In case you were wondering about that lawsuit by JZ Knight in Seattle — she was claiming that a former student had stolen the teachings of her Atlantean warrior spirit guide for profit — it’s over now. Knight won. Keep that in mind if ever a channeler tells you some flaky secret knowledge someday: it’s protected, privileged speech and the ghostie can sue your butt off.
We’re going to be in big trouble when John Edward‘s spirits copyright the alphabet.
I love it when they fight over their imaginary friends.
This is one of those cases where you wish the jury foreman could just declare, “We find both the plaintiff and defendant to be idiots, and sentence them both to a good smacking around.”
OK,
Step 1
-Copyright every major religion, spiritual teaching, witch doctorey and assorted hoo haa we can think of.
Step 2
-Start court proceedings against all current practitioners of aforementioned hoo haa-ery
Step 3 ????
Step 4 PROFIT!
I bet traditional religions would love to have their tenets copyrighted too. In the current state of affairs, their only recourse is to take offense and throw hissyfits whenever someone uses their “spiritual property” without proper permission.
@Gun
Nah. That’s too close to what Scientology does, and I’d prefer not to be compared to them.
Scimormontology, though…
I hope Marvel Comics sues Knight for using the concept they developed in The Sub-Mariner comics. Namor, Prince of Altantis.
First Appearance
Motion Picture Funnies Weekly (1939)
http://www.marvel.com/universe/Namor
does this mean that she sufficiently proved that Ramtha exists?
Nice to see the court making good use of its time….
On the bright side, others can’t go repeating the crap she teaches or she will sue them to stop it… sounds like a good way to stop the flow of stupidity.
@Alex, #7,
No I guess it means that Knight has conclusively shown that the “Atlantean Warrior” is her copyrighted character, in other words, a figment of her imagination.
This is why charlatans do it, to make 10 grand at seminar doing nothing.
As silly as the subject matter is I can see where JZ has grounds to sue her student. If one looks at these weirdoes “teachings” as a form of entertainment then the student ripping of JZ’s bit as her own is going to generate a law suit for the same reason I would be sued by the Carlin estate if I started selling a CD of me doing the 7 dirty words bit and claiming I came up with it. Of course the difference is a comedian knows its an act, but sadly, the courts don’t have the authority to make that distinction. JZ masquerades as a purveyor of truth but this suit illustrates the fact that she is really a charlatan protecting her act. Personally, I’m wondering when the Catholic Church is going to sue the Protestants for ripping them of.
#4: So will the Christians be suing the Buddhists over who has proprietary ownership of the Golden Rule, or vice versa? And will the Muslims, Jews, hindus, Taoists, Mormons and Zoroastrians be allowed to petition for standing in the case?
#7: Sure Ramtha exists. In her head. Intellectual property, I suppose, like Tolkien’s estate owning LoTRs.
And when the spirits copyright the alphabet, I guess we will just have to start conversing in binary.
While the fact that the case is over a bunch of loony new age gibberish is what’s drawing out the criticism here, I don’t think that’s really at issue (unless this is just a snark hunt, then never mind the rest of this).
First of all, correct me if I’m wrong (I only read the linked news article, which is short on details) but the case isn’t over copyright, rather over a breach of a contract that the student signed saying she wouldn’t do what she went ahead and did anyway. As stupid as the outcome is, that’s what you get for signing a stupid contract. (This does raise the issue of non-compete clauses, which are onerous and abused, so you could criticize it on that ground I suppose.)
Second, if it were over copyright, Knight’s claims that Ramtha is real (or that her ideas are even sensical) are irrelevant to the case. The only issues is whether her ideas are original (or that Ramtha’s are and that she is Ramtha’s legal agent, or whatever bullshit argument she would use). Few would argue that J.K. Rowling or Douglas Adams have/had a legitimate copyright claim over their made up nonsense (magic doesn’t exist and there are no Vogons). Arguable, the more ridiculous and divorced from reality something is, the more copyrightable it is (the corollary of this is you can’t copyright something like E=mc²).
Third, if there were some “intellectual property” argument involved, I would think patents would be more appropriate than copyright, since patents unfortunately allow one to “own” vague business practices, which is what Knight is trying to do. I just did a patent search and she doesn’t appear to have any issued or in application, so I guess she’s relying on contracts to protect her business.
#13 / Well, it’s property alright. I’m just not sure it’s “intellectual” property.
I think the framing went something like this: Imagine you, the jury, had a jury of these wackaloons up here judging whether or not your unsupported and spurious life-teaching belief system was protected by contract. Now… go!
When put under scrutiny, there is not much difference between the Holy Ghost and Rathma other than copyright date.
“Now, Mr. Of Nazareth…”
“Jesus, please.”
“Mr. Jesus – you claim that on the ides of the month of Mars that you did receive guidance to – and I quote – “lay hands” upon a certain woman to channel the Holy Ghost, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And you are claiming that certain people acting in capacity as Roman citizens are imitating your technique for profit…”
“Saul. Well, they imitate the technique, but for prurient interests.”
