On this site and others I have been reading about the Watchtower Society suing bloggers and website owners because they quoted the Watchtower’s publications. A couple of observations. If you quote a publication that was publically distributed by the millions of copies, how could you be liable? My lawyer says that if you do not acknowledge the quote as coming from the literature, you could have some liability. It could be charged that you were taking credit for its authorship. Otherwise since they are so widely distributed, they would have no argument. Of course, you wouldn’t want to distort the quote, there would be liability on your part for doing so. Just like you can criticize a public figure, the Watchtower by making this massive effort to place this literature in the hands of the public, would allow you to reprint and critique. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t sue. Often a person or entity with lots of cash will sue a person without the means to defend him/herself. The defendant may be right, but he doesn’t have the money to prove it, so he/she loses. I have two questions/thoughts: 1- Has anyone heard of any suits, been sued themselves and what was the outcome? 2- Shouldn’t we establish a legal fund to counter this? $5.00 from each DF’d Witness would put a stop to it. It’s also interesting that the new placement Watchtower is different than the Study Watchtower given to publishers. That creates a whole different legal dynamic if the study Watchtower is not made available to the public. It could be that they are trying to “plug the hole” with the new Watchtower arrangement. Comments? Fred www.isnrblog.com
Law suits by the Society against websites
by isnrblog 38 Replies latest jw friends
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Mary
I have two questions/thoughts: 1- Has anyone heard of any suits, been sued themselves and what was the outcome?
Yes, the WTS successfully shut down Quotes' site claiming Copyright infringement and embarassment, although the site was started up again by someone in England. The Society has unlimited resources and can easily afford the legal costs of such a suit. Quotes could not. You can read about it here:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/11/98096/1.ashx
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wanderlustguy
Legal liability has absolutely nothing to do with it, the threat is the cost of defending against a lawsuit.
Scientology set the precedent and method in the 90's when it took over the Cult Awareness Network after a barrage of over 50 lawsuits drove them into bankruptcy.
The cases never played out to their conclusion because CAN couldn't afford the litigation costs.
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hillbilly
Deep Pockets are only so deep. Data bases like "Quotes" can be very portable on the web... hosting can be moved about on an international level.
Have you every had to swat so many flies or 'skeeters that it became more practical to just pick up the chair and move? I think the Society will find that out as they bleed money trying to shut up the web.
The hole is in the dike WT.
~Hill
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dinah
Since the WT has its own lawyers they can afford to bring a lawsuit more cheaply can the defendant can fight it.
I always thought that was odd. They spend all this time pushing publishers to get the publications into the hands of the public. If someone simply quotes the publications, highlighting changes and falsehoods, they cry FOUL!
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isnrblog
That is probably a better strategy than fighting them in the open.
fred www.isnrblog.com
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uninformed
Fred
Nice site.
Enjoyed your UN reasoning and the reference to the 89 WT "edit".
good work
Brant
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isnrblog
Thanks. Fred
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Dogaradodya
Excuse me but I'm just dropping this bomb so I can be a Jedi in 100 days and be able to start Star Wars.
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B_Deserter
Copyright law doesn't apply to criticism of a work. The Fair Use clause states that any copyright work may be reproduced for the purposes of education, comment, or criticism.