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username Registered User (10/29/02 5:37 am) Reply	lawsuit From Kriya yoga discussion board Today, October 28, 2002 at approximatly 4:30 P.M. at the Federal Court in Sacramento, California, SRF won the copyright lawsuit against Ananda.
Devotee1970 Registered User (10/29/02 8:57 am) Reply	SKEPTICAL I haven't been following the suit that closely, but I have doubts that it is accurate to say that the SRF "won" the suit. This is a complicated case that has been going on for more than a decade. SRF initially won some points, but many of these were reversed on appeal to the 9th circuit court of appeals. Some issues were remanded (sent back) to the district court for further consideration by that court. My understanding, which may be incorrect, was that the main issues left to be decided were (1) whether Yogananda informally assigned certain of his post-1935 works to SRF and (2) the ownership of two photos. Even if the jury sided with the SRF on these issues, that does not mean that they have legal ownership of all of Yogananda's works or that they have "won" the entire lawsuit. Many of Master's earlier works have passed into the public domain, and I believe that the 9th circuit previously ruled in favor of Ananda on a number of another points as well. Would someone from Ananda who has a better understanding of the suit than I please post here and let us know if my assumptions are correct?
username Registered User (10/29/02 9:55 am) Reply	Re: lawsuit Again from Kriya Yoga Discussion Board - a different poster Lawsuit Details IP: 63.205.221.235 Posted on 10/29/2002 at 05:22:04 PM by Anonymous Four remaining issues in the 12 year lawsuit by SRF against Ananda were decided yesterday in federal court. Remember, SRF had already lost all of their claims so far against Ananda: claims to the commercial trademark on 'Paramhansa Yogananda', 'self-realization', Yogananda's likeness, etc. These last four issues were all that hadn't already been thrown out by the federal judge. The four remaining issues decided in the month long trial that ended yesterday: 1. Four photographs that SRF claimed Ananda infringed- SRF dropped this claim in the middle of the trial. No damages, no copyright infringement. 2. Some articles and quotes from Yogananda that Ananda used in their magazines over twelve years ago- SRF dropped this claim in the middle of the trial. No damages, no copyright infringement. 3. Ananda's mimeographing of the Bhagavad Gita interpretation and Second Coming (from the old magazines)over twelve years ago- the jury ruled that SRF does own the copyrights to these, but that Ananda's use was 'fair use'. No damages, don't know whether this was technically a copyright infringement. 4. Two sound recordings of Yogananda's voice sold by Ananda- $28,000 damages, copyright infringement. After 12 years, and tens of millions of dollars spent, SRF won $28,000 damages. This was about 1-2 days worth of each sides attorney's fees in this trial. This was probably a win for both sides (I hear that's what the judge said). Perhaps both sides can now go home and think about living the teachings of Yogananda- harmony, cooperation, etc. (Source: someone who was there for the trial)
Rosemarie7 Registered User (10/29/02 9:56 pm) Reply	Re: lawsuit & SRF Rumor or Propaganda At the temple Sunday I spoke with a Devotee who said, Kriyananda jumped bail and left the country...? She said he was being prosecuted for having sex with a minor? Does anybody know FOR SURE if Kriyananda was in court these last days?
username Registered User (10/30/02 3:08 pm) Reply	Re: lawsuit & SRF Rumor or Propaganda more about lawsuit from kriya yoga discussion boardJury: Copyrights violated by church The Union Newspaper (Nevada City, Ca) October 30, 2002 Doug Mattson A lengthy legal battle involving the Nevada County-based Ananda Church of Self-Realization ended Monday in federal court. All eight jurors found that Ananda and its founder, J. Donald Walters, infringed on the copyrights of the Los Angeles-based Self-Realization Fellowship by reprinting articles and selling recordings of the fellowship's long-since-dead guru. Jurors also awarded Self-Realization Fellowship roughly $29,000 in damages. The verdicts capped a monthlong trial and 12 years of courtroom wrangling, and it ended with each side declaring some form of victory. "On balance, I'm pleased with the outcome," said Ananda lawyer Robert Christopher of Palo Alto. "It will mean the (Ananda) church will survive without financial injury." He claimed the fellowship had earlier sought $6 million in damages. But a lawyer for Self-Realization Fellowship, Philip Stillman of San Diego, said the case was never about money. "These guys literally stole magazine articles and started publishing them as their own," he said. The case hinged on the writings and recordings of Paramhansa Yogananda, a native of India who founded Self-Realization Fellowship in the late 1920s. He died in 1952. Walters became a member in 1948 but was "thrown out" in 1962, said Stillman's legal partner, Michael Flynn. Walters, known as Swami Kriyananda, later started Ananda Village in Nevada County. It became home to hundreds of followers who also revered Yogananda and his words. The group republished his articles and sold his recordings, according to Stillman and Flynn. Jurors ultimately agreed with Self-Realization Fellowship's argument that Yogananda had repeatedly made his intentions clear before dying - he wanted the fellowship to maintain copyrights to his works. The lawsuit moved sluggishly, as it was twice appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and twice returned to Sacramento. Along the way, Walters was sued for sexual harassment and fraud by former Ananda member Anne-Marie Bertolucci, whose lawyers claimed Walters fraudulently used his title of swami, implying he was celibate. Other women testified Walters coerced them into sex. Bertolucci was awarded damages in excess of $1 million in 1998. Ananda leaders painted the sexual harassment lawsuit as a smear campaign and the product of the bitter dispute between Self-Realization Fellowship and Ananda. Christopher, Ananda's trial lawyer, contended the dispute still exists. He said the copyright lawsuit lasted so long "because religious intolerance still prevails in this country ... A lot of times, people involved in certain religions will not tolerate persons or institutions that take a different path." Stillman scoffed in response. He claimed the Self-Realization Fellowship wasn't behind the Bertolucci case and that the fellowship hasn't filed other suits against Ananda. "This has nothing to do with religious persecution," he said, returning to the copyright issue. "I mean, go write your own stuff, and (Walters) has done some of that."
