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Zenon Panoussis Ruling Stands
posted by mpawlo on Tuesday September 17, @04:23PM
from the copyright dept.
Copyright The Swedish Supreme Court has delivered a rejection of the Zenon Panoussis vs Religious Technology Center (Church of Scientology) appeal. The Supreme Court only tries cases that are important from a principal point of view if it wants to expand or change the current legal regime or cases where new evidence has turned up that might reverse the outcome of the ruling of the court of appeals.



This means the ruling by Hovratten (court of appeals) stands. Zenon Panoussis was sued for copyright infringement when publishing the so called Fishman Affidavit online (a court file containing parts of Scientology's higher course material) and certain other information that are part of Scientology's course material and religious background. One of the legal issues was whether the material had been made public or not before Panoussis' publication. Another issue was what damage had been done to Religious Technology Center by the publication, considering Scientology strives to expand (answer: loss of revenue, loss of members that read the material 'without the proper preparation').

The court ruled Panoussis to be guilty of copyright infringement. Panoussis should pay damages. Panoussis should also pay Scientology legal fees amounting to SEK 1 200 000 (about USD 120 000) and SEK 435 000 (about USD 43 500) - rather high amounts according to Swedish standards in a case of this size.

The case has received a lot of media attention since it deals with a complex but comprehendable clash between freedom of speech and copyright law. Some claim there is a moral issue at stake and that religious groups should not be eligible for copyright protection and trade secret protection because of the risk of secterism. I leave that to the reader to contemplate.

A report of the Hovratten case delivered by Karin Spaink.

U.S. Delays Final Version of National Cybersecurity Plan | SmartFilter Stupidity - School Sites as SEX  >

 

 
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    Zenon Panoussis Ruling Stands | Login/Create an Account | Top | 3 comments | Search Discussion
    Threshold:
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    What does not-for-profit mean, anyway? (Score:1)
    by LuYu on Wednesday September 18, @01:00AM (#294)
    User #460 Info | http://grep.law.harvard.edu/

    Considering how much the Church of Scientology goes on about its "rights" over its ideas/documents, one might get the impression that they intended to profit from this information.

    Is not the goal of religious institutions the dissemination of their belief(s) about existence?

    Are they not preventing the average person from the revelations that supposedly come from their doctrines in order to protect their monopoly?

    Should governments protect copyright laws for not-for-profit institutions? I thought copyright was a monetary incentive (read: profit incentive) for creating information.

    If a religious institution creates information for profit, does that not prove the lack of a divine mandate?

    "I will believe you are not an animal when you do not eat, sleep, urinate, or defecate for one month."
    Re:What does not-for-profit mean, anyway? (Score:0)
    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18, @02:07AM (#296)
    Their pleadings in this case might be usable to help strip them of their 'non-profit' status.

    If they're using the various parts of their doctrine for profit.....

    "Anything you do or say in a court of law can and will be used against you" (apologies to Miranda).

    Public availability (Score:1)
    by aprentic (greplaw@sectae.net) on Wednesday September 18, @10:21AM (#302)
    User #383 Info
    I thought the key issue here was that all of this information had already been published in court proceedings.

    If these are public records how can the republication of them be an infringement of the CoS' copyrights?

    If they aren't what is the justification for keeping the records of court proceedings secret?

    Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition. - Isaac Asimov

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