Official Fellowship response to Urantia Foundation
September 21, 2000September 21, 2000
The Trustees
Urantia Foundation
533 Diversey Parkway
Chicago, IL 60614
Gentlemen:
Our committee has been appointed by the Executive Committee of The Urantia Book Fellowship, as directed by the General Council, and in response to a resolution of the 2000 Triennial Delegate Assembly, with full authority to address and to resolve any and all aspects of Fellowship-Foundation relationships.
We have reviewed the numerous complaints presented to our initial team at their 8 April meeting with Mr. Michelson-Dupont’s team among ourselves, with the General Council, and with counsel. On the basis of these discussions, we are pleased to offer the following concessions to Urantia Foundation in resolution of the issues presented at that time. These offers include both actions our counsel has advised us need to be taken, direction from the General Council, and other actions we feel are in the best interests of harmony and unity within the Urantia movement and the community of Urantian believers.1. We offer to maintain current modifications of the Table of Contents to Part IV on our website to address the Michelson-Dupont team’s initially expressed concerns. (We have been advised in Ms. Shaffer’s letter that these changes are satisfactory.)2. We offer to make changes in notices of copyright claims on our website and other explanatory material to make clear that, to the extent any copyright exists to the Fellowship in the paper-section-paragraph reference system, or in any of the formatting conventions used, or in any hyperlinked references in any of the files of any translation, printing, or edition of the text of The Urantia Book appearing on our website, we place it in the public domain and do not claim copyright. We intend by this to accord to Urantia Foundation and all others equal rights to use this material.3. We offer to assure that all downloadable files of the text of The Urantia Book on our website contain appropriate notice of Urantia Foundation copyright claims.4. We offer to expand our website to present all Urantia Foundation’s translations, printings, and editions of The Urantia Book, when available in usable digital form and subject to the availability of our volunteer staff to complete formatting for acceptable web presentation.5. We offer to continue our present practice of requiring all individuals accessing portions of our website containing independently translated portions of The Urantia Book to register and obtain a personal ID and password.6. We offer to assure that all translations of The Urantia Book on our website carry appropriate notices of Urantia Foundation copyright claims.7. We propose that, as part of this settlement, the Foundation will license the Fellowship to present the works of William S. Sadler on its website, in English and in translation to any other language, without restriction. In return, the Fellowship agrees to assert no copyright claim in the presentation of this material, or its original translations, to place any Fellowship copyright interests that may exist in the public domain, and to make the data files supporting the website presentation freely available to Urantia Foundation to use at it sees fit.8. We reiterate the apology to Urantia Foundation issued by our initial discussion team for our oversight in failing to include a proper notice of Urantia Foundation copyright claims in certain issues of the Fellowship Herald magazine. It is the policy of The Urantia Book Fellowship to place such a notice of the Foundation’s copyright claims in all its publications. We have clearly communicated this policy to our Publications Committee, and do not anticipate further problems.9. We offer to retitle "The Illustrated Urantia Book" on our website as "Illustrations for The Urantia Book" or such other descriptive term as may be mutually acceptable and to maintain a notice of Urantia Foundation’s copyright claims on these pages of our website.10. We offer to suspend solicitation of translators of The Urantia Book on our website until the Foundation’s copyright claims lapse under applicable law or treaty.11. We offer to retain the current version of our hyperlink to Michael Foundation, which refers only to Mr. McMullan’s Index, so long as the copyright status of Jesus: A New Revelation remains in litigation.12. We offer to place a disclaimer on any documents on our website considered anti-Foundation, which may be identified at a future time through discussion with Urantia Foundation Trustees.13. We offer to maintain and strengthen our current disclaimers of affiliation with Urantia Foundation, including but not limited to disclaimers related to our Urantianet service, to show the Trustees where these notices appear, and to make reasonable modification in their presentation, if deemed necessary.14. We offer to add to the page of our website that offers The Urantia Book for sale, a notice to the effect that the Fellowship is not currently a publisher or distributor of the book and that the book prices shown on our website are from vendors other than The Urantia Book Fellowship.15. We offer to delete the metatags "Foundation" and "International Association" from our website. We further offer to limit use of metatags "Urantia Foundation" and "International Urantia Association" to pages on which news or opinion is presented about those organizations.16. We offer to direct the RealName "Urantia" to a separate, anonymous website which offers the choice of a direct link to Urantia Foundation or to The Urantia Book Fellowship. We make this offer because it is our understanding that current RealNames policy precludes the transfer or re-registration of a word like "Urantia" as a RealName. We believe it is in the best interests of the Urantia movement as a whole to preserve this functionality and therefore offer to share it with Urantia Foundation.17. We offer to continue our current practice of not displaying Urantia Foundation’s translator’s agreement on our website.We additionally offer to meet with the full Board of Trustees of Urantia Foundation, with or without legal counsel to both parties present, to discuss these and other matters and to arrive at a final, absolute, and conclusive resolution of all issues raised by the Foundation. If this is not acceptable to the Trustees, we suggest selecting a mediator and participating in formal mediation.
We agree with the Trustees that the Fellowship and the Foundation share common goals and look forward to working together, with mutual cooperation and respect, towards these goals.
Sincerely,
The Foundation Negotiating Team ofThe Urantia Book Fellowship
Avi DogimMarvin GawrynDavid KantorMarilynn KuliekeDan Massey