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Recovery from Mormonism (RfM) discussion forum.
If there is a little chart about why people leave the church that was only meant for internal church uses,is it illegal at all to post the document publicly online?The Mormon leaks host has been clearly threatened with legal action over copyright.
How can we prove what is legal here and whether is any validity to any unauthorized copyrigyt infringement of any document for internal church use that was leaked?
How can we prove what is legal here and whether is any validity to any unauthorized copyrigyt infringement of any document for internal church use that was leaked?
Copyright law is fairly simple.
Anytime *anyone* creates an "original work," they own the copyright. Period. The copyright doesn't have to be declared, registered, or anything else -- they own the copyright. If it was created as a "work product" by an employee of some company, the company owns the copyright.
Registering the copyright allows the copyright holder to recover more/different kinds of monetary damages if/when they sue any potential copyright violators, but it's not necessary in order to own a copyright. The copyright exists the moment something is created.
The issue here, though, is "fair use." "Fair use" of copyrighted material allows use of part or all of a copyrighted work for criticism, review, or in certain cases "derivative works." "Fair use" means the copyright holder can't sue someone if they've used part or all of a copyrighted work for the purposes above.
In the mormon leaks instance, their display of the PP presentation may be "fair use," it may not. I'll leave that to the lawyers to decide. Their case would be stronger for "fair use" if they had specifically reviewed/criticized the work rather than JUST post it (perhaps they did and I'm not aware of it...). In any case, the financial damages to the church for the infringement (if it is infringement) is practically nil, and if this specific work wasn't registered, the church couldn't get any additional damages from the infringer...so the bottom line is that the "worst" that can probably happen is having to pay an attorney to deal with the church's demand to remove it. Which can be expensive, no doubt...but little else in financial damages should be recoverable.
Anytime *anyone* creates an "original work," they own the copyright. Period. The copyright doesn't have to be declared, registered, or anything else -- they own the copyright. If it was created as a "work product" by an employee of some company, the company owns the copyright.
Registering the copyright allows the copyright holder to recover more/different kinds of monetary damages if/when they sue any potential copyright violators, but it's not necessary in order to own a copyright. The copyright exists the moment something is created.
The issue here, though, is "fair use." "Fair use" of copyrighted material allows use of part or all of a copyrighted work for criticism, review, or in certain cases "derivative works." "Fair use" means the copyright holder can't sue someone if they've used part or all of a copyrighted work for the purposes above.
In the mormon leaks instance, their display of the PP presentation may be "fair use," it may not. I'll leave that to the lawyers to decide. Their case would be stronger for "fair use" if they had specifically reviewed/criticized the work rather than JUST post it (perhaps they did and I'm not aware of it...). In any case, the financial damages to the church for the infringement (if it is infringement) is practically nil, and if this specific work wasn't registered, the church couldn't get any additional damages from the infringer...so the bottom line is that the "worst" that can probably happen is having to pay an attorney to deal with the church's demand to remove it. Which can be expensive, no doubt...but little else in financial damages should be recoverable.
My understanding is that if TSCC wants to pursue damages for an individual posting that, they'd have to show some sort of financial damages. In the case of a photo they could claim lost income from royalties, but there is no value in this sort of Powerpoint. They aren't a for-profit company (supposedly) so what have they lost? Its not even an issue for libel since its their own product. So its mainly the headache of responding to their threats; MormonLeaks decided their threats were empty yapping of a chihuahua.
Declaring 'fair use' won't stop a court date. Copyright laws in this country are rather interesting in that the alleged violator is generally deemed guilty until proven innocent. Cult's got money on its side.
Timothy
Timothy
The legal dept of LDS Inc used to really take Sandra and Jerald Tanner to task, over their publications.
It didn't stop the truth from getting out, fortunately. :)
It may have slowed things down somewhat. But considering how much they've helped in publications regarding church history, they've more than made up for that!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2017 03:15PM by Amyjo.
It didn't stop the truth from getting out, fortunately. :)
It may have slowed things down somewhat. But considering how much they've helped in publications regarding church history, they've more than made up for that!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2017 03:15PM by Amyjo.