The Church of Scientology has told a parody web site to change it’s domain name or else.

Some things just aren’t funny — at least to the Church of Scientology.

A New Zealand-based website that says it is devoted to “exposing Tom Cruise’s moronic behavior in his relentless crusade to promote the Church of Scientology” has been ordered by church lawyers to stop using the domain name www.scienTOMogy.info.

The reason: Web surfers might confuse it with the real thing.

Now, if there was ever a need to ridicule a Hollywood celebrity, it’s Tom Cruise and his belief in the bad science fiction novel known as Scientology. His recent pontifications on the subject literally beg to be mocked.

“You can’t use someone else’s trademarks to promote your own agenda,” Kobrin said, adding that organizations routinely defend the integrity of their trademarks and copyrights. “Changing one letter is the trick of the infringer to try to get around the law, but the law makes it very clear that you can’t do that.”

The scienTOMogy.info website has posted an exchange with Moxon & Kobrin lawyer Ava M. Paquette, which began in September, in which Paquette warned that the Church of Scientology owns the trademark to the word Scientology.

“The fact that you have changed one letter (‘m’ instead of ‘l’) does not protect you from trademark infringement,” Paquette wrote before pointing out that infringing on a trademark could lead to a $100,000 fine. Paquette then demanded that the domain name be transferred to the Church of Scientology.

The website responded that it was using the name legally.

If you go to the website, you’ll see a prominently displayed disclaimer telling anyone who is stupid enough to think that it is the real Scientology site that it isn’t. In fact, here is the disclaimer in full:

YOU MUST UNDERSTAND AND AGREE TO THE FOLLOWING BEFORE CONTINUING: Obviously this website has ABSOLUTELY NO connection whatsoever with the Church of Scientology, its affiliated organizations or, needless-to-say, Tom Cruise. It is designed for commentary and criticism within the limits of Free Speech. All content should be treated as opinion and all trademarks/copyrighted material herein are owned by their respective trademark owners. The Scientology site is here. Thank you. You may continue…

Now, if after reading that you still think that the site is trying to represent itself as the official Scientology website, you probably need more help than I can give you.

Now, from looking at the site it is more than obvious that whomever created the site isn’t too fond of Scientology or Tom Cruise, but the main emphasis seems to be Cruise. Whatever you think of Scientology, it isn’t doing itself any favors by using these strong arm tactics. Unfortunately, the Church of Scientology has been using these tactics for years:

The letter isn’t the first time Scientology lawyers have claimed that websites had violated its trademark. San Francisco anti-Scientology activist Kristi Wachter received a similar letter from Kobrin four years ago after she registered the domain name www.truthaboutscientology.com.

Wachter said Tuesday that, after an exchange of letters, the Scientology lawyers appeared to drop the issue. But a few weeks ago, she said, her Web host was forced to temporarily remove more than 600 pages from her site after Scientology lawyers accused her of copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Act. When no formal legal challenge was filed after four weeks, the pages were restored.

“I decided not to spend any further time on it because I decided she was just trying to intimidate me, or distract me,” Wachter said.

If you think about it, Scientology is the perfect religion for those who make their living pretending to be someone else. The entire “religion” is based upon the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard’s ideas. Mr. Hubbard is also know for such quotes as these:

“Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion”

“The E-Meter sees all, knows all. It is never wrong.”

“Make money. Make more money. Make others produce as to make money…However you get them in or why, just do it.”

Make your own judgment about whether or not Scientology is a legitimate religion. There are plenty of sites out there on the Internet which will give you all sides of the story, good and bad.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 19th, 2005 at 3:28 pm by Nick, and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.