Perry Scott

Subject: Scientology Attacks My Web Page!
From: no.spam@fc.hp.com (Perry Scott)
Date: 13 Jan 1998

The Threat
In an act of obvious cluelessness, Scientology has attacked my page at (http://www.ezlink.com/~perry/CoS/Christian/). The Scientology Comparative Theology Page is a research document which details the "religion" of Scientology, its religious history, and Scientology's claims to be compatible with Christianity.

Toward the bottom of the page, I compare the cross of Scientology with the cross from Crowley's Tarot Deck. (Note: I have not updated the information to reflect that the Golden Dawn cross is probably the inspiration for the Crowley Cross.)

The point of contention is a rather insignificant 100x100 .jpg of the Scientology Cross, which was obtained from the Scientology Web page at www.scientology.org. Technically, the lawyer is correct in that Scientology, Inc. owns the image. However, the usage clearly falls within 17 USC 107 regarding Fair Use for commentary and scholarly analysis. However, this has never stopped the intrepid barrators #########barristers at RTC, Bridge, et.al.

Comment
This attack is so lame. If all Scientology can whine about is a Fair Use treatment of one of their minor .jpgs, I must say that I am shocked at the depths to which they have sunk. If you look closely, you will see Incident 1, Incident 2, OT3 links, NOTs link, and the Clear Cognition (in other words, ALL of Scientology's secrets) on the page or as links. I've been busy creating sufficient Fair Use scholastic commentary to allow this information to be available on the Web (legally) for the first time ever.
I may find myself waxing Gradyesque and commenting on (*)'s inability to be at Cause Over Wogs. It's really quite pathetic.

Good-Faith Actions I have Taken
To appease the Scientology lawyer and to shield my ISP from further harrassment (he's a really nice guy and is really quite annoyed at Scientology - yet another Operation Footbullet win), I have taken iconher2.jpg off of my ISP's disk. I have redirected the user's browser to obtain the image directly from www.scientology.org. I have also attributed the source of the image, as well as provided a link to scientology.org (the link already existed, in case someone wanted to see the image from the horse's mouth, as it were.)

In non-technical terms, I have told the user's browser to get information from my page and Scientology's page simultaneously. If you want to burn a few more of Scientology's $$$ and harrass me over this one, go ahead. [snipped]