the Works, were distributed in 1993. The successor in interest to the copyrights affirmed RTC's September 17, 1987 copyright license." This statement offers a look behind Scientology's veil. Can you tell from it who owns "the Works"?
According to RTC, RTC "derives independent economic value, actual and potential, from the Advanced Technology."
According to RTC, RTC "receives from the advanced Churches of Scientology which are licensed by [RTC] to use the Advanced Technology licensing fees equal to six (6) percent of the income received for delivery of Advanced Technology services. These licensing fees provide substantial financial support for [RTC]'s operations." As stated by RTC, the question is not one of religion, but of MONEY.
According to RTC, "defendants have been infringing plaintiff's copyrights in the Works (Exhibit "A"), and defendant Lerma has been breaching his confidentiality agreements, by reproducing each of these works electronically and posting the works on the Internet." RTC is certainl entitled to its opinion, which is what the previous statement turned out to be.
According to RTC, "Lerma is a former Scientologist who became a parishioner in or about 1968 and who served in various staff capacities in Churches of Scientology in the United States between 1968 and about 1977. While a parishioner and Church staff member, Lerma received scientology ministerial counselling services, known as "auditing," and received access to certain of the Works under the same vigorously controlled, monitored, and confidential conditions as other parishioners." It is very true. Arnie received messages from the space aliens.
According to RTC, "on or about 1971-1972, Lerma received training on the doctrine, theory and procedures of certain confidential levels which utilize the Advanced Technology, including OT I-III." Not only did this Scientologist get messages from space aliens, he got messages from Scientology space aliens Xenu et al.
According to RTC, "Both as a recipient of confidential services receiving access to the OT I through III materials, and as a Church staff member, Lerma undertook a fiduciary obligation to maintain the confidentiality of any and all confidential information." Scientology makes its members sign many papers just in case any lawsuit ever comes up.
According to RTC, "Lerma left the Scientology religion in or about 1977. Many years later, beginning in or about 1994, he embarked upon the campaign of hostile, malicious, unlawful activities directed towards his former religion that led to this action." In short, Lerma posted the "Works."
According to RTC, "Knowing full-well that Lerma tries to twist any action taken by the Church into a claim that he is being harassed, when he posted infringing materials to the Internet, two middle aged women were chosen to visit him and to ask him to stop his illegal posting." Scientology assigns middle aged women as enforcers.
According to RTC, "Lerma could not have obtained a copy of these materials other than by illicit means constituting misappropriation or from someone who obtained the copy by illicit means constituting misappropriation or theft." RTC is less than accurate. Lerma obtained a copy of the space alien materials from a court.
According to RTC, "Lerma has breached his confidentiality agreements by reproducing the Works without authorization listed in Exhibit A." Nonetheless Arnie Lerma acted in the public interest by letting people know what Scientology wanted so much money for.
According to RTC, "Lerma addressed each of the copies of the Works he copied to DGS's computer to be sent to a posted, Usenet newsgroup, or public discussion group called alt. religion. scientology". Arnie Lerma is one of the people who put alt.religion.scientology on the map.
According to RTC, " Plaintiff is informed and believes, and on that basis alleges that, at all times relevant herein, Lerma knew or had reason to know that the copies of the Works listed on Exhibit "All that he had acquired had been made available to them through improper means." Scientology continuously said, to the point of neverending repetition, than any copy of "the Works" was obtained by "improper means." The disconnect is that the means by which "the Works" were obtained has no bearing on practice of religion.
According to RTC, "Richard Leiby had for some years been the source of derogatory articles relating to the Scientology religion." An example of "derogatory", according to Scientology, is that Scientology sells materials about space aliens to the public for exhorbitant quantities.
According to RTC, the Washington "Post printed an article by Leiby in its opinion section on Christmas Day, 1994, entitled, 'Scientology Fiction. The Church's. War Against Its Critics -- and Truth.'" This is a good article. Read it.
