Lawsuit against FAIR

[Confidential Informant]

What i'm saying is that if you went to the site Wyatt created, it would be very hard to know what sgoing on, but on the other hand once you get to the Tanners site you know it is their site and their view on the BOM who is not owned by anyone, at least that i know of.

Huh? This doesn't make any sense. Please clarify.

The deception is clear, the Tanners are open and up front with there views whether right or wrong. And yes in the Tanners view, mormons are not Christian as a whole so you are correct, again, right or wrong.

The Wyatt site seems pretty open and up front to me also. And I've actually visited that site. Have you? Or are you basing your opinion on the side-by-side comparison the Tanners provided in their last publication?

It was not a legal parody as you claim in that Wyatt used the Tanners name as a pretense of getting to the "parody".

You say this as if you are knowledgeable enough to actually back it up. Please do so. I suggest you start with Bosley Medical v. Kremer. Once you've read that one, I'll give you a few more to chew on.

If it was Wyatts personal sight with his call name then I don't think the law suit would have any legs, did you read the complaint?

Not only have I read it, I have a copy of it. What would like to discuss?

I don't see UTLM as a bully, they are only defending their name.

Defending it against what? Being the subject of critic and parody. Those are Constitutionally protected. What are they protecting?

They are a small speck in a land of giants in Utah and has the LDS church tied in knots

LOL, the Tanners are by and large irrelevant to the field these days. Mouw has called them dishonest and Owens and Mosser note that they don't have the tools to effectively participate in the dialogue any longer. If the Tanners represent the biggest threat to the Church these days, then the Church is in GREAT shape.

if you belive that there is more money and power behind the Tanners than there is behnd FAIR and Wyatt then I believe you are naive

Interesting. But wrong. The Tanners complaint showed some of FAIR's financials. FAIR made about $30,000 last year, which I suspect is barely enough to cover most of their expenses once you consider the cost of their yearly conference, etc. I've also seen the Tanner's financials. They make enought money to pay Sandra a full-time salary of about $40,000 a year, plus one full time and one part time employee. Sounds to me like the Tanners, not FAIR, have the upper hand here. Throw in the fact that the Tanners appear to be using the lawsuit as a fund-raising device and FAIR is at a real disadvantage.

all it will take is one high roller to come to their defense and that is very likely to happen if it didn't already,

If you know a name, I'm sure FAIR would like to hear it!

Your trying to bend this to me and not the case, thats OK I understand but objectivity is looking at the facts, not the messenger.

Actually, I was just trying to understand your position more fully. Your lauding of the Tanners has done that nicely. Thank you.

I am not a lawyer,

I am. Thats why seeing you pontificate on this subject is so interesting...in a train wreck sort of way.

C.I.

[smac97]

Markk,

By way of disclosure, I'm a lawyer, too. But I'm a much, much nicer guy than ol' cuss, Confidential Informant.

-Smac

[yaanufs]

Markk,

Please click on the following URL and then answer the subsequent questions:

http://www.bookofmormon.com

Interesting. I'd put that clearly into the category of sneaky and underhand. Well below the belt IMHO.

Although the other side of the coin is that many in the church, seem to think they are involved in a literal war with the enemies of the church. They use the war rhetoric to justify suppression of non-faith promoting history and to discourage members from investigating the issues raised by the church critics.

Is either side particularly squeaky clean in this 'war'?

[USU78]

For fun and profit, follow the following link:

Mormon.info

Guess where it leads? You guessed it! It links to UTLM.com!

[yaanufs]

For fun and profit, follow the following link:

Mormon.info

Guess where it leads? You guessed it! It links to UTLM.com!

Actually that one did not.

But it did go to an anti-site that much is true. I don't know if it is affiliated with UTLM, perhaps you know if it does.

I agree that sort of behaviour is underhand and devious. I feel if the sites owners had reasonable morals they would release the domain names to the church. Although if the church teaches it is at war I can see why they wouldn't want to. In a war you don't help the enemy.

It's a shame the leaders of the church were not more prophetic and inspired to register all the www name variants for the church before the internet took off at a faster rate than their inspiration could keep up. It could have stopped a lot of this silliness before it happened.

