I did a collage portrait inspired by a photograph of L. Ron. I sold the original over Ebay. I then took a photograph of the work and sold t-shirts through the website Cafepress.com. You remember me from my desperate attempts to sell those shirts to you in this newsgroup.

The Church hired a lawyer (Mr. Timothy Sinnott) and had my Cafepress site shut down. This happened before Xmas. Mr. Sinnott wrote me email and asked that I:

1) Hand over any existing copies of the work.

2) Hand over all monies earned from the work.

3) Give a full accounting of all monies earned from the work.

4) Do so by a particular date -- some time before the end of December 200.

I wrote him email back saying that I needed more time, so that I could speak to a lawyer about all this. It being the Christmas season and all, I was somewhat busy elsewhere. Mr. Sinnott did not write me back, so I assumed the matter was settled, and that his email to me was little more than a formality. I assumed he was satisfied with 1) having my Cafepress site shut down and 2) hearing me say that, at this time, I had no intention of selling more L. Ron Collage t-shirts.

I was wrong. I received a second piece of email from Mr. Sinnott, a few weeks ago (early March 2001). I'm not sure why there was such a great delay in his response to my email.

He said that obviously his client had extended the deadline for my response. He said that they now wanted a response by March 30th, 2001.

I consulted with a lawyer who specializes in art cases. Having done so, I then contacted Mr. Sinnott via email and informed him of two things:

1) I was not going to comply with his requests.

2) Being a legal layperson, I had misstated the process used in creating my artwork. I was inspired by the original photograph, and created my work from that inspiration. I ackowledge that the photograph played a part in my inspiration, but so did the works of Van Gogh, Picasso, etc, etc.

That is where this matter currently stands. If there are any further developments, I will describe them in future posts.

I am forced to paraphrase the contents of Mr. Sinnott's emails as he has insisted that I not copy his email in any way. His letters are copyrighted material, and he does not wish them to be made public.

Perhaps this is because he plans on releasing these legal letters of his in book form in the future. A sort of "Mr. Timothy Sinnott's Greatest Hits," or, "Poetry for Lawyers". They are -- and I mean this quite sincerely -- a fascinating read.

If anyone would care to offer any advice -- legal or otherwise -- at this point, I would be grateful.

Nik --
Licking clouds while my toes
touch the centre of the earth.

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