The Fellowship is a social and fraternal organization dedicated to the dissemination of The Urantia Book and its teachings, founded in 1955. Under our previous name, Urantia Brotherhood, we enjoyed a long and close relationship with Urantia Foundation, serving as the exclusive sales and marketing agent for The Urantia Book. In 1989, after an internal schism in Urantia Foundation that left a very autocratic person in control, relationships with the Brotherhood were unilaterally terminated by the Foundation, forcing us to change our name, relocate our offices, and reevaluate our institutional function and mission. We changed our name to “The Fellowship” and used “The Fellowship for Readers of The Urantia Book” as our business name.
(A complete collection of internal correspondence related to Urantia Foundation's eviction of the Urantia Brotherhood in 1989 from the offices at 533 Diversey Parkway may be found at http://urantiabook.org/archive/history/separation_letters_index.htm -- A more detailed history of the readership may be found at http://urantiabook.org/archive/history/h_timlin_index.htm)
In 1991 Urantia Foundation instituted legal proceedings for copyright infringement against an indigent book believer in Arizona (Maaherra), who had given away computer disks containing a full-text search engine for the book. In 1993 Urantia Foundation established a new membership organization, “International Urantia Association,” to compete with The Fellowship. In 1995 the Federal District Court in Phoenix issued a summary judgment invalidating Urantia Foundation’s copyright in The Urantia Book. Also, Urantia Foundation hired a full-time corporate public relations professional (Ms. Tonia Baney) and placed their administrative affairs in her hands.
February 10, 1995 -- Urantia Foundation's claim to a copyright in The Urantia Book ruled invalid in Summary Judgment by United States Senior District Judge in Arizona -- copyright placed in public domain. Urantia Foundation files appeal. [See the summary of this case as published in the Federal Supplement Law Book.]
July 1996 -- The Fellowship
publishes 15,000 copies of The Urantia Book through its newly established publishing
corporation, Uversa Press.
[See
promotional piece developed by Mo Siegel to send to book distributors]
[See second side of promotional
piece]
August 1996 -- Urantia Foundation takes legal action against the Fellowship as well as Jesusonian Foundation (Jesusonian acts as a distribution agent for the Fellowship's published edition of The Urantia Book) for listing 1-888-URANTIA as an information phone number on literature distributed at the American Booksellers Association convention in Chicago. [See: Urantia Foundation's complaint]
August 1996 -- Urantia Foundation sues Eric Schaveland and initiates another action against Kristen Maaherra.
January 11, 1997 -- Urantia Foundation Trustees and members of the Fellowship Executive Committee meet to discuss matters of mutual concern for the first time since 1990.
Following the administrative separation of the former Urantia Brotherhood from Urantia Foundation, there was no direct contact between the organizations for more than six years until October 26, 1996, when Trustee George DuPont indicated in a conversation with Steve Dreier that the Trustees would like to meet with a few members of the Executive Committee of the Fellowship. Subsequently a meeting was held at 533 Diversey Parkway on January 11, 1997. The meeting was reported by both groups to have been "cordial" and each organization expressed a desire to have further meetings.
Urantia Foundation report of January 1997 meeting
Fellowship report of January 1997 meetingFor additional information on organizational communications preceeding and immediately following the 1989 separation, see:
Chronology of Invitations to the Trustees of Urantia Foundation to Dialog
June 10, 1997 -- Ninth District Court of Appeals returns copyright to Urantia Foundation in the Maaherra case. Case is remanded to lower court for consideration of damages. [See the 9th District Court of Appeals Opinion]
July 1997 -- Janet Farrington Graham elected President of the Fellowship on a platform based on seeking a cooperative relationship with Urantia Foundation. Janet immediately contacted the President of Urantia Foundation, Patricia Mundelius, and the two of them began plans for a meeting at which the Trustees and representatives from the Fellowship Executive Committee could negotiate a resolution to matters left outstanding as a result of the copyright matter.
September 17 -- Urantia Foundation drops legal complaints against the Fellowship and Jesusonian Foundation in telephone number matter after discovering there are insufficient grounds for prosecution.
