The Dutch Attorney-General for the Supreme Court, Verkade, has once more righted internetprovider XS4ALL and author Karin Spaink in their decade long defence against legal attacks by Scientology. In his opinion for the Supreme Court Verkade argues "Although copyright resides under Article 1 of the First Protocol of ECHR and can therefore be regarded as a human right, this does not exempt copyright from being balanced against the right to freedom of information." In this specific case, in which Spaink quoted several critical paragraphs from a statement made in court by a former member of the organisation, freedom of speech clearly prevails above the claimed copyrights of Scientology.

The case started in September 1995, when XS4ALL servers were formally seized by a bailiff, assisted by a representative from Scientology, because a customer hosted the Fishman Affidavit. This court-testimony contained many quotes from documents that the church wanted to keep secret. Spaink first put the entire document on her XS4ALL homepage. When Scientology threatened to sue her and XS4ALL, many other people put mirrors on their homepages. Spaink then limited the information on her homepage to relevant quotes from the document. 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 later E-Commerce Directive was clearly influenced by this verdict.

The Supreme Court will rule on 8 July 2005.

Press release XS4ALL (in English, 18.03.2005)
http://www.xs4all.nl/nieuws/bericht.php?id=625&taal=en