Legal Plan for a Renaissance of Scientology: demonstrate that the LRH-copyrights are in public domain

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Situation

The Church of Spiritual Technology (CST), a legal entity in state of California, claims to be the holder of the LRH-copyrights and by special agreement licences them to Religious Technology Center (RTC) operating as the Church of Scientology. In practice this has turned out to be a major tool of the suppression of Scientologists: inside and outside of the Church.


Outside the Church a lot of Freezone groups (independent groups) are withholding their services, as they fear legal attacks on “misusing copyrights”.

Inside the Church there exists a similar PTSness. The orgs (Churches) accept a lot of ‘out-policy’ interference by RTC because they believe in Copyright held by RTC.

Data

Several analyses on the legal situation of the LRH-copyrights have been done and showing that our LRH-materials are in the Public Domain. I just want to mention these:

Observation

It looks like CST realized, they lost the copyrights, as in the new released books it says only: Copyright © 2007 taken in the name L. Ron Hubbard Library.

When they would claim the original LRH-books to be copyrighted, they would have to write (as an example)

  • Copyright © 1950, 2007 in the name L. Ron Hubbard.

In the USA you can register a new copyright for your cover art, type face, design or any added chapters (like glossary and such). In this case you add the year of the new issue to year of the original work.

This would mean: the 1950 copyright for the original text and the 2007 copyright for the cover-art and such.

Also in USA you can register a new copyright, if you change the original work, now in the public domain. But you can not register it in its original copyright name. A lost copyright can NOT be revived ever. For this reason we see L. Ron Hubbard Library and not L. Ron Hubbard.

So they realized, that they lost the copyrights!

And I assume, that is the REAL reason behind the New Releases of 2007!

They HAD TO alter-is the original writings to be able to register new copyrights for the books.

It is observed fact that only those references received an individual copyright that were altered in some way. For this reason it was so smart (they think) to only copyright the OEC and Tech vols per volume publication and remove each individual copyright for each reference contained within them. But in fact if you regard all the facts it exposes them.

Solution

By proving the LRH-materials are ‘public domain’, PTSness for Scientologists inside and outside the Church would be handled. This proof must to be in practice and not just in writing analysis. The effect would be enormous. A lot of hidden groups would have their coming out. They could expand, flourish, and prosper. Also staffs and execs of Scientology-Orgs would be free to demand their rights to decide and handle matters for themselves without interference of RTC or the Sea Org (as a marionette of RTC). And also the Sea Org could free themselves from the evil influence of RTC/CST. Ideas how to attack the CST-copyrights on the legal level are many and I am not a lawyer so will not add to this here in this article.

Plan

The plan is to network with people working on this issue and call for the first step towards practical application of these good ideas in the courts. Usually one looks towards the US, where CST is based but gets discouraged due to the legal fees being so high that justice on this matter seems not to be obtainable.

But why fight in the area where the enemy is strong? Let’s learn from Mao Zedong, the founder of the Guerrilla Warfare and Mobile Warfare. We shall look for a place where the enemy is weak and hit him there and have a win. And so – step by step – we come closer to the main land and finally win.

Projects

1. We have to determine which country we shall start our fight. It should be a country signed on with the Bern Convention (which means the acceptance of the International Copyright Laws) and one in which our first legal attack will be cheapest. That will probably be a country with low wages. And it should be a country with a political and legal history of not too much importance on copyright matters: where we can expect a positive attitude of the judges towards our matter. My first idea for this country would be Russia. I would expect the legal fees to be a 1/100th of the fees in the USA. I would also expect judges to have a lot of goodwill towards the idea of intellectual works in public domain and not be so willing to grant a US-Religion the right to suppress the Russian freezoner with the copyright threat. Russia has copyright laws signed the Bern Convention as far as I know.

2. The next Step would be to start a company in Russia for the publication of the works of LRH. Of course, as we are modern people, a Limited Company. If this company were to go bankrupt, i.e. by losing a battle against RTC/CST, it would not harm anyone of us. Just the money for the set up would be lost. But this is our investment in this plan. Lets call the company “LRH books and tapes in publications Ltd” – short: BATIPL.