October 3, 1997 -- Foundation and Fellowship officers meet. This meeting was held to negotiate business matters resulting from the Ninth Circuit restoration of the copyright to Urantia Foundation and the subsequent inability of the Fellowship to continue distribution of the Uversa Press edition of The Urantia Book. It was hoped that this meeting would set a precedent as a negotiating model which could be used to further reduce inter-organizational tensions, provide a basis for problem resolution and perhaps even pave the way for inter-organizational cooperation on dissemination projects of mutual interest. While all parties agreed to continue developing this mechanism at the October 3 meeting, the trustees have since refused to meet with the Fellowship to discuss current issues in spite of repeated formal requests from the Executive Committee and the Fellowship's President over a period of many months. This includes unanswered personal phone calls made by Fellowship President Janet Farrington Graham to Urantia Foundation President, Richard Keeler.
October 10, 1997 -- Fellowship and Foundation issue joint statement regarding cooperative efforts -- This in relation to the settlement meeting following return of the copyright to Urantia Foundation by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. This document contains the terms of the agreement.
October 15, 1997 -- A New Framework for Cooperation by Dan Massey -- This document contains a comprehensive licensing proposal presented by the Fellowship to the trustees which would assure their retention of copyrights while allowing the Fellowship to engage in licensed reproduction of the text in a variety of forms. The Fellowship never received a response from the trustees on this proposal.
October 17, 1997 -- Urantia Foundation issues subpoenas for financial records of independent readership organizations.
October 28, 1997 -- Urantia Foundation trustee Patricia Mundelius informs Fellowship president Janet Farrington that the subpoenas are being withdrawn due to community outrage over the incident.
December, 1997 -- Two trustees of Urantia Foundation resign.
December, 1997 -- Two members of Urantia Foundation's office staff resign.
December -- Urantia Foundation, Eric Schaveland and Kristen Maahera reach agreement to drop lawsuit in Colorado case.
January, 1998 -- Mo Siegel and Gard
Jameson appointed Trustees of Urantia Foundation, ostensibly
to help reconstruct Urantia Foundation and restore unity to the movement. A public
relations tour was put together by the trustees to visit local reader groups,
respond to questions, and to present their new "vision" of how the readership
ought to support the trustee's program.
[See
Fellowship statement regarding appointment of Gard and Mo as Trustees]
[See
Fellowship President's letter regarding current events]
April 17 -- Joint meeting between IUA Coordinating Committee and Fellowship Executive Committee held in Chicago for purposes of exploring areas in which cooperation between the two organizations might be fostered. [See Fellowship President's Letter regarding this meeting]
July 1998 -- The General Council of The Fellowship accepted a plan for enhancing its organizational image that had been developed by an ad hoc PR committee. Among the recommendations adopted at this time, The Fellowship began doing its business under the name “The Urantia Book Fellowship.” At this time the General Council also discussed a variety of text and trademark permission and licensing arrangements being presented by the Foundation, but did not formally act on them. Rather, the Council provided guidance to the Executive Committee on evolving the relationship with the Foundation. Under The Fellowship Constitution, the power to act on such licenses rests with the Executive Committee.
August 7-10, 1998 -- First IUA conference outside the USA held in Helsinki, Finland [Read Trustee Georges Dupont's speech] [Read Trustee Gard Jameson's speech] -- Note: These speeches provide important background information because they clearly lay out the Foundation's beliefs about their divine mandates to control the revelation and thus provide important insight into the metaphysical assumptions upon which all Foundation legal and social actions are based. For additional background on Urantia Foundation position, [See letter from Urantia Foundation outlining reasons why Urantia Foundation cannot let anyone else develop dissemination programs]
April 24, 1998 -- Joint Fellowship/IUA meeting held in Chicago
September 8, 1998 -- Foundation Announces New Copyright, Internet and Trademark Usage Policies -- Contains a full copy of policies including their new website license. The operation of The Fellowship’s web site had been in compliance with the provisions of this new Internet license since its inception.
January 1999 -- Announcement of formation of the Millennium Initiative Committee [See report of the committee]
January 16, 1999 -- Urantia Foundation sends website license agreement to the Fellowship for approval
February 9, 1999 -- Fellowship sends letter accepting Foundation's website license agreement
March 14, 1999 -- Millennium Initiative report of first meeting
Spring 1999 -- Urantian News article about new Foundation website license
June 11, 1999 -- Second meeting of the Millennium Initiative Committee
June 13, 1999 -- Recommendation statement from Millennium Initiative Committee
June 13, 1999 -- Fellowship Webmaster receives request from French IUA Webmaster for help in getting the French text on the web.
