[FYI] How the digital millenium copyright act is used by the Church of Scientology to take down websites of critics

[Kristian Köhntopp <kk@netuse.de>]

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/07/22/scientology/index.html

Copyright -- or wrong? 
The Church of Scientology takes up a new weapon in its
ongoing battle with critics, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Janelle Brown 

July 22, 1999 | Susan Mullaney is not a fan of the Church of
Scientology. A longtime poster to the Usenet newsgroup
alt.religion.scientology, she spends much of her energy online
exposing what she feels are the Church of Scientology's
repressive activities. Her two-year-old Web site contains a library
of short audio excerpts from L. Ron Hubbard speeches and a
"secret" Scientology questionnaire, as well as her biting
commentary about this material -- the usage of which she claims
falls well within legal "fair use" boundaries.
[ ... ]


"Because I am not a resident of the U.S.A. and because I have
no inclination to fight the case in court, I agreed to remove the
page," Chong explained in February. "This legislation is a new
weapon in the Church of Scientology arsenal, and I am sure the
Church of Scientology will use it to close down as many sites as
possible."

Mullaney and Chong are angry that they were presumed guilty
until proven innocent: Their Internet service providers removed
their Web sites before the Church of Scientology proved a
copyright violation. This, they complain, is thanks to the stringent
guidelines of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

[ ... ]

Kristian

-- 
Kristian Köhntopp, NetUSE Kommunikationstechnologie GmbH
Siemenswall, D-24107 Kiel, Germany, +49 431 386 436 00
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