Dear Ava, I've taken those nasty documents off of my website. You don't need to worry that some innocent person will stumble upon them. And you most certainly don't need to sue me. I believe your demands have been met in full.
That being said -- my dear, have you ever stopped after printing out and photocopying yet another website, after composing yet another boilerplate legal letter, and wondered just what the purpose is? You get one taken down and five more spring up. They're like dandelions -- those damned NOTs and OT levels just will not go away no matter how many manila envelopes you send out. You could be doing the same thing next year -- or the year after -- or ten years from now -- the same tiresome thing, and no reward but the derision of a bunch of wogs.
Do you see yourself growing older doing this? When you went to law school, did you envision yourself someday emailing cease-and-desist letters to people who only scoffed at you? I know I can't imagine doing it more than three times a year. It must be damned frustrating.
This is what you do for Scientology, and this is what Scientology does for you. You've been given the opportunity to send packages by courier and angry letters by email. You've been given a thankless job for little pay by a cult that doesn't even inspire fear in most Americans -- they think it's silly. And don't you ever wonder how different things could have been for you if you had never signed on in the first place?
Ava, you can contact me anytime at my email address above or on AOL Instant Messenger: LiannaSky9. With all sincerity, I hope you can escape the trap you've been locked into with your sanity and dignity intact.
Lianna Skywalker
http://freespeech.org/liannaskywalker/
Subject: Ava Paquette is "out admin"
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
From: dst@cs.cmu.edu (Dave Touretzky)
Message-ID: <3a9b0d47.0@news2.lightlink.com>
Date: 26 Feb 2001 21:13:27 -0500
Here's a letter I received from Ava Paquette tonight, followed by my
reply. She's writing about a posting I made last week concerning
a lecture in an Information Warfare class at Carnegie Mellon
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From: AMPaquette@aol.com
Message-ID: <69.11a5e57c.27cc3cf9@aol.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 18:12:57 EST
Subject: Unauthorized Use of Copyrighted Material
To: dst@cs.cmu.edu
CC: AMPaquette@aol.com
Dear Dr. Touretzky:
You have posted an announcement to the newsgroup, "alt.religion.scientology". about your intention to publically display the entire text of "NOTs 34" under the guise of "teaching"
activities. You should be aware that the right of public display is one of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner, in this case, RTC, with whom you are already familiar. Labeling this activity as "teaching" does not give rise to any exemption notwithstanding your views of the law. To be sure, use of copyrighted material in the classroom is subject to the same law and the same limitations on the right of fair use as are other uses. See e.g., Princeton University Press v. Michigan Document Services, 99 F.3d 1381 (6th Cir. 1996) (unauthorized reproduction and distribution of copyrighted works for purpose of classroom teaching held to be infringement, not fair use).
Given the context in which you are announcing your intentions, it is plain that your threatened display of the entire text of NOTs 34 as educational "fair use" is a pretext. To be sure, the laundry list of points you claim you wish to make about Scientology in the course have little, if anything, to do with the text of NOTs 34. As you well know, Judge Whyte enjoined the unlawful reproduction of that work even when, according to Keith Henson, its reproduction was relevant to his purported purpose.
For these reasons, we demand that your refrain from your announced display of NOTs 34, without prejudice to any of RTC's rights or remedies, all of which are expressly reserved, as is RTC's right to take action without further notice to you.
Sincerely,
Ava Paquette
Moxon & Kobrin
3055 Wilshire Boulevard
Suite 900
Los Angeles, California 90010
Tel: (213) 487-4468
Fax: (213) 487-5385
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To: AMPaquette@aol.com
From: Dave_Touretzky@cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Unauthorized Use of Copyrighted Material
In-reply-to: Your message of Mon, 26 Feb 2001 18:12:57 -0500.
<69.11a5e57c.27cc3cf9@aol.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 21:05:09 -0500
Message-ID: <1438.983239509@skinner.boltz.cs.cmu.edu>
Sender: Dave_Touretzky@skinner.boltz.cs.cmu.edu
Dear Ms. Paquette,
I was disappointed to receive your email message this evening, because
my lecture in the Information Warfare class was at 11:30 this morning.
Your note would have made a fine class handout. Oh well; there's always next year.
I agree with you that use of material in the classroom is subject to copyright limitations. However, I reject your assertion that those limitations are exactly the same in all contexts. Copyrighted works are routinely displayed in their entirety in classroom settings, especially in the case of movies, audio recordings, or poetry. And your citation of Princeton University Press v. Michigan Document Services is inapposite, since I did not distribute any material at all to the class, either in printed or electronic form.
Nonetheless, I am delighted to see you acknowledge the possibility of fair use of Scientology materials. For the sake of argument, could you tell me exactly which paragraphs of NOTs 34 you think could be displayed to a class without exceeding the bounds of fair use?
Another interesting thing I noted in your letter is that there were no allegations of misappropriation of trade secrets. I take it, then, that Scientology has finally conceded the loss of trade secret status of its "Advanced Spiritual Technology". I will be sure to make note of this development the next time I lecture on the subject of Scientology and information warfare.
Sincerely, -- Dr. David S. Touretzky