July 1999 -- Part IV published in a separate volume by Michael Foundation, Inc. Michael Foundation, a private foundation sponsored by Mr. Harry McMullan of Oklahoma City, who is Treasurer of The Fellowship, published “Jesus: A New Revelation,” containing the text of approximately one-third of The Urantia Book, being a life of Jesus, greatly expanded from the traditional Gospel accounts. Ms. Baney immediately issued a public statement for the Foundation condemning this publication and severely criticizing the Fellowship for its participation in the effort. As a matter of record, however, this project had initially been jointly proposed to The Fellowship in August 1996 by Mr. Siegel, Mr. Jameson, and Mr. McMullan, while the copyright was still in abeyance. The Fellowship had rejected the project at that time, when it could have been done with relative impunity.
After restoration of the copyright, Mr. McMullan announced his intent to proceed with the project anyway. At the time of our October 1997 settlement discussions with the Foundation, all parties (Foundation and Fellowship) were aware of Mr. McMullan’s plans. The Fellowship representatives at that settlement conference had received a commitment from Mr. McMullan to abandon the project if the Foundation would license The Fellowship to produce and distribute its own edition of The Urantia Book. As part of this proposed arrangement, The Fellowship offered to enter into a licensing agreement with The Foundation respecting their various registered trade and service marks, which had been a continuing source of conflict between the organizations. The Foundation rejected this proposal and Mr. McMullan proceeded with his plans.
Subsequently Mr. McMullan invited The Fellowship to adopt his project as its own, but The Fellowship voted not to accept his offer. After printing was complete Mr. McMullan requested the use of The Fellowship's mailing list for distribution of free books. The Fellowship rejected this request as well.
July 4, 1999 -- French edition of The Urantia Book published on Fellowship website in response to requests from IUA leadership. [See email of original request]
July 6, 1999 -- Fellowship President responds to Millennium Initiative recommendation
August 3, 1999 -- Letter from Jacques Dupont -- The Fellowship received a letter from Mr. Jacques DuPont, father of Mr. Georges DuPont (a Trustee of Urantia Foundation), and one of the translators of the Foundation’s current “official” French translation of The Urantia Book. In this letter Mr. DuPont asserted a “moral right” under international copyright law to demand the removal of the French translation from The Fellowship web site. Since “moral right” is not recognized under U.S. copyright law, and since our license for presentation of the French translation had been given by the Trustees of Urantia Foundation, we advised Mr. DuPont that Urantia Foundation had issued the license under which the translation was presented.
About this time, The Fellowship became aware of the fact that Berne Convention protection for The Urantia Book will end in January 2005. This matter later became public knowledge throughout the readership in March 2000. We believe that the Foundation had been aware of this reality for a number of years, but had misrepresented it to avoid compromising their fund raising efforts. Some of the Foundation’s more extreme recent actions, such as their claim of a trademark in the title of The Urantia Book, may be associated with this developing situation.
August 7, 1999 -- Foundation support resolution introduced at IC99 Society Conclave by Paul Snider
[Read IUA administrator Cathy Jones' report]
[Read Society representative Robert Fontana's report]
[Read conclave co-chair Barbara Newsom's report to the General Council]
August 18, 1999 -- Janet reports overwhelming Council support for Millennium Initiative recommendation -- She indicates her full willingness and the willingness of the organization to continue this work. There was never any further significant response from the IUA.
(Internal correspondence from leading Foundation supporters made clear the fact that what they viewed as "unity" was conditional upon the Fellowship's acceptance of the Trustee's program of copyright and trademark protection. One leader said, "Copyright and mark preservation are the tickets to unity." Another commented, "The Fellowship has to pledge itself to a policy of law-abiding and copyright preservation. The Fellowship has to dissociate itself from the illegal printing of Part IV as a separate volume. The Fellowship has to remove Mr. Harry McMullan from its treasurership, from the General Council, and from the Executive Committee. Unless The Fellowship is ready to give these pledges I see no chance for any working alliance between the IUA and The Fellowship. I say, no pledge -- no alliance.")
August 20, 1999 -- Foundation statement on unauthorized translations -- Urantia Foundation issues call to the international readership for a letter writing campaign against the Fellowship regarding Michael Foundation's publication of Part IV. This was in spite of the fact that the Fellowship had previously voted not to support the separate publication of Part IV.