“And you are claiming then…”
“Violation of a franchise agreement. Peter is the only one explicitly allowed to carry the brand name. Everyone else is in it for the money. And doesn’t pay the franchise fee.”
The defense took the wrong tack in discrediting the Ramtha character. They should have simply said that Ramtha’s teachings are tens of thousands of years old and thus couldn’t possibly be protected by copyright. Even Sonny Bono probably never envisioned a copyright period that long!
One more nitpick…
“copyright the alphabet” : discussions of copyright law :: “why are there still monkeys?” : discussions of evolution
I mean, it’s just embarrassingly not-even-wrong.
Just to be clear, this is really just an issue of a breach of contract. The student signed a contract agreeing not to use material/techniques learned in a seminar for commercial purposes as a condition of attending the training session. She broke that contract by subsequently doing so.
This is not a decision that turns on any sort of claim of the merits or effectivenes of the material and techniques, and is limited to precluding the use of such things only by people who signed contracts agreeing not to use them.
Why can religious body copyright their works?
It’s simply absurd. They have tax exemptions and special protections because they’re religious – they should not be able to use the copyright laws specifically intended for the production of market materials.
If you want a copyright, declare yourself a regular corporation, and lose special tax rights and the bonus first amendment protections. Otherwise, act like a damn religion.
Is there any thought left in our legal system? Any rationality to it at all, instead of post-hoc rationalization?
@3:
Step 4 is wrong.
It’s Step 4: Prophet!!!
What divalent said.
But I predict there will still be dozens of comments below taking irrelevant jabs at unlikely abuses of copyright, since in my experience lots of people on the Internet are determined to think everything has to do with copyright and are constantly conflating it with patents, trademark, and, in this case, contract law.
Judge Judy (from whom I get almost all my legal education) would bring up the issue of coming to court with clean hands. That is, if one engages in fraud, they cannot expect the court to assist them in recovering from someone else’s fraud against them.
If I was a juror, I would maintain both litigants were perpetrating fraud on the public and should not be allowed remedy by the court.
Seems very counterproductive by Knight to me. So, if I take her class then I can’t open my own snakeoil business. But if I *don’t* take her class, I can. Hmmm, what’s a budding spiritualist to do?
Eric said:
IANAL but I was thinking – maybe you could turn around and claim that Ramtha’s decided that he want you as his agent from now on and turn around and sue Knight if she tries to use Ramtha materials again?
Do any of the lawyers on the board know if there is anything that says that fictional characters can’t change agents?
Why don’t the creationists get all over these people? How could someone live 35,000 years ago if the world is only 6000 years old? Why not jump of these spiritualists as being liars? Oh that’s right because the same people who believe the spiritualist garbage are the ones who believe the creationist garbage. If you start pointing out how gullible they are in one area they might realize they are gullible in the other.
01100001 01101101 01110000 01101000 01101001 01101111 01111000 01000000 00110001 00110100 00001101 00001010 01000111 01101111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01001001 01100100 01100101 01100001 00100001
An analogy I just thought of that might resonate with Pharyngulans…
copyright : ignorant discussions of intellectual property law :: carbon 14 : ignorant discussions of absolute dating methods
Have you ever witnessed an online discussion over the age of the earth where some ignorant-yet-well-meaning person claims that C14 dating is used to get dates in millions of years — and worse, no one corrects them? A lot of people have gotten it into their heads that when it comes to dating everything is carbon 14. That’s what these sort of legal discussions sound like, copyright is a magical legal voodoo that does everything!
Eric:
I disagree, it’s not counterproductive. Knight doesn’t want budding spiritualists in her school. Why should she help competitors? Let them make up their own bs.
Knight’s intended customers are disaffected housewives, aging baby boomers fearing death or personal irrelevance, and others who want the sort of deeply meaningful meaning that can only come from airy-fairy nonsense, yet don’t want the sort of traditional airy-fairy nonsense offered by mainstream religion. These sorts aren’t likely to found their own school anymore than TV viewers are likely to start their own TV stations. (But if one of them does open their own school, and makes it similar to Knight’s, then there’s the real danger of Knight’s customers abandoning her business for the competitor’s, and Knight must act.)
and…. close italic tag.
Copyright every major religion
You might have an issue with prior art.
LINK
Try a non-asexual form of reproduction?
Differentiate or get off the pot I always say.
jpf: copyright : ignorant discussions of intellectual property law :: carbon 14 : ignorant discussions of absolute dating methods
Essential difference – the latter is a scientific error, an error in empirical fact. The former is merely an error in a bullshit accounting principle we use; it’s like complaining that people are misunderstanding the application of Marxist distributive principles in Soviet agricultural policy. Yes, it’s nice to use correct language – but at the end of the day, the question is one of how to get food in people’s mouths, not whether the policy is actually derived from Marxism or whatnot.
I think I played this video game once… It was called “Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis”.
Copyright every major religion
You might have an issue with prior art.
