H.H. Dow High Update -- April 27, 2001
Page 10 ("Mind and Body") My Turn
by Liz Brayman Copyright isn't a good hiding place for "religion"

MOXON & KOBRIN
ATTORNEYS AT LAW Dear Ms. Brayman:

This is to inform you that we represent the Church of Scientology...

"Oh, <censored>!" I thought.

What would the Church of Scientology -- religion of Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Isaac Hayes -- want with me? I'm not a member, and I haven't been sending them any bomb threats. I gave them an opportunity to do what they do best -- sue people.

Now, threatening an 18-year-old girl with legal action isn't exactly the first thing I think of when I think of a "church". That kind of activity goes more with "scary weirdo cult." The problem is, there's a section on my website that deals with Scientology. I think it's run by a bunch of criminals, and I'm allowed to say that -- First Amendment and all. My mistake was posting several copyrighted texts from the cult's top-secret scriptures. It took them about a year, but they found out -- and I was in big trouble.

Of course, I removed the stuff -- I'm not about to risk having my life ruined in a legal battle with rich lawyers. Besides, they were right, even if I didn't agree with them. A lot of us didn't agree with the Napster ruling, but technically they were outside the law, too.

I guess all this makes me a copyright terrorist. As I was deleting the offending pages, though, I started thinking:

1) What kind of religion copyrights their scriptures? The Scientologists hold copyright to thousands of documents and trademarked terms, and they keep the most secret scriptures closely guarded.

Does anyone hold a copyright to the Bible? What about the Koran? It's ridiculous to think you can put ownership on the Word of God -- even if the closest thing you have to God is a drug-addled bigamist.

2) What kind of religion charges money for their scriptures? You can find free Bibles or the Book of Mormon in any hotel room. Libraries carry the Koran, the Talmud and the Bhagavad-Gita. Most religions *want* you to read their great works, hoping you'll be converted. Why not the Scientologists?

Maybe because those super-duper-secret texts are so thoroughly silly they'd cause hysterical laughter in anyone who isn't brainwashed. The cult charges over three hundred *thousand* dollars in courses and training before they let you see what I'm about to tell you, so be grateful for the money I'm saving you:

Seventy-five million years ago, the evil galactic overlord Xenu kidnapped a bunch of people, froze them with antifreeze (it makes sense, honest), and showed them a movie made of random images to confuse them. One of the images was a man on a cross, which means Scientologists believe Christianity is just a confused memory implanted by an evil space alien.

After that, Xenu threw the people into volcanoes and blew them up with H-bombs, because he was having population problems in his sector of the Milky Way. The souls of those people got all fragmented and floated around until we came along and they could hitch a ride on our bodies.

Basically, we're all infested with dead alien space cooties which can only be removed by repeated application of $100 bills.

No wonder they don't want anyone seeing this stuff! Nobody would sign up if they knew about Xenu and the Space Cooties -- which, incidentally, would make a great name for a band.

The Scientologists say that they're proud to be what they are. I have to wonder what kind of proud church refuses to let people know just what they're teaching. They consider hiding to be a spiritually damaging state of mind, but they're doing it every day. If they were really proud -- proud of what they believe in -- they wouldn't have threatened to sue me for telling the truth.

Yes, I violated United States copyright law. I don't feel guilty, either. I did it because I believe that religion should be accessible to everyone, not just super-rich Hollywood stars.

If someone wants to believe in space cooties, that's fine. More power to them. They just shouldn't have to pay to find out what they're believing in. Hiding behind a copyright is not an option.


This is exactly how they printed my column, folks. That's maybe 1200 high school kids, plus the parents of all those kids, plus our subscriptions, plus the school newspaper exchange program.

The best reactions I got were from the political activist/anti-consumerism/anti-establishment kids. They love me for it. And considering I'm the only girl who seems to care about either computers or politics, they love me even more. :) What do you think, sirs?

Lianna Skywalker SP4 "When you show the odd flash of contextual intelligence, I forget your generation can't read." -- Dr. Hannibal Lecter

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