A Somewhat Surprising Letter

by JanH 37 Replies latest jw friends

  • JanH
    JanH

    Commentary Press
    P.O. Box 43532
    Atlanta, GA 30336-0532
    770/949-4947; Fax 770/949-5601; e,mail: [email protected]

    June 7, 2001

    Jan Steinar Haugland
    C. Sundtsgt. 56
    N-5004 BERGEN
    Norway

    Dear Sir:
    It has been brought to our attention that your web site contains material copied from some of the Commentary Press publications.
    We believe you should be aware of the fact that all these publications are copyrighted. It is illegal to publish material, electronically or by any other means, from them without first obtaining permission. We have not granted such permission. Your publishing of the material is therefore in violation of international copyright laws.
    We hereby call upon you to remove all such material from your web site. Failure to do so will oblige us to take other steps to prevent this illegal use of our copyrighted material.

    Respectfully,
    (sign.)
    C. M. Badame
    for Commentary Press

    - Jan
    --
    Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil´s Dictionary, 1911]

  • uncle_onion
    uncle_onion

    so what is your website address?

    UO

  • JanH
    JanH

    UO,

    The whole site had been discontinued almost half a year before this letter was written!

    Of course, I did secure permission from Ray Franz personally to publish the chapter about 1975 from CoC on my web site, as AlanF can attest to. The web page told all this, and also included links to buy the whole book.

    Ros' Beacon site had the blood chapter from ISoCF. I linked to it.

    Interestingly, I have only ever been accused of copyright violation by one other corporation: The Watchtower Society.

    Who the heck is "C. M. Badame"?

    - Jan
    --
    Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil´s Dictionary, 1911]

  • VeniceIT
    VeniceIT

    That is soo bizzare. Have you emaild Ray with that???? hmm sounds like someone's messing with you!!!!

    Ven

  • JanH
    JanH

    Ven,

    Nope, haven't emailed them about it. It is sent on CP letterhead in a CP envelope, poststamped in Atlanta, GA. If somebody faked this, they went to great lengths to do so.

    An interesting question is how my real postal address was obtained for this letter. I have exchanged some letters with Ray personally in the past, but then I lived at another place. Also, the "it has been brought to our attention" statement indicates someone has incited CP to write me this letter.

    For some reason, few things pisses me off quite like legal threats.

    I do assume that word of this reaches Ray sooner or later.

    - Jan
    --
    Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. [Ambrose Bierce, The Devil´s Dictionary, 1911]

  • Tina
    Tina

    ((((((((((Jan)))))))))))
    hmmmm very interesting,,,,what's going on lately? openmind getting strange email....you're getting strange mail,,,Im getting surprise visit,,,,,,,,,has Torquemada come to town to visit????luv,Tina

    psssssst BETHelMOle's the name

  • Roamingfeline
    Roamingfeline

    Jan, seems to me you need to go through all contacts who have your actual address, and track the culprit down from there. Of course, you've no doubt already figured that out so this post is totally superfluous. Good luck in finding the perpetrator. I hope whoever it is gets their just desserts.

    RCat

  • Kent
    Kent

    Hi Jan;

    I remember I got something like this a long time ago myself, and it seems like just the same text, as far as I can remember.

    Fact is the COC book has been promoted all over the net by sites like yours. I didn't even HAVE the material on my site, I believe I had a link to Ros' site. Personally I didn't even answer them.

    As you said - Commentary Press and the Watchtower is the ones threatening us both. On top of that the I(diots)D(ummies and) G(oons)books threatened to sue me if I didn't remove a page called "1914 For Dummies". Their lawyers sent me a bill because I didn't react fast enough - and they found the page was still there. So, I told them to go fuck themselves, sue me, do what the fuck they wanted - but any mails from them would be filtered directly to where they should be - the trash!

    I did send them the new URL to the page where I told the story - and the "1914 For Dummies" is still there, naturally :))

    So, Ray Franz is in good compane! What a bunch of loosers!!!

    Yakki Da

    Kent

    "The only difference between God and Adolf Hitler is that God is more proficient at genocide."

    Daily News On The Watchtower and the Jehovah's Witnesses:
    http://watchtower.observer.org

  • mustang
    mustang

    Jan,

    Check w/ Randy W. @ Freeminds on this. He and I had a long chat about copyrights, as he is quite sensitive to those issues. I believe that you are allowed to quote up to 20% of something, verbatim, under what is called the 'fair useage' principle. You
    must properly credit the source, of course. It sounds like you did this, so you should be off the hook. The uninformed status of these
    people is also pertinent, as you are actually in compliance with
    their request, even if 'fair useage' wasn't so.

    Do check w/ Randy, as he does this sort of thing every day.

    Mustang

  • VeniceIT
    VeniceIT

    You are shameless KENT and I'm begining to feel guilty about taking your soo well deserved Trophy!

    It doesn't sound like Ray to me, and I've never heard that name!!! How Bizzare.

    Ven

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