That and the reality that copyright and patents don’t last forever in any event. And I am quite sure that the Vatican has not renewed a trademark on Jesus, etc. every twenty years for the last two millennium.
If your Bible has a copyright it because it is a recent translation or because it includes note, appendices, images, etc. beyond the mere presentation mere “holy” scripture.
But you can copyright new nonsense writings. And (more relevantly to this case) you can make your students sign contracts not to set up their own business based on your nonsense as a condition of teaching them your nonsense.
From what I have seen in the comments, it seems that some of you have forgotten your high school civics. Courts, unlike the legislature and executive, are limited by the dispute put before them. There was no dispute between the parties on the “reality” of teachings. Thus the court has no legal business going into that issue. Nor would I want to live in a society where the court could decide that they don’t like me so I can’t defend my legal rights.
Now if our quack is committing fraud (in the legal sense of the word) then one of his victims or the district attorney could bring suit but that would not be in any way connected to the lawsuit in question.
Judge Judy (from whom I get almost all my legal education) would bring up the issue of coming to court with clean hands. That is, if one engages in fraud, they cannot expect the court to assist them in recovering from someone else’s fraud against them.
If PZ’s description of the case is accurate then there is no allegation of fraud before the court. The court can’t decide to press charges on its own. Nor can it independently investigate the validity of the crap in question. Thus this is irrelevant until someone actually files suit over fraud of these bozos.
In this case, the use of the “clean hands” doctrine would be if the defendant pointed out that the plaintiff had himself stole the crap from some prior crap artist. And I am not that even that would help the defendant since I don’t see how that counters the signed promise not to compete with the plaintiff.
I suspect about the only logical (assuming the courts are logical) way out for the defendant would be to say that his crap was in some way different from the crap of the plaintiff or that the contract requiring the defendant not to compete with the plaintiff was illegal or invalid.
—
Don’t forget folks, this lawsuit has been good news for us. It means that the quacks have to dish out their money to lawyers that could have been used for bad purposes or to “reward” themselves for fleecing their victims. And the lawsuit is not exactly good publicity. (Though regrettably it will probably be forgot in a year and the bozos will go back to fleecing their “flocks.”)
Heh. Re the lurker’s comment, yeah, really, this is all good. The ‘channeler’ insists on an NDA, does she? Hmm. S’pose that was a tradition in Atlantis, too? Ramtha’s instructions, no doubt… It’s all new-agey ‘n beautiful and all about lovey-dovey one-world bliss ‘n total enlightenment…
Up until you try to steal my schtick, at which point I sue.
Raises an intriguing possibility, too. Say you (where ‘you’ are a random citizen of the world who has signed no such agreement) were to propose you are ‘channelling’ this guy we’ll call, for the sake of argument, ‘Bob’, who happens to have lived in Atlantis. Turns out most of Bob’s revelations have to do with the fact that there was no such person as ‘Ramtha’. Bob, y’see, knew everyone in the town (Atlantis was a small place), and besides which, being dead ‘n all, now, now knows all, and can see: Knight’s just making it all up…
Could Knight complain? Would she? Would she dare say ‘look, obviously this person is making the whole thing up’? And even if she did, could she take it to a court? I mean, hey, it’s a religious belief. As protected by various countries’ laws as is hers, at least, seems to me…
Hey, if Ramtha is real, then maybe he’s two-timing her. She would have no suit if Ramtha was the content provider of her schtick.
Is her suit not an admission that this Ramtha stuff is all hooey? I mean, Atlantis is just a myth. It’s Lemuria that’s the fountain of sentience and civilization!
Jello #12
It was called the 30 Years War (1618-1648). The Protestants won, sort of, and the population of Middle Europe lost big time.
Could Knight complain if some person channeled some other ancient Man from Atlantis (Bob) who says the the person Knight (Ramtha) is channeling does not exist? Well, I am sure he will rant away. Could he successfully sue? If I recall to sue for libel and slander one needs to show that what the defendant said was false, that reason to know it was false, and that the claim had real damage to the plaintiff. I don’t see how he could do that. The judge would probably toss it out. And besides, it would be difficult to get 12 jurors who will side with Knight on the reality of Ramtha.
Frog:
No, the latter is an error of not knowing what one is talking about, just like the former. When discussing a case that centers around a contract dispute, talking about copyright just makes you sound ignorant, regardless of your opinion on the merits of intellectual property law.
“We’re going to be in big trouble when John Edward’s spirits copyright the alphabet”
Sesame Street will never be the same again.
How so?
“does this mean that she sufficiently proved that Ramtha exists?”
Quite the opposite.
The court doesn’t recognize the claimed source – only the actual source. To the court, Ramtha doesn’t exist and everything Knight said was invented by Knight herself. Therefore she had every right to contract its use.
It would seem to me that her making people sign a contract to begin with is an acknowledgment of that.
I don’t see a problem with that. What the court it saying is that a religious text and a romance novel have equal standing. They are both simply inventions of the author, and so enjoy the same protection.
I humanity has evolved intelligence, why are there still fundies?
If, of course, not I