8 years after Scientology started legal procedures against Dutch author Karin Spaink, internet provider XS4ALL and 20 other defendants, the Appellate Court of The Hague rejected all claims and ruled that freedom of expression should prevail upon copyrights.

According to the ruling "The (...) texts show that, in their doctrine and their organisation, Scientology et al. do not hesitate to overthrow democratic values. From the texts it also follows that one of the objects of the non-disclosure of the contents of OT II and OT III ... is to thwart discussion of the doctrine and practices of the Scientology organisation."

In September 1995, XS4ALL servers were formally seized by a bailiff, assisted by a representative from Scientology, for hosting the Fishman Affidavit on the homepage of a customer. This affidavit, a court-testimony from a former member, contained many quotes from documents that the church wanted to keep secret. Another customer of XS4ALL, Karin Spaink, put the document on her homepage. When Scientology threatened to sue her and XS4ALL, many other people put mirrors on their homepages. In interim injunction proceedings in 1996, the court of The Hague declared all Scientology's claims against XS4ALL, Karin Spaink and the other defendants to be unfounded. Scientology appealed, but lost once again in 1999. However, this 1999 decision included a separate declaratory judgement stating that providers could be held liable if three conditions are met; first, the provider is notified; secondly, the notification leaves no reasonable doubt about the infringement of (copy-)rights; and thirdly, the provider does not take down or block the material. The E-Commerce Directive was influenced by this verdict.

In 1999, court also ruled that providers might be held liable for hyperlinks and have to hand over the names and addresses of their customers under certain circumstances. The Appellate Court of The Hague quashed this ruling completely, but did not offer any further help on liability of providers. The E-Commerce Directive, with its vague liability-exemptions for hosting, is now leading once more, leaving it up to providers to decide about the freedom of expression on-line.

The Hague ruling Scientology vs. Spaink, XS4ALL a/o (04.03.2003)
http://www.xs4all.nl/uk/news/overview/scientology.pdf

Website Karin Spaink
http://www.spaink.net/fishman/home.html