In December 1999, Urantia Foundation brought suit for copyright infringement against Michael Foundation in Phoenix. The Fellowship was not a party to this suit. This suit initially proceeded through a venue phase, since neither Michael Foundation nor Urantia Foundation have significant business interests or presence in the 9th circuit and the Foundation had chosen this inappropriate venue in an attempt to obtain leverage against Michael Foundation from the Maaherra decision. The Foundation’s suit was dismissed in Phoenix for lack of jurisdiction. In Oklahoma City, Michael Foundation asked for declaratory judgment on the Foundation’s claims from the Phoenix case, and litigation seems likely to continue for many years before this matter is resolved.
Ms. Baney’s public attacks on The Fellowship, on behalf of the Foundation and through various proxies, (which included attempts to mobilize an international letter-writing campaign against The Fellowship) were accompanied by a series of letters from her and, later, Mr. Georges DuPont, demanding various changes in The Fellowship’s web site. During this time we received intelligence from various sources that the Foundation was preparing a lawsuit against The Fellowship, though the likely substance of this suit remained unclear. We recognized one instance in which we had mistakenly assumed a work long out-of-print was not under copyright and removed the material in response to her demand. We replied to the other demands, which essentially called for unilateral rewriting by the Trustees of the web site license, by requesting a meeting with the full Board of Trustees of the Foundation. Such a meeting had been provided for in our settlement discussions of October 1997, and we felt it would likely defuse any attempt to launch a suit. The Trustees agreed to hold such a meeting, but did not respond to our subsequent requests to finalize its time and location.
At this point, Mr. DuPont began to demand that representatives of the Executive Committee meet with a committee of his choosing (not including any other Trustees) to discuss “copyright and trademark infringements” primarily associated with The Fellowship web site. In responding to Mr. DuPont, we indicated our willingness to receive his views and to work informally towards a resolution if (and only if) the Trustees would meet with us to work on the larger issues. The Trustees were kept fully informed of this requirement for the proposed meeting and raised no objection at any step in the process of arriving at the meeting.
September 6, 1999 -- Fellowship response to Jacques Dupont letter of 8/3/99 -- Fellowship indicates that it is displaying the French text on its website per provisions of its license granted by Urantia Foundation.
October 6, 1999 -- Portuguese translator receives threatening letter from Urantia Foundation [See copy of letter]
October 12, 1999 -- Letter of Complaint from Trustees -- Urantia Foundation complains about "unauthorized translations" appearing on the Fellowship website, Dr. Sadler's study aids in which Urantia Foundation claims a copyright, hyperlink to Michael Foundation website, use of "The Urantia Book Fellowship" as constituting a trademark infringement. -- Suggest Friday, October 15, as a date to meet in Chicago to discuss these matters. (Date of letter is October 12).
October 28, 1999 -- Letter from Janet to Trustees -- Response to Trustees' letter of October 12; requests meeting with Trustees per their agreement of October 1997.
November 30, 1999 -- Urantia Foundation sues Michael Foundation, Inc. over publication of Part IV
December 1, 1999 -- Dan Massey letter to Millennium Initiative Committee -- He laments the pre-conditions set by Foundation supporters for a cooperative relationship between organizations -- urges acceptance of a workable basis upon which organizational interactions might evolve in a productive manner.
December, 1999 -- Urantia Foundation publishes "Setting the Record Straight"; an attempt to respond to a few of the reader criticisms leveled at Urantia Foundation.
December 15, 1999 -- Letter from Trustees -- Trustees request that the Fellowship remove the French and Spanish translations from the website as a "sign of good faith" prior to any meeting.
January 1, 2000 -- Fellowship President Janet Farrington sends millennial greeting to the readership.
January 10, 2000 -- Response to Richard Keeler -- Janet requests clarification from Richard Keeler regarding Foundation requests related to translations -- she points out that the license agreement with the Foundation allows the Fellowship to display translations. Janet again requests a date for meeting with the trustees.
January 14 -- Rumors begin circulating that Martin Myers has filed a complaint with the Illinois State Attorney General's office seeking removal of all 5 trustees of Urantia Foundation.
January 26, 2000 -- Certified letter received from Georges Dupont -- regarding website infringements; these are based on restrictions appearing in the Foundation's newly revised license. This was the first we had heard about any "revised" website license. At this point we checked the Foundation website and found that their "website license" had indeed been revised (see next entry below). Georges wants the Executive Committee to meet at his office in Paris to discuss the infringements the weekend of February 19 or 26, with himself and several other unspecified individuals of his choosing. He encloses a copy of their new website license policy and points out that it does not allow the publication of translations.
