Wed, 4 Nov 1998 19:29:51 0100 (MET) From: Andreas Heldal-Lund Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 19:29:50 0100 (MET) Message-Id: <199811041829.TAA25060@pompel.online.no> Subject: Battle of the Books Reply-To: heldal@online.no [Hopefully the last request: I would very much appreciate if somebody could forward thiis to ARS too. Sorry if this stupid _temporary_ solution makes extra lines. Thanks!] (E-mail sent to Eric Eldred at eldred@mediaone.net 04/11/1998:) Hi Eric, Was just told about your ebook because of a case in Norway mentioned there (http://users.vnet.net/alight/battle.html). In chapter 6 it reads: "The other week some news from Norway gave some hints how this might work. The Church of Scientology had sued someone there for publishing on the web some books the Church claimed copyright on. The defendant said that they were in the public domain because they had been entered into government records. U.S. trade negotiators reportedly forced Norway to change its copyright law to correspond with U.S. law, or face trade sanctions for the whole nation. Norway caved in. We could expect the same thing to happen in any country where intellectual property would be seen to threaten the property rights of any U.S. publishers." This has several errors. I'm the author of Operation Clambake (www.xenu.net) and I suspect the news you heard from Norway was about me. Or more correct it probably got mixed up with the lawsuits in Sweden between Zenon Panoussis and the "Church" of Scientology. There has never been a lawsuit against anybody in Norway for posting Scientology secrets to the net, but I've been threatened several times over the last 2 years. In fact my lawyer just got a new threat from their Norwegian lawyers yesterday. Zenon just lost the main case against the cult, but this is appealed. You can read more on my page: http://home.sol.no/~spirous/CoS/archive/events/zenon/ It is true that the Scientology cult tried to change the Swedish constitution by lobbying, but they did of course not succeed with this idiotic plan. No laws in Sweden or Norway has been changed because of this. Sweden has an unique law, called "offentlighets- princip", which has made many of the cult secrets public since they once was mailed to one a government department. In Norway and Sweden there are laws that makes all such correspondence public record, and if you know the record number you can order a copy. While Zenon now is convicted for publishing the secrets on the 'Net, you can still order it from the Swedish Parliament (and several other public offices in Sweden) if you are willing to pay the cost of printing and postage! And it is all legal. More on the Offentlighetsprincip" is found here: http://www.users.wineasy.se/noname/offprncp.htm How to order the "secret" NOTs from the Swedish Parliament: http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d1dd/cos/pan27.html The status now is that the cult still threatens anybody who put their "secrets" on the 'Net, and they have a poor Scientologist sitting all day at the reading room in the Swedish Parliament holding on to one of the public copies of NOTs (just to make it look like they guard their copy protected and trade secret religion). I'll publish the URL to your ebook on alt.religion.scientology so others can give you more information on the subject if you want. Best wishes, Andreas Heldal-Lund Normannsgaten 9, N.4013 Stavanger, Norway, (+47) 88 00 66 66 Operation Clambake: www.xenu.net SP4 & Adm. TOXE CXI _______________________________________________________________ "If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm." -- Marcus Aurelius