3. Next is the product this company BATIPL is going to sell. I suggest the following criteria for the product:

  • a. It should be cheap to produce, so that we don’t need a lot of money.
  • b. It should be a light weight, so that it can be cheaply sent by mail order.
  • c. And it should be a blue diamond (exchange factor four per LRH) for the customers.
  • d. And of course, only LRH, the author and founder of Scientology: his technical, philosophical and religious works.
  • e. Finally, it should be big enough as a product and threat to the business of RTC/CST, so that they can’t easily ignore this.

I suggest creating a set of DVDs with the full “LRH-Library”: all the books, issues, lecture tapes, transcripts of the lectures, videos etc. This can all be done on a dozen DVDs afaik.

4. Now BATIPL should find a good price for this. It should not be so expensive that only a few people could buy the product. And it should be not too cheap as the income will be necessary to finance the coming battle. I suggest: $250 for the full set of DVDs and $1,500 for 10 sets (reseller price). If BATIPL sells 300 reseller packages, the income would be $450,000 – a good start for its “war chest”, the legal battle. – This first selling should be so quick, that the war chest is filled before RTC can stop BATIPL. – Some of the money will be paid to the guys, who made all the work to digitalize the LRH-works: remember the Simon Bolivar Policy: when we are winning, we are going to pay our people. No need to document to whom these payments went to within BATIPL to safeguard these upstats.

5. If there is a final risk to the manager of BATIPL such as being sued personally in his country (I don’t know anything about Russian laws), one could lower this risk by taking an 80 years old as the manager. No judge would put him into prison and he would usually not depend on further income which could then be confiscated. He could have every help from younger people who of course have no responsibility at all. It’s all up to the OLD MAN.

6. Next is the Publication and Distribution phase. All commlines should be used in a very short time to make the offer known and also for the plan to win a lot of support for this project. BATIPL will not register its customers. It will just get the money for each order and send the product out. No need for a lot of admin, as there is not second product which could follow: we already sent all there is. In this manner, there is no risking RTC getting a hold of the customer lists should they win their case.

7. Then the legal battle itself. Don’t argue with Russian specials. Just accept the Bern Convention and the US Copyright Law and argue per the line, I mentioned above under the chapter DATA. We should hire the best copyright lawyers and such specialists and make a lot of PR about this law suit.

8. Perhaps we win the suit, but even if we loose we will win new insights in the legal battle and win some more documents (“proofs” inserted by RTC for their claim) and we will be better prepared for the next battle. It was just ONE battle, not the war. BATIPL will disappear and another Ltd company will appear somewhere else. Guerrilla Warfare or Mobile Warfare. Even US-Bush found in Iraq a tough nut to crack.

9. There is one risk, however. The RTC could ignore BATIPL and its products by PRing its way out saying: “Russia is no country with a working legal system, so there is no use to fight these legal-terrorists”. For this scenario my plan goes on like this:

10. We GO WEST. In any western country we start another Ltd company which is just a sales point like an LRH-bookstore. This could be in Netherlands, Denmark or some such, a country with a good legal system which also is not too expensive for our next battle. It can be one in the EU or out (like Switzerland). But this time it must be a company in a country which can not be ignored by RTC without giving up “their copyrights” without any attempt to safeguard them. If they give up at that point they have lost! The advantage for our project in this scenario is that we’ve had enough time for the projects up to number 6. So our war chest could be filled even more. We could even win one or two percent “churchies” as customers who will see a chance for a full digital LRH-library for themselves which they can see as legally obtained as there is no lawsuit against BATIPL going on. This can be another few hundred customers for BATIPL and another few $100,000 dollars for our war chest and battles.

11. This LRH-Bookstore could not be made legally responsible for the existence of the BATIPL-Product. It is just a bookstore and reseller. It can defend itself by the argument that BATIPL was not sued for a year now so that the LRH-Bookstore could assume to sell a legal product. They could force RTC to sue BATIPL in Russia or leave the LRH-Bookstore in Switzerland alone. One could even think about confronting the legal suit in this Western country being well prepared with a big war chest and a lower-budget-legal-system in the country.

12. If at this point all is won we will give ourselves a big party with the rest of the war chest money. We acknowledge ourselves and our friends and supporters. We publish this win broadly and its consequences. The people in the orgs are now free to free themselves from the control of RTC/CST/US-government. We win back Scientology in our own hands! A chance for Mankind! A renaissance of Ron’s work and a Clear Planet!

Let’s do it! And let’s do it now!

Andreas Grosz