From daemon Thu Jun 29 23:17:29 1995 Received: from netcom21.netcom.com (hkk@netcom21.netcom.com [192.100.81.135]) by darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU (8.6.10/8.6.6) with SMTP id XAA89456 for ; Thu, 29 Jun 1995 23:17:28 -0400 Received: by netcom21.netcom.com (8.6.12/Netcom) id UAA07572; Thu, 29 Jun 1995 20:16:28 -0700 Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 20:16:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Helena Kobrin Subject: Re: parodies To: Damon Chetson In-Reply-To: <199506290155.VAA24825@darwin.clas.Virginia.EDU> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: ROr Dear Mr. Chetson, The document which you e-mailed me, which contains portions, or in some cases the entirety, of several documents has been analyzed to see if it contains copyrighted and trade secret materials belonging to my clients. Only two of the documents included are not authentic writings of L. Ron Hubbard. These documents are labeled as follows: The first says: HCOB of 5 May 80 Issue I OT VIII Series 1 C O N F I D E N T I A L The second says: OPERATING THETAN SECTION VIII and begins with the words: "The following is a suggestion for OT VIII." Both of these documents are forgeries and are not documents belonging to my clients. All of the remaining documents contained in the posting are copyrighted materials belonging to my clients. With the exception of two, they are all also confidential, unpublished trade secrets. There are two copyrighted documents which are published and not trade secrets. One is headed: HCO Policy Letter 19 June 1961 Sec Check Whole Track. The other is headed: HCO Information Letter 11 April 1962 Dynamic Processing Checks. Please be advised that you do not have permission to publish or disclose any of the documents which I have identified above as copyrighted and/or trade secrets. Regardless of whether you knew with certainty of the copyright and trade secret status of these documents previously, it is obvious that you were on sufficient notice to make inquiry regarding their status. Having done so, you are now on specific notice of the copyright and trade secrets status of the documents as noted above. The law is clear that such notice is sufficient to hold you liable for any subsequent disclosures of the materials. The characterization of these materials as a parody is a transparent attempt at making a claim for fair use, but these materials are *not* a parody, and their posting is not fair use. With regard to the materials which are trade secrets, there is no fair use defense to trade secret misappropriation. As you are undoubtedly aware, my clients have filed a lawsuit entitled Religious Technology Center, et al. v. Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc., et al. in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California regarding copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation relating to most of these materials. The information regarding the status of the materials has been provided to the Court in that case, and is sufficient proof of their trade secret and copyrighted nature. You are advised that your downloading of these documents into your computer constitutes violation of these intellectual property rights. You are to delete these documents from your computer and any disks and send any copies you have printed off to my office. You are not to provide copies of these materials to anyone else. My clients have requested me to start legal proceedings against you. If you cooperate, litigation may be avoided, which would be preferable for all concerned. However, please be informed that my clients will take any necessary legal steps to protect their intellectual property rights. My address is 7629 Fulton Avenue, North Hollywood, CA 91605. Sincerely, Helena K. Kobrin