January 26, 2000 -- Revised website license published on Foundation website -- The license was unilaterally revised by Urantia Foundation with no notice to licensees.
Early February -- Website license removed from Urantia Foundation website and replaced with notice that it is under review.
February 17, 2000 -- Letter from Janet to Georges -- she is willing to meet in Paris if it will involve all five trustees. She indicates that the Fellowship believes the terms of the original license are binding on both parties. She makes the point in several places that we desire a meeting with the trustees to review this matter.
February 17, 2000 -- Letter from Georges Dupont -- letters crossed in the mail -- Georges wrote this without seeing the previous day's letter sent by the Fellowship. He indicates that two new alleged infringements are being added to his list. He suggests meeting with his team in mid-March in Chicago.
February 21, 2000 -- Another letter from Georges Dupont -- He says that he has been very explicit about meeting only with his selected team and not the trustees. He reiterates his demand that the Fellowship remove the French and Spanish translations from the website as a sign of good faith prior to the meeting.
February 24, 2000 -- Letter from Janet to Richard Keeler -- She appeals to Richard Keeler to intervene in a deteriorating situation in which Georges Dupont appears to be unilaterally pre-empting any meeting between the Executive Committee and the Trustees. Twice the Fellowship President appealed to the President of Urantia Foundation for assistance; she lists a number of items which are of concern to the Fellowship which should also be included in a meeting. She again asks for a meeting with the Trustees per their previous agreement to meet anytime there were issues needing attention. There was no reply except another letter from Georges Dupont.
March 5, 2000 -- Letter from Georges Dupont -- Defends himself against claims that he is not negotiating in good faith made in Janet's letter to Richard Keeler of February 24, 2000. He tells Janet that any matters related to copyright or trademark issues should be directed to him.
March 8, 2000 -- Letter from Steve Dreier to Georges Dupont -- Steve notifies him that he will be taking over the correspondence on this matter while Janet is on vacation.
March 13, 2000 -- Letter from Steve to Georges -- comments to Georges that we will meet with his committee but with the understanding that the Trustees will agree to meet with us at another time to review substantive issues.
April 7, 2000 -- Urantia Foundation revokes policy of offering website licenses -- Urantia Foundation indicates they want to have the only text on the Internet; anyone with a website wanting to use the text can provide links to the text on the Foundation's website.
April 8, 2000 -- Eventually, on 8-9 April 2000, four members of The Fellowship’s Executive Committee, acting exclusively as individuals and not in any way as representatives of The Fellowship, met with Mr. DuPont (a Trustee), Ms. Baney (an employee of the Foundation), Mr. Seppo Kanerva (a translator in the employ of the Foundation), and Ms. Nancy Shaeffer (a recent student of The Urantia Book and a California attorney specializing in transactions). Mr. DuPont also invited Mr. Steve Hill, an attorney from Atlanta, who has no personal interest in The Urantia Book, but who had drafted and approved the web site license.
At the meeting, Mr. Hill announced that the Foundation wished to conduct the meeting as a confidential settlement meeting under Federal rules of procedure. We protested that, as we were not represented by counsel, we could not possibly enter into such an agreement. After further discussion, we agreed that we would not publicize or discuss specific information or admissions provided by the Foundation representatives, except that we would share all the information from the meeting, as needed and appropriate, with any official of the Fellowship, including any member of the General Council or TDA, any Fellowship employee, and any of our attorneys. We understand that any adverse admissions they may have made could not be introduced in evidence against them in subsequent litigation (and vice-versa).
By way of clarification, the Foundation presented each of us with a notebook of some 700 pages of exhibits addressing some 20 types of copyright and trademark infringement. When we challenged that this material (all taken from our own publications and web site) could not possibly be considered confidential, they pointed to two pages summarizing the exhibits as the substance to which the confidentiality agreement applied. Mr. Hill asserted that this material was confidential because it constituted an outline of planned litigation.
