Scientology Lawyer Promises to Continue "Appropriate Action"

by Don Marti

We asked Scientology attorney Helena Kobrin if Google's new policy of making DMCA takedown letters public and the resulting boost to the Google standings of Scientology critic site Xenu.net would affect her firm's decision to send future takedown letters. Here is her answer:

Dear Mr. Marti,

I am somewhat surprised by your questions. I am an intellectual property attorney, and my job is to protect my clients' rights in their copyrighted works and their trademarks. When we learn of infringements to those rights, we take appropriate actions to protect them by writing to the infringer and, if a service provider is involved, to the service provider. We take follow-up actions as needed.

Frankly, this is the simplicity of what we do. It is the same thing that is done by all intellectual property attorneys in protecting their clients' rights. It has nothing to do with search engines or criticism. Will we stop doing our jobs because someone disagrees or puts our letters on the Internet? No more so than I would stop in going after someone who breached a contract or would fail to prosecute a murderer, a thief, or an embezzler if I were a prosecutor or would back off on stopping someone from dumping toxic waste if I were an environmental attorney merely because someone criticized my actions.

Sincerely,Helena Kobrin

Don Marti is technical editor of Linux Journal.

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