Legal Threats
On June 26th, 2009, our hosting company’s upline internet service provider (ISP) received a letter from Mrs. Ava Paquette, a representative of the Scientology law firm Moxon and Kobrin.
Acting “on behalf of the L. Ron Hubbard Library, CSI [Church of Scientology International] and BPI [Bridge Publications International]”, Mrs. Paquette accused Friends of LRH of infringing upon Church copyrights.
She demanded the site be taken down immediately. She also requested that the service provider “preserve any and all documents pertaining to this matter and this customer, including, but not limited to logs, data entry sheets, applications — electronic or otherwise — registration forms, billings statements or invoices, computer print-outs, disks, hard drives, etc.”
Having no other host or service provider at the time, Friends of LRH had no way to continue to make our site available. We also obtained legal counsel to research the merits of the Church’s allegations.
After a thorough review of similar claims brought by the Church against other sites, and the various court rulings on these claims over the years, our attorneys determined that Friends of LRH, operating as an educational, not-for-profit website (and clearly identified as such), was well within its rights to post the LRH quotations, statistics, and other materials in question.
We then consulted a second law firm for verification. This firm concurred with the first that our position is strong and would likely be upheld in court.
Around the same time, Friends of LRH was fortunate enough to be contacted by a wealthy — and more importantly, courageous and honorable — Scientologist who had heard of our plight. Without prodding, he volunteered to single-handedly finance the protracted litigation we may find ourselves engaged in with the Church.
He also agreed to finance two other pro-LRH websites in their battles for freedom of speech on the Internet.
This dedicated individual is thanked beyond words. We know LRH would be proud.
Friends of LRH would like to thank our readers for their patience during this long sort-out. We welcome any suggestions or other feedback you may have.