Rosemarie7 Registered User (10/30/02 4:50 pm) Reply	Re: lawsuit & SRF Rumor or Propaganda Username, Thank You! Again!
Lobo Registered User (10/30/02 9:19 pm) Reply	Re: lawsuit & SRF Rumor or Propaganda Rosemarie, Kriyananda has never "jumped bail," nor was he ever accused of having sex with a minor. He was here until yesterday in the United States at Ananda, the past 3 or 4 months. There is so much disinformation, bad information, and even those who knowingly spread false information about him, Ananda, and the two lawsuits. I am a member of SRF, not Ananda, but I took the time to read all the relevant court documents in the one case, the copyright case hasn't been made available on the net yet. If you want to find out what really happened I suggest two websites. www.ananda.org/ this is the main Ananda page. It doesn't have much too do with the lawsuits but it is chock full of information about Ananda and Kriyananda. Also there are many books that are free to read on-line including Master's AY, first edition. www.anandaanswers.com is the second site. This is a reply to what SRF and it's soldiers have been saying, doing, and writing about Ananda and Kriyananda. There are email addresses to contact them directly at both sites.
bheema ma Registered User (10/31/02 7:49 am) Reply	Re: lawsuit & SRF Rumor or Propaganda Thanks Lobo. I'll add a third website with more historical information about the SRF lawsuit: www.yoganandarediscovered.com I checked it last night, but it hadn't been updated with the latest decision and details. What I did hear from others, is that saying SRF "won" is a bit euphemistic. In that article, SRF's attorney conveniently neglects to mention a small detail in his comments--Ananda's "copyright infringement" in the written works at issue was still found by the jury to have been "fair use", and SRF was awarded no damages for that portion of the case.
Rosemarie7 Registered User (10/31/02 10:01 am) Reply	Re: lawsuit & SRF Rumor or Propaganda Thank you all, again. I can't tell you how the validation I get from all of you untangles the incongruities.
bheema ma Registered User (10/31/02 3:22 pm) Reply	Re: lawsuit & SRF Rumor or Propaganda Dear Rosemarie7, I don't know if you're new to this path, or just trying to be sarcastic. If you're new, I'd recommend that you avoid this site --as well as maybe two of the websites recommended above--the anandaanswers site and the yoganandarediscovered one. This walrus site and the questions/issues discussed here aren't well suited to someone new to the path, and you probably won't find much validation here either. You might prefer the www.yogananda.net website instead. If you're trying to be sarcastic, I'll save my breath. If I completely misunderstood you, and you have a question or specific issue you want to discuss/gain clarity around, you might want to try asking it directly. I'm sure someone will try to answer or give feedback.