[smac97]

> I agree that sort of behaviour is underhand and devious.

==The "sort of behavior" in which UTLM is engaged is decidedly different from that exhibited by Wyatt. Wyatt was using his as a parody, and he had no commercial motive. The Tanners, however, are not using the bookofmormon.com domain as parody and do have a commercial motive. Nevertheless, I'm not necessarily persuaded that the Tanners' use of that domain is illegal (whether it is "underhanded and devious" is neither here nor there).

> I feel if the sites owners had reasonable morals they would release the domain names to the church.

==Again, that is neither here nor there. The issue I would like to explore is the "unclean hands" concept. If the Tanners are engaged in conduct that is as "bad" or worse that what Wyatt did, should they be allowed to bring suit against Wyatt for his conduct? Or should they be barred because they have "unclean hands?"

-Smac

[yaanufs]

(whether it is "underhanded and devious" is neither here nor there).

==Again, that is neither here nor there.

I guess my comments are neither here nor there

I don't know enough, or care enough to find out more, about the particular issue you raised. It just seems to me both sides are not blameless.

[Confidential Informant]

It just seems to me both sides are not blameless.

Then why should one side be substantially enriched at the expense of the other?

C.I.

[yaanufs]

It just seems to me both sides are not blameless.

Then why should one side be substantially enriched at the expense of the other?

Obviously they shouldn't. But since I'm not a judge and do not have access to all the information, I'm just calling it as I see it.

It would be nice if people could act like grown ups instead of children. This again applies to both sides as far as I can tell from my scant knowledge of the subject.

Perhaps one side feels the other has been 'more' childish.

[Scott Lloyd]

It just seems to me both sides are not blameless.

Then why should one side be substantially enriched at the expense of the other?

Obviously they shouldn't. But since I'm not a judge and do not have access to all the information, I'm just calling it as I see it.

It would be nice if people could act like grown ups instead of children. This again applies to both sides as far as I can tell from my scant knowledge of the subject.

Perhaps one side feels the other has been 'more' childish.

Somehow, this conjures up the image of a tongue-clucking teacher observing a student fending off unrestrained assaults from a schoolyard bully and remarking how "childish" both are being.

[yaanufs]

Somehow, this conjures up the image of a tongue-clucking teacher observing a student fending off unrestrained assaults from a schoolyard bully and remarking how "childish" both are being.

But that would suggest one person is innocent and one person is guilty.

I don't see that in this case. Both parties are involved.

[Scott Lloyd]

Somehow, this conjures up the image of a tongue-clucking teacher observing a student fending off unrestrained assaults from a schoolyard bully and remarking how "childish" both are being.

But that would suggest one person is innocent and one person is guilty.

I don't see that in this case. Both parties are involved.

From a historical perspective (with which the teacher in the above analogy is not apt to be familiar, or maybe the teacher's own viewpoint is skewed) one of the parties is the definite aggressor.

[smac97]

yaanufs,

> I guess my comments are neither here nor there

==I think a lot of the ethics of trademark use are not innate, but rather are established by legislative fiat. That is, this isn't like robbery or murder or rape, all of which are behaviors that are intrisically "bad" and laws merely recognize that "badness." Instead, trademark infringements are frequently "bad" only because that "badness" has been created by the law.

==This is why I think value judgments like "underhanded and devious" are neither here nor there. We're dealing with a set of artificial ethics, where "bad" conduct is determined by violations of statutory conditions that have scant derivation from the sense of morality that tells us other behaviors (like robbery, murder, etc.) are "bad."

> I don't know enough, or care enough to find out more, about the particular issue you raised.

==You thought and cared enough to pontificate about it. But oh well.

> It just seems to me both sides are not blameless.

==If so, then the "unclean hands" would seem to apply.

-Smac

[yaanufs]

==You thought and cared enough to pontificate about it. But oh well.

Pontificating I care about

Can't you tell?

[USU78]

For fun and profit, follow the following link:

Mormon.info

Guess where it leads?  You guessed it!  It links to UTLM.com!

Actually that one did not.

But it did go to an anti-site that much is true. I don't know if it is affiliated with UTLM, perhaps you know if it does.