For the next day and a half we reviewed the various points in the Foundation’s “brief.” They repeatedly made the claim that the material showed a pattern of behavior intended to create confusion between our organization and theirs in the public eye and to subvert their commercial, trade, and copy rights. Since much of their material was rather frivolous, we challenged them about wanting to create a pretext for litigation to dissolve the license. On this subject they seemed ambivalent. I would say that the Foundation representatives would have been happy to pursue this line, but Mr. Hill insisted that they simply wanted to “clarify” our mutual obligations under the license so that it would cease to be “sand in the saddle.”
Since it appeared that this list of complaints had been assembled with zero tolerance for any variation from a standard that had never been defined or discussed, in the latter part of the meeting we pointed out (as individuals and not as representatives of The Fellowship) a number of similar instances in which the Foundation had and was continuing to abuse established commercial rights of The Fellowship, while indicating that we did not consider focusing a lot of energy on such matters to be appropriate for organizations with a primarily religious and spiritual purpose.
It did not appear that the Foundation representatives were able to apply their own standards to their own behavior to recognize the inappropriateness of these Foundation activities. In at least one area, the use of the term “Matthew” to designate their capital fund raising efforts, the Foundation has continued to publicly abuse a long-established commercial right of the Fellowship, even after being advised of the conflict in this meeting.
In an informal presentation after the “legal” part of the meeting, Mr. Steve Dreier, Vice President of The Fellowship, presented the results of his ongoing comparative study of the text of The Urantia Book in relation to the writings of Henry Wieman, a prominent theologian of the first half of the 20th century. Mr. Dreier’s presentation showed how one well-known paper in The Urantia Book had been systematically (and rather naively) plagiarized from a book-length work by Dr. Wieman. This research is one small part of a major ongoing project, which has established “sources” for approximately 50% of the text of the book in published works of some 90 human authors.
We carefully reviewed each point raised by the Foundation in their complaint. In some cases, The Fellowship had clearly failed to provide correct copyright notices as required by our license. In other cases, we could identify specific errors the Foundation staff made in compiling their “exhibits.” We had no problem in responding to the Foundation’s concerns in these two areas.
April 8, 2000 -- Webmaster's technical review of Foundation website issues
May 8, 2000 -- Fellowship's official response to Foundation's complaints See also Executive Summary of Issues This report included an acknowledgement that, in some areas, the Fellowship had not acknowledged the Foundation’s copyright in every instance where it might have been intended, and indicated our clear intent to correct these omissions. Our report also indicated our willingness to make certain changes in the web site contents, for which the Foundation had failed to provide any rational or legal justification, simply in the spirit of a good faith attempt at conflict resolution. All changes were made as reported.
May 10 -- Federal court dismisses Urantia Foundation's
suit against Michael Foundation for lack of proper venue.
May 11, 2000 -- Executive Summary of Foundation Meeting
June 9, 2000 -- Nancy Shaeffer responds for Foundation to Fellowship's document of May 8, 2000
In early June, we received from the Foundation’s team an extensive set of comments on our May report. The tone of these comments was, in many areas, intransigent, and willfully ignorant, as indicated by an unwillingness to accept neutral technical information that could inform and upgrade their thinking. This communication did, however, focus the Foundation’s remaining significant issues on four topics, none of which can be adequately addressed without input and guidance from the General Council. These four areas of concern were:
1. The meaning of “inviolate” text.
2. Presentation of translations of the text.
3. Use of the word “urantia” in Internet technology.
4. The organizational name “The Urantia Book Fellowship”.
Here is a partial list of changes made to the website as of June 15, 2000 in an effort to ease concerns of Urantia Foundation:
1.) Animated word "Urantia" removed from
website (even though it contained a disclaimer stating that Urantia is the name
of our planet.)
2.) Increased the number of locations containing statements
that we are unaffiliated with Urantia Foundation.
3.) Multiple translations
of the Spanish Foreword which are provided for comparative study purposes have
been removed from the El Libro table of contents and placed in a section containing
study aids.
4.) All concentric circles symbols contain a note that they represent
the Paradise Trinity except for those appearing on reproductions of early historical
correspondence which were created prior to Urantia Foundation's registration of
the symbol as a trademark.
5.) All pages related to our Urantianet email newsletter
contain disclaimers stating that we are unaffiliated with Urantia Foundation.
6.) The page which contains information on buying The Urantia Book has had a link
to Urantia Foundation's website added.
7.) The title of the section containing
"The Illustrated Urantia Book" has been changed to "Illustrations
for The Urantia Book" and another copyright notice has been added.
8.)
