April 26, 2002
Dear Avi,
We are writing to follow-up on several matters relating to the Memorandum of Understanding we reached last March. We look forward to the time when the MOU has been fully implemented. We believe it will be a positive stimulus for future cooperation among the Urantia Book Fellowship, the Urantia Foundation, and the International Urantia Association.
1. The Fellowship has not removed the partial German and Portuguese translations from its website. (German: http://www.urantiabook.org/urantiabook/german/ger_050.htm; Portuguese http://www.urantiabook.org/urantiabook/portuguese/). In March 2001 you agreed to remove these translations “immediately.” Please let us know when these translations will be permanently removed.
2. The Fellowship is displaying links to unauthorized Korean, Portuguese, and Russian translations on other websites. Please let us know when these links will be permanently removed.
3. The Fellowship agreed to transfer the domain name www.librourantia.org to Urantia Foundation not later than December 15, 2001. The transfer has not been made. You are currently using the domain name to send the following message to visitors (which a Spanish-speaking reader has translated from Spanish to English):
The address "LibroUrantia.org" has been changed to "ElLibro.org".
In the U.S. Urantia Foundation is trying to register the word "Urantia" as a trademark for sales of shirts, caps, pens, mugs and other things. They have demanded us to refrain from using this word in identification of the El Libro website -- they say that our using the word "Urantia" interferes with their commercial rights. That is why we reached an agreement with the foundation lawyers to the effect that we shall not be using this electronic address -- we'll be using the address ElLibro.org. Please, forgive this disturbance.
This notice violates the spirit of the MOU, and the transfer of the domain name is now overdue. Please remove this notice, and let us know when you will transfer the domain name www.librourantia.org to Urantia Foundation. The person who arranges the transfer can coordinate this with Mindy Williams at the Chicago office of Urantia Foundation.
4. Also, the index page for the German translation has been replaced on the Fellowship’s website; it now states: “We're sorry! The German translation of The Urantia Book cannot be shared. In order to avoid being sued for copyright infringement, The Urantia Book Fellowship entered into an agreement with Urantia Foundation, publisher of the original English text of The Urantia Book, which prohibits us from sharing the German translation of the text.” Based on questions we have received, this message is having a predictably negative affect. We would appreciate your promptly removing this statement.
5. The Fellowship and the Foundation need to complete the website testing in order to move forward with the provision of the MOU that the Spanish translation be accessed from the Fellowship’s website via a link to Urantia Foundation’s website. Our first step is to select and jointly retain an independent technical consultant to verify that access speeds available from Urantia Foundation’s website are reasonably similar to those from the Fellowship’s website. In order to ensure that this process is completed expeditiously, and that it goes smoothly, we propose that all communications, even preliminary contacts made prior to retaining the consultant, be joint and in writing. Assuming that neither side nor their attorneys has contacted either of these firms (we have not), we are comfortable with using Matrix.net out of Austin, Texas, which is one of the firms you suggested, or Mercury Interactive (http://www-svca.mercuryinteractive.com), a company that specializes in Internet performance measurement.
We are also enclosing a list of testing specifications. We suggest that we obtain quotes for the work from both firms, based on these specifications. Please let us know how soon we can expect to receive your comments on the enclosed testing specifications. We would like to move ahead with the selection and testing as soon as possible.
There are a few other matters relating to the MOU that also need attention, such as the copyright notice and English text footnotes and commentary. We would like to reach closure on all of the outstanding issues as soon as possible.
We look forward to hearing from you by phone or email. If possible, we would like to at least touch base with you by the end of the week.
Mo and Nancy
cc: Urantia Foundation