August 1, 2000
Via email and Certified Mail
Return Receipt Requested
Avi Dogim, President
The Fellowship
529 West Wrightwood Avenue
Chicago, IL 60614Dear Mr. Dogim,
On July 7, 2000, you, as President of the Fellowship, sent a letter to Richard Keeler, President of Urantia Foundation, responding to the June 9 letter sent to you by Urantia Foundation's Copyright and Trademark Team. The Trustees of Urantia Foundation have referred your letter to me, as chair of the Copyright and Trademark Team. Mr. Keeler will respond to the matters in your letter unrelated to copyright and trademark.
The Foundation’s concerns about certain materials displayed on the Fellowship’s Web site started several years ago when, without the knowledge of Urantia Foundation, the Fellowship put the English text of The Urantia Book on its Web site. About the same time, and also without Urantia Foundation's knowledge, the Fellowship began displaying the French, Spanish, and other translations on its Web site. At some point, it also began to display the trademarks of Urantia Foundation, without permission or proper attribution.
In order to protect Urantia Foundation's rights and to support the Fellowship’s outreach efforts, the Foundation offered the Fellowship a license, which was rejected. After numerous discussions between Trustee Mo Siegel and Janet Farrington, then President of the Fellowship, Ms. Farrington indicated that the Fellowship would accept the terms of the license offered by Urantia Foundation but preferred to characterize this as an “agreement” rather than a “license.” Subsequently, David Kantor, a member of the Fellowship's Executive Committee and its Web Master, repudiated any license agreement with Urantia Foundation, although Mrs. Farrington finally took the position that there was a license.
Since the Fellowship notified Urantia Foundation that it accepted the conditions for a license, the Fellowship’s Web site has not fully met these conditions.
For example, the English text displayed on the Fellowship’s Web site is not Urantia Foundation's text. Also, the Foundation did not license the Fellowship to display translations on its Web site, notwithstanding that the Fellowship’s Web site displays all or part of several translations. In addition, the Fellowship was not licensed to use Urantia Foundation's trademarks, and the marks are displayed on the Fellowship’s Web site without proper attribution.
Over the past several years the number of infringements on the Fellowship’s Web site has increased.
The Foundation and the Copyright and Trademark Team have patiently worked with Fellowship representatives to render the Fellowship’s Web site fully legal and infringement free. In October 1999, in a letter from Urantia Foundation, the Fellowship was asked to remove the infringing material from its Web site. In response, the Fellowship wrote to Urantia Foundation, saying that it wanted a meeting with the Trustees. The Trustees felt the discussions between Janet Farrington and Mo Siegel (which lasted from October 1998 to June 1999) had been less than successful, so the Trustees decided to appoint a committee, headed by a Trustee, to deal with this matter. The Copyright and Trademark Team is that committee.
The Trustees mandated our committee to make a list of the infringements on the Fellowship's Web site and to request that the infringing material be removed. The Trustees asked that we personally meet with representatives of the Fellowship to discuss the infringements. We met in early April. In accordance with the Trustee’s instructions, we asked the Fellowship to remove the infringing material from its Web site within 30 days. During those 30 days, some of the infringing material was removed. We then received a report from the Fellowship that left most of the important issues unresolved. We wrote back on June 9, asking once again that the infringing material be removed from the Fellowship’s Web site. We requested that this be done by July 7. Recent visits to the Fellowship’s Web site indicate that progress toward removing infringing material has at least slowed, has probably stopped, and appears to have regressed.
Your July 7, 2000 letter was not sent to our team but to the President of Urantia Foundation. You wrote that the Fellowship’s General Council “mandated the formation of a committee empowered to address” these issues and “directed that legal counsel be retained to advise the Fellowship.”
The Foundation’s Copyright and Trademark Team is authorized by the Trustees to handle communications pertaining to the infringements on the Fellowship's Web site. We once again respectfully request that all of the infringing material on the Fellowship’s Web site be removed. Please do so by October 1, 2000. This is the third time our team has made this request.
Your letter suggests that you wish to discuss these issues further. Our team would be glad to meet with you. We should reserve a date now so as to allow time for the complete removal of the infringing material not later than October 1. For your information, all the members of our team will be in New York in early August.
If the Fellowship chooses to retain the infringing material on its Web site after October 1, our team will make an appropriate recommendation to the Board of Trustees.
If you have questions, please call or e-mail me.
Sincerely,
Georges Michelson-Dupont
Vice-President of Urantia Foundation
Chair of Copyright and Trademark Team