I agree that sort of behaviour is underhand and devious. I feel if the sites owners had reasonable morals they would release the domain names to the church. Although if the church teaches it is at war I can see why they wouldn't want to. In a war you don't help the enemy.

It's a shame the leaders of the church were not more prophetic and inspired to register all the www name variants for the church before the internet took off at a faster rate than their inspiration could keep up. It could have stopped a lot of this silliness before it happened.

You have to do but one click when you get to the MiT site to get to UTLM.com, but that is exactly the profundity of connection the Tanners allege against FAIR: FAIR articles are linked to the now defunct website when you click something inside the Wyett website.

[smac97]

Markk seems to have left the building. Hmm.

-Smac

[Calm]

It would be nice if people could act like grown ups instead of children.

I put the parody at the very most on par with a college student's joke, youthful spirits and all. This type of humour has a long, long history, especially among gentlemen of sharp wit .

OTOH, I put running to the teacher screaming "he hit me" when no apology or reconsideration was even asked for first, on par with kindergarten behaviour. Adults are generally expected to at least attempt to work out an issue before getting a third party involved.

The Tanners lost complete footing on moral and ethical behaviour, not just the high ground (if they ever had it considering their links) when they filed and alerted the media before A Wyatt and FAIR were even told the Tanners were aware of the links, let alone passed on any request to buy or donate the addresses.

The ideal solution, IMO, is for the judge to throw out the idea of damages and institute a trade of addresses (if the utlm guys have anything that Allen wants). Or if there are no utlm address that appeal to him, knowing Allen, he would probably just give them to them if they asked, but I think they should at least pay him what he's paid for them plus any court costs (since they could have avoided all of these if they had just attempted to negotiate with Allen first, I think they should be responsible for all attorneys' and court costs).

[smac97]

It would be nice if people could act like grown ups instead of children.

I put the parody at the very most on par with a college student's joke, youthful spirits and all. This type of humour has a long, long history, especially among gentlemen of sharp wit .

OTOH, I put running to the teacher screaming "he hit me" when no apology or reconsideration was even asked for first, on par with kindergarten behaviour. Adults are generally expected to at least attempt to work out an issue before getting a third party involved.

The Tanners lost complete footing on moral and ethical behaviour, not just the high ground (if they ever had it considering their links) when they filed and alerted the media before A Wyatt and FAIR were even told the Tanners were aware of the links, let alone passed on any request to buy or donate the addresses.

The ideal solution, IMO, is for the judge to throw out the idea of damages and institute a trade of addresses (if the utlm guys have anything that Allen wants). Or if there are no utlm address that appeal to him, knowing Allen, he would probably just give them to them if they asked, but I think they should at least pay him what he's paid for them plus any court costs (since they could have avoided all of these if they had just attempted to negotiate with Allen first, I think they should be responsible for all attorneys' and court costs).

And let's not forget their use of http://www.bookofmormon.com. The good ol' "H" word (hypocrisy) just springs to mind.

-Smac

[Calm]

Yep, the kindergartener forgot to mention he had slugged the other guy first. Typical for that age, a little surprising in adults who tend to be more philosophical about getting their ears boxed if they punched the guy's nose first.

I do like my solution--Allen gives them the tanner stuff and they give Allen www.bookofmormon.com (and any court costs that needs to be covered).

[Jigglysaint]

I blame this whole thing on Michelle Tanner, but I think Stephanie might be the ringleader.

Oh wait, wrong Tanners....

[Markk]

Hi CI,

You said

[Confidential Informant]

Sure, sorry I wasn

[Kozaru]

Sounds like C.I. should take the case pro bono.

[smac97]

> Sure, sorry I wasn

[Markk]

Hi CI,

Spoken like a true lawyer? I guess right and wrong is in the eye of the beholder and like I said anything can happen with in our jury system. I stand corrected on Berry, it's been awhile, I disagree about OJ and MJ though. OJ'S team turned a clear cut murder case into a race issue and picked a good jury that would except such, and MJ's defense team made the case about the mother instead of about a boy being molested. Are they innocent? yes according to law beyond a reasonable doubt, did they commit the crimes?

What do you believe Wyatt