srflongago Registered User (10/31/02 3:45 pm) Reply	Re: results of lawsuit The SRF-Ananda suit claimed inheritance of Yogananda's intellectual property rights. The positive outcome for SRF of the Jury trial just ended was that SRF inheritance of his unexpired intellectual property rights was affirmed. However, the claims against Ananda mostly failed. The claims that there was a commercial trademark on 'Paramhansa Yogananda', 'Self-Realization', and 'Yogananda's likenesses' were thrown out by Judges earlier. The claims that there was a copyright infringement for The Bhagavagita and Second Coming Ananda copies failed. Fair use is allowed by copyright law. Fair use is by definition not an infringement. It allows making single full non-commercial copies for your own use. It allows short quotes in print. I infer SRF dropped the claims on the photos because the known SRF search for documentation that these were owned by Yogananda or SRF was unsuccessful. Poetic justice is that the four photographs in question can probably be used by anyone without fear of suit because we may conclude their provenance can not be determined. So I assume Ananda can continue using them. If you make 20 copies of an extended part of a book or article or other copyrighted work, and charge anything for them, you have to be careful. That is why there are commercial services that produce for schools booklets of required readings for classes, for which the service obtains obtains the written permission of the copyright holder. All that SRF won against Ananda was a $28,000 dollar award for copyright infringement for selling the two sound recordings of Yogananda's voice. If these recordings had been made by individuals for personal use and not sold, my impression is that this is fair use and would not have been a copyright violation. So charging (even cost) for the recordings was the mistake made by Ananda, according to the jury. But anyone consulting a copyright attorney should have known all of this, no jury trial on murky points is involved. The main practical effect on Ananda of the millions SRF spent is to leave Ananda with a huge legal debt, reputed to be over four million. The jury decision warns others to publish pictures and works of Yogananda only if they have been determined to be out of copyright. If they are, others are quite free to do so. In the end, this was indeed a suit on who owns the intellectual property rights. Articles still in copyright in the old magazines by other authors who did not specifically assign rights to SRF in writing belong to the heirs of those authors. I am told that SRF owns the non-expired copyrights on the specific compilation that the issue represents. So those issues cannot be reprinted in toto. Others please correct me if I have misunderstood some aspect of this legal morass. Edited by: srflongago at: 11/2/02 6:48:14 am
bheema ma Registered User (10/31/02 4:12 pm) Reply	Re: results of lawsuit SRFlongago, The only thing I heard that (partially) contradicts anything you said above is that "fair use" can also include religious or educational use that is done not for a profit. I believe it was under that definition of "fair use" that Ananda was found to not have infringed copyright.
srflongago Registered User (11/1/02 5:17 am) Reply	Re: results of lawsuit You are right. The fair use clause for non-profit educational and religous materials is a mainstay of churches and educational institutions in their missions. Thanks for the clarification.
Rosemarie7 Registered User (11/1/02 3:58 pm) Reply	Re: lawsuit & SRF Rumor or Propaganda bheema ma In what way do you think I'm being sarcastic? I speak from my heart..... Why do you attack so? Why do you talk to me like a disobedient child? You remind me of the nun who stopped my lessons because I disagreed with her........ are you an SRF monastic? You might want to try cutting the Prosac in half? Edited by: Rosemarie7 at: 11/1/02 4:03:59 pm
bheema ma Registered User (11/1/02 4:49 pm) Reply	Re: lawsuit & SRF Rumor or Propaganda Dear Rosemarie7, I'm not an SRF monastic--(and I don't think anyone has ever imagined I was--a first! But--how many of them would post in the Ananda section of the walrus website?!) I didn't think I was attacking you. Your comments left some room for interpretation, and I wanted to know where you were coming from. Sorry if it felt like I was scolding or attacking--it certainly wasn't my intention. I was referring to: *Quote:* I can't tell you how the validation I get from all of you untangles the incongruities. It didn't sound to me like you had received either validation or help untangling the incongruities of this situation, so I thought you might just have been expressing sarcasm. If not, I apologize.
premdas Registered User (11/1/02 4:59 pm) Reply	Re: results of lawsuit You folks seem to have it right, especially srflongago's take on the millions spent to spread Master's work. I know all the individuals from Ananda who spread Master's writings that were in contention; to say they were done for profit is preposterous! Almost all issues were related to internal use by members and these cases were called "fair use." The recordings as well were to spread Master's voice, especially at a time when SRF was & is sitting on many historical and devotional works, many of which we might never have gotten to see nor experience without prodding by our and other devotees' demands. I will gladly go into more details next week in another post in this thread. We remain glad to have fought the good fight and will continue to lawfully represent our guru in the spirit that court decisions have given us these last 12 years of harrassing litigation. Never forget that SRF tried to force us out of "business" financially and legally; we have survived and have allowed all who wish to be "Self-Realizationists" to practice as they wish. Premdas
Rosemarie7 Registered User (11/1/02 5:33 pm) Reply	Re: lawsuit & SRF Rumor or Propaganda Bheema ma, I was referring to the answers given to me regarding my question on 10-29-02. If you scroll up you will see the question in this same section.
soulcircle Registered User (11/2/02 11:32 pm) Reply	Rosemarie7 I don't see exactly where bheema ma found any sarcasm in that sentence..... bheema ma, what you saw you saw, in my case there wasn't even the hint of sarcasm, just thoughtfully expressed gratitude onward
Rosemarie7 Registered User (11/3/02 8:13 pm) Reply	Re: Rosemarie7 Thank You, lets all kiss and make up. These issues can be upsetting. Edited by: Rosemarie7 at: 11/3/02 8:17:49 pm
soulcircle Registered User (11/3/02 10:43 pm) Reply	Second that emotion Good Tip Quite helpful actually
Devotee1970 Registered User (11/4/02 2:36 am) Reply	Re: results of lawsuit Premdas, thanks for, as you say, "fighting the good fight." And yes, sooulcircle, if only SRF would have taken Rosemarie7's "kiss and make up" approach 10 years and X million dollars ago . . . Blessings to you all. Edited by: Devotee1970 at: 11/4/02 2:53:55 am

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