According to RTC "Lerma has also, on behalf of Leiby, communicated directly with dissident-former Scientologists utilized as 'sources' for derogatory articles on Scientology written by Leiby." The best witnesses to Scientology's space alien technology are the Scientologists themselves. Because current Scientologists are forbidden to talk about the material for which they have paid a lot of money, the best place to get this material is from former members. This is conventient for researchers, because there are many more former members of Scientology than there are current members.
According to RTC, "On August 17, 1995, defendant Fisher interviewed a member of the Board of Directors of the Church of Scientology International, Kurt Weiland. In that interview, Fisher was specifically informed that the materials from the clerk's office constituted copyrighted materials and trade secrets -- not one word of which (emphasis added) should be included in any article contemplated by Fisher." One of the reasons Scientology has been so publicly despised is the insistence by official Scientology leaders that journalists write only what they are told to write.
According to RTC, "Fisher also asked Mr. Weiland about an alleged "Confidential Student Briefing on OT VIII", and whether the document.was authentic. He was informed in no uncertain terms that the disgusting and inflammatory document, to which he referred was a forgery, and not part of any Scientology scriptural materials or copyrighted information or any Scientology material at all." Of course there is the question of what this document was doing with all the others, then.
According to RTC the Washington "Post published an article written under the byline of Marc Fisher, entitled, 'Church in Cyberspace. Its Sacred Writ Is On The Net. Its Lawyers Are on the Case.' Included in the article were several quoted references from the Advanced Materials, and a reasonably accurate rendition of several central facts, among them:
(a) the disputed materials were the subject of a sealing order;
(b) the texts of the Advanced Materials are copyrighted;
(c) the texts contain trade secret information;
(d) the Church is dedicated to maintain the confidentiality of the materials; and
(e) details of the extraordinary efforts utilized by the Church to maintain the
confidentiality of its sacred scriptures." Unfortunately for Scientology, once their trade secrets were published on the Internet, they were no longer secret.
RTC was hoping that the copyright law would help them quash information space aliens.
Both RTC and the Washington Post agreed that "the texts did not lose their copyright protection by virtue of their existence in the [court] clerk's office." The court clerk's office is a perfectly proper source from which to get documents, whether they are copyrighted by Scientology or anyone else.
According to RTC, "The Works listed in Exhibit A hereto are protected under the Copyright Act of 1909, 17 U.S.C. § 1 et se q. (repealed), and the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 101 et sea." "The Works" are protected -- from unfair competition. So far there is no one who is willing to compete with Scientology in sending middle aged women out to help them collect money for space alien material.
According to RTC, "Unless restrained, defendants will continue the acts complained of herein, to plaintiffs irreparable injury." RTC was not so worried about the opposite effect -- that if the public did not find out about the space aliens, irreperable loss and injury would occur to many people who gave their money to Scientology.
According to RTC, "As a direct and proximate result of the foregoing acts of defendants, plaintiff has suffered damages in an amount which cannot now be ascertained or computed but that is capable of proof at trial." RTC had problems proving damages that could not be ascertained or computed at trial.
RTC wanted all the money "derived by defendants by their infringement of the copyrights of plaintiff in the Works."
RTC wanted "an award of statutory damages to plaintiff under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(1) of $20,000.00 for infringement of the copyrights in the Works by defendant DGS and, in addition, an award of statutory damages to plaintiff of $100,000.00 for each infringement of each of the Works infringed by Lerma, Leiby, Fisher and the Post pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(2);."
RTC wanted to stop "permanently ... any unauthorized reproductions of the Works, including, without limitation, the transmitting or loading of any of them onto, or downloading any copies of them from, any computer, database, information service, electronic bulletin board service or network." That did not work out well for them.
However, RTC was successful in stopping Lerma from continuing to post "the Works" to the Internet. By that time, of course, it was too late. Anyone who wants to, now, can get "the Works." If you'd like you can even go to Scientology.
Just tell them you want "the Works."