Partial translations have been moved to a new section of the website which requires
registration of users and in the process of registration the user is asked to
acknowledge the fact that copyrights exist in the material and that it is for
educational purposes only. The rest of the website is currently being modified
to support this change.
9.) All of the Dr. Sadler study aids, in which Urantia
Foundation claims a copyright, have been removed from the website per their demand.
10.) The Home Page and key index pages all contain disclaimers that we are unaffiliated
with Urantia Foundation.
11.) The copy of the Foundation's Translator's Contract
has been removed from public view.
12.) Table of Contents pages for The Urantia
Book on the website have been modified so that they don't contain the same sequence
of Paper references as 'Jesus--A New Revelation.'
13.) Since Michael Foundation
is no longer distributing 'Jesus--A New Revelation' the hyperlink to its website
has been changed to indicate information related to the 'Index to The Urantia
Book' which is also published by Michael Foundation, Inc.
14.) Copyright
notices have been updated in all downloadable compressed files containing the
text of The Urantia Book.
July 20, 2000 -- Executive summary of current situation, Response from Fellowship to Trustees
July 2000 -- Outgoing President Janet Farrington Graham's letter to the readership regarding current matters
Summer, 2000 Issue of The Mighty Messenger -- Article by L. Dan Massey: Thirteen New Trademarks Sought by Urantia Foundation
August 1, 2000 -- Another letter of complaint from Georges DuPont regarding alleged trademark infringements on the Fellowship website.
August 2, 2000 -- Response to Georges DuPont
September 21, 2000 -- Fellowship settlement offer to Urantia Foundation (Urantia Foundation never responded to the specific offers made herein).
October 2, 2000 -- Urantia Foundation tries to stop reader from using the word "Urantia" in an email address. (The Foundation later apologized after being informed that it was perfectly legal for a reader to use the word "Urantia" in this way.)
November 13, 2000 -- Urantia Foundation response to Fellowship letter of September 21, 2000 -- The Trustees of Urantia Foundation continued to refuse to meet with The Fellowship to discuss matters. Urantia Foundation, through their attorney, proposed that neither party initiate legal action against the other prior to a meeting such as the one the Foundation was suggesting. The Fellowship communicated a willingness to work within this framework. However, at the end of the year Urantia Foundation unilaterally contacted the Internet search index run by RealNames Corporation and had the Fellowship's use of the keywords "Urantia" and "The Urantia Book" discontinued. It was discovered that the Foundation's lawyers did not even know about this as it had apparently been done by someone at the Foundation's office without prior knowledge of their legal staff.
November 20, 2000 -- Fellowship response
In December the attorney's from The Foundation and The Fellowship met privately to work out a framework for a settlement. The Fellowship attorney also discussed the RealNames matter with the Foundation attorney and it was agreed to put this matter on hold. However, when the Foundation's attorney presented the framework for resolution to the Trustees the first week in January, he was cut short in his presentation. Subsequently he communicated to The Fellowship a set of "proposals" which essentially returned to the Foundation's original claims and demanded capitulation on all points. The Foundation's attorney also advised that the Trustees would not agree to any hold in processing their complaint with RealNames Corporation and would continue in.
January 20, 2001 -- Urantia Foundation continued to press for their proposed meeting. It seemed evident that the Foundation was anxious to get a legally binding agreement with The Fellowship on the books prior to the impending Michael Foundation trial so that they would still have a means of exercising some control over The Fellowship should they lose their trademarks and copyright. Their letter indicated that they were still not willing to agree to a meeting between the Trustees and Executive Committee members. -- Letter from Urantia Foundation regarding upcoming negotiation meeting.
February 7, 2001 -- Fellowship response, including listing of changes made to website in attempt to address the Foundation's concerns.
March 16 - 17, 2001 -- Negotiations held in Chicago between representatives of the Fellowship and Urantia Foundation in an attempt to settle problems related to Urantia Foundation's efforts to control content on the Fellowship website. The Fellowship's Executive Committe had been attempting for the past 2 years to arrange a meeting with the trustees of Urantia Foundation to discuss alleged copyright and trademark violations on the Fellowship's website. The trustees continually refused to meet with the Executive Committee resulting in these attorney-mediated "negotiations". See "Memorandum of Agreement" signed by the two parties.
May 25, 2001 -- Urantia Foundation forces shutdown of French-Canadian reader's website.
