By Ralph Helge
PASADENA--The following is an update on the WCG's lawsuit against the Philadelphia Church of God (PCG), under the leadership of Gerald Flurry.
The federal court of appeals condemned PCG's confiscating the book Mystery of the Ages, in which WCG held the copyright (October WN).
As we anticipated, PCG filed a request for rehearing, but 25 out of 26 judges denied that plea.
The matter now returns to the trial court. There, the WCG will request reimbursement for all attorneys' fees it has expended in protecting its rights. The WCG will also request an injunction prohibiting the PCG from any further publication or distribution of Mystery of the Ages, under threat of being held in contempt of court and confiscation of all items used in the illegal printing and publishing of Mystery of the Ages.
I would like to clarify for the members of the WCG, and all others who may be interested, why the WCG filed this lawsuit in the first place. Having represented the WCG for about 42 years, I can say that it has only been in extreme circumstances that the WCG has ever taken the affirmative step of filing a lawsuit.
Why was the WCG compelled to do so in this case?
First of all, as the federal appellate court said, the WCG owns the copyright to the literary and other works produced by Herbert W. Armstrong. Although this conclusion would be obvious to any and everyone knowledgeable of the WCG, Mr. Flurry challenged that conclusion in hopes of justifying his unlawful conduct.
Copyrights are a form of personal property. It goes without saying that you would defend yourself if someone brazenly came and took your personal property. In this case, the act would not only include taking your personal property, without any offer to pay for it, since they assume a Higher Power gave them the right to take it.
Being confronted with that type of attitude, the WCG had to ask itself, "Where will this type of confiscation end if we don't confront it here and now?" If we just sit back and do nothing, what else would the PCG attempt to confiscate? Is there anything owned by WCG that will lie beyond their desires?
Mr. Flurry never asked for permission to reprint Mystery of the Ages, nor did he offer to pay a license fee to do so, and there was a bona fide concern that his desires would know no bounds. Therefore, the WCG concluded that its duty to protect church assets left it no option but to seek legal help.
The PCG complains that the WCG was suppressing Mystery of the Ages. The term suppression seems to have become a PCG buzzword for the owner of a literary work who, exercising control over its property, decides not to use it all the time. Under Mr. Flurry's theory, if the WCG did not continue to use its literary property rights, he had the right to single-handedly declare it to be central to his religion and to commandeer it.
Therefore, the PCG committed legal and moral wrong in printing Mystery of the Ages and the other literary works, the copyright of which is owned by the WCG.
Just before the PCG's inappropriate commandeering of WCG's copyrighted assets, the WCG's board of directors was considering what use they should make of these assets. They even discussed whether it would be appropriate for the church itself to reprint and publish certain of such literary works, reprinting Mystery of the Ages in annotated form explaining to the public where the church is in disagreement with conclusions in the book.
Unfortunately this came to an abrupt halt when the PCG undertook, to use the federal court's language from its own opinion, an act of piracy. The WCG then could not proceed with its own considered action regarding the literary works because to do so would give the false impression that the WCG was intimidated into doing so by the PCG's act of aggression.
However, now that the federal appellate court has put a rest to PCG's aggressive claims of divine right, the WCG board intends to resume its consideration of how it can best use the copyrighted literature, audio and video assets that it owns. It is indeed unfortunate that one person's conduct could disrupt the potential benefit to the general public that might be desirous of having available such information through lawful channels.
We now wait to see if Mr. Flurry will act honorably and bring this to an end, or if he will continue to dispute the WCG in this matter. We will keep you posted as the matter progresses.
Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 2000