May 28,
2001 -- Urantia Foundation forces shutdown of Brazilian reader's website
[See Foundation's letter]
[See
Mindy William's correspondence with Brazilian webmaster]
June 3, 2001 -- Washington State Urantia Association (IUA) Licensed
June 4, 2001 -- The word "Urantia" is blocked for use as an AOL chatroom keyword after serving as a reader identifier for 4 years.(Later restored in response to reader pressure.)
June
20, 2001 -- June 20 -- Oklahoma City Federal Court places the U.S. copyright to
The Urantia Book in the public domain.
[See
background information on this matter]
[See
Fellowship announcement]
June 26, 2001 -- Fellowship President Avi Dogim has private conversation with Foundation President Richard Keeler. Avi informed Richard that, based on the OKC court decision placing the UB in the public domain, The Fellowship was planning to restore the following functions to our website: 1. Make our version of the English text acessible through search engines without first encountering the UF text; 2. restore direct links to independent translations of the UB. Richard warned that this may not be legal since all of the appeals have not been exhausted.
June 29, 2001 -- Urantia Foundation flies key Latin American leaders to Chicago for "Translator's Conference"
July 6, 2001 -- Foundation formally responds to Avi's phone call of June 26. In part they sayd, "Thank you for your call, informing us that the Fellowship intends to display The Urantia Book on its website in any form that it chooses and in any language that it chooses. The Urantia Foundation believes that the Fellowship does not have the right to do this under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding, and we believe that the Fellowship's doing so would constitute an infringement of Urantia Foundation's international copyrights. Sincerely, The Trustees of Urantia Foundation Kwan Choi, Georges Dupont, Gard Jameson Richard Keeler, and Mo Siegel."
July 10, 2001 -- Urantia Foundation acquires unauthorized access to Guetza mailing list (Guetza is an independent reader organization in Mexico) and uses it to lobby Mexican readers for support of Trustee's agenda; publishes press release regarding the loss of the Michael Foundation case. [See Urantia Foundation's Community Announcement]
August 9-12, 2001 -- 250 readers attend The Fellowship's Summer Study Session at the University of California, Santa Cruz. General Council votes to publish The Urantia Book.
September 13, 2001 -- Urantia Foundation files appeal in the Michael Foundation case.
September 24, 2001 -- Urantia Foundation formally complains about use of the name and symbol in outreach projects in Mexico. [See Tonya's letter to Agustin Arellano]
September 30, 2001 -- Glenview Society requests referendum on Fellowship publication of The Urantia Book
October 3, 2001 -- Letter from the Fellowship President to the readership
October 11, 2002 -- Kwan Choi's requests to Foundation attorney Quin Frazer for information. See all documents in this case
October 14, 2001 -- Fellowship statement on Book Publication
October 15, 2001 -- Urantia Foundation lays further groundwork for commercial exploitation of their trademarks. Application is for "The Urantia Book" and concentric circles design. New trademark applications published for opposition are:
1. Serial No. 76-008,232: canvas tote bags
2. Serial No. 76-008,234: coffee cups and mugs
3. Serial No. 76-008,235: pens and pencils
4. Serial No. 76-008,233: clothing, namely caps, hats and shirtsAn attempt to register as a trademark the phrase "The Urantia Book" on printed matter dealing with religion and cosmology has so far been rejected by the trademark office.
October
17, 2001 -- New
complaints received from Urantia Foundation attorneys 
November 5, 2001 -- Fellowship response
February 22, 2002 -- Additional complaints received from Urantia Foundation regarding website. The Foundation wants to be the only organization on the internet which has translations on its website. Under threat of renewed legal action the Fellowship is forced to remove remaining access to independent translations from its website. See Foundation's complaint
February 28, 2002 -- Urantia Foundation trustee Kwan Choi files papers pressing legal action against the other trustees of Urantia Foundation, alleging financial and administrative mismanagement. See all documents in this case
March 2, 2002 -- Motion for preliminary injunction filed in pending legal action by Kwan Choi against the trustees of Urantia Foundation. See all documents in this case
Note: An index of additional correspondence related only to the Michael Foundation case may be found at http://urantiabook.org/archive/history/index_controversies.htm
Various policy statements from Urantia Foundation's website:
Website License Policy
Permission to Quote for Labors of Love
Permission to Quote for Commercial Works
Permission to Quote for Educational Works
Personal use of "Urantia," "Urantian," etc.