Karin Spaink
Encyclopedia
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and feminist.
Spaink is a free speech advocate and social critic. Some of her battles include:
- New-age writers who assert all diseases are only a psychological phenomenon;
- The Church of ScientologyChurch of ScientologyThe Church of Scientology is an organization devoted to the practice and the promotion of the Scientology belief system. The Church of Scientology International is the Church of Scientology's parent organization, and is responsible for the overall ecclesiastical management, dissemination and...
, who sued her for more than ten years; - Opposition to a U.S. court decision which took down an anti-abortion site that contained names, addresses, photos and personal data of abortionAbortionAbortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
providers along with calls for violence (Spaink describes herself as pro-choicePro-choiceSupport for the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-choice movement, a sociopolitical movement supporting the ethical view that a woman should have the legal right to elective abortion, meaning the right to terminate her pregnancy....
on the issue of abortionAbortionAbortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
, but felt that freedom of speech should prevail); - The right to inform people about methods of suicide and to discuss the danger or reliability of various methods.
Biography
Spaink was born in Amsterdam and trained as a secondary schoolSecondary school
Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...
teacher from 1975 to 1981, specialising in English. From 1981 to 1984 she studied sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
at the University of Amsterdam.
She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...
in 1986. She started writing freelance around this time.
In 1986 and 1987 she trained as a computer programmer, at Volmac and Fokker
Fokker
Fokker was a Dutch aircraft manufacturer named after its founder, Anthony Fokker. The company operated under several different names, starting out in 1912 in Schwerin, Germany, moving to the Netherlands in 1919....
. In this period she worked for the Pacifist Socialist Party
Pacifist Socialist Party
The Pacifist Socialist Party was a Dutch left-socialist political party. The PSP played a small role in Dutch politics. It is a predecessor of the GreenLeft.-Before 1957:...
. From 1988 until 1990 she worked for Fokker.
She writes a regular column for Het Parool
Het Parool
Het Parool is an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper. It was founded as a resistance paper during World War II by Frans Van Heuven Goedhart and Jaap Nunes Vaz...
(1992 to present) and previously wrote for De Groene Amsterdammer (1998 to 2000).
From 2001 to 2004 she was an external adviser for the Freedom of the Media bureau (FOM) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe is the world's largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, human rights, freedom of the press and fair elections...
(OSCE), advising them on freedom of speech and the internet.
In 2005 she became the chief editor of a new book series, The Next Ten Years. The first book in the series dealt with electronic patient records (EPR) and the accompanying hack of two major hospitals lead to a debate in parliament. A few months later, the national introduction of EPR's was stalled by the Department of Health, citing Spaink's research. In that same year, she embarked on writing the history of XS4ALL
XS4ALL
XS4ALL is the third-oldest Internet service provider in the Netherlands, after NLnet and SURFnet. However, XS4ALL was the first company to offer Internet access to individuals, since 1993...
and Hack-Tic
Hack-Tic
Hack-Tic was a Dutch hacker magazine published between 1989 and 1993. Throughout its existence, Hack-Tic obtained a cult following and upset the authorities beyond the Dutch borders.- History :...
.
In March 2006, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and subsequently underwent mastectomy
Mastectomy
Mastectomy is the medical term for the surgical removal of one or both breasts, partially or completely. Mastectomy is usually done to treat breast cancer; in some cases, women and some men believed to be at high risk of breast cancer have the operation prophylactically, that is, to prevent cancer...
and chemotherapy
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with an antineoplastic drug or with a combination of such drugs into a standardized treatment regimen....
.
Disputes with New Age proponents over physical ailments
Spaink first came into the national limelight by accusing New AgeNew Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
writers such as Louise Hay
Louise Hay
Louise Hay is an American motivational author, and the founder of Hay House, a publishing company. She has authored several New Thought self-help books, and is best known for her 1984 book, You Can Heal Your Life.-Biography:...
, Thorwald Dethlefsen and Bernie Siegel
Bernie Siegel
Dr. Bernie Siegel MD was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Colgate University and graduated with honors from Cornell University Medical College. He practiced general medicine and pediatric surgery until his retirement in 1989. He is the author of several books on the relationship between the...
of over-simplifying physical ailments by reducing them to a purely psychological phenomenon. Spaink, herself suffering from multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...
, was insulted by the suggestion that her disease was nothing more than the result of her own lack of willingness to heal. (Compare Idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
and responsibility assumption
Responsibility assumption
Responsibility assumption is a doctrine in the personal growth field holding that each individual has substantial or total responsibility for the events and circumstances that befall them in their life...
with Materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
; see also New Thought Movement.)
Her essay Het strafbare lichaam ("The Penal Body") coined neologisms such as kwakdenken ("quack thinking") and orenmaffia ("mind mob") that even made it into the Dutch language
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
dictionary. The latter term derived from the expression that something is "all between the ears," in other words, "all in the mind."
Scientology
In 1995, the Church of ScientologyChurch of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is an organization devoted to the practice and the promotion of the Scientology belief system. The Church of Scientology International is the Church of Scientology's parent organization, and is responsible for the overall ecclesiastical management, dissemination and...
began a legal campaign to remove what it held were copyright infringements and trade secrets from the Internet; see Scientology vs. the Internet. Spaink was one of the first famous Dutch Internet personalities and was one of the first of what became about a hundred Dutch people to put up pages containing the Fishman Affidavit
Fishman Affidavit
The Fishman Affidavit is a set of court documents submitted by ex-Scientologist Steven Fishman in 1993 in the federal case, Church of Scientology International v. Fishman and Geertz The Fishman Affidavit is a set of court documents submitted by ex-Scientologist Steven Fishman in 1993 in the federal...
in protest against the actions of the church.
The Church of Scientology responded by suing Karin Spaink and a large number of Internet providers, including XS4ALL
XS4ALL
XS4ALL is the third-oldest Internet service provider in the Netherlands, after NLnet and SURFnet. However, XS4ALL was the first company to offer Internet access to individuals, since 1993...
, for copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
. Part of the Fishman Affidavit were documents that Fishman had asserted to be the official teachings of Scientology. The defendants responded by challenging the church to prove it was actually the copyright holder of the disputed documents.
The church allowed a Dutch notary
Notary public
A notary public in the common law world is a public officer constituted by law to serve the public in non-contentious matters usually concerned with estates, deeds, powers-of-attorney, and foreign and international business...
to compare the church-copyrighted documents with the texts on Spaink's homepage. Through her lawyers, Karin Spaink received a copy and started rewriting her homepage, just a week away from the court date for handling the motion for summary judgement. Spaink replaced the contested documents with an analysis of the documents, quoting liberally, but not too liberally from them; Dutch copyright law does not have a fair use
Fair use
Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
provision, but allows quotation for purposes of scientific dissemination. A representative of the Church of Scientology used this occurrence to back up an assertion that the church had won the court case.
The hearing on the merits was decided more along both lines: it was found that service providers do have a responsibility for documents that users put up on their web site; however, any claims that Karin Spaink was breaking the church's copyright were found unfounded, because Spaink had reworked her homepage as soon as she had discovered that the church indeed had valid claims to portions of the documents on that homepage. This implicitly meant that the scholarly study of the church's documents on Spaink's homepage was in fact legal according to the decision.
Court costs were divided equally between parties. In the Netherlands these usually run into (only) thousands of euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
s; contrast this with the hundreds of thousands of dollar
Dollar
The dollar is the name of the official currency of many countries, including Australia, Belize, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States.-Etymology:...
s that American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Scientology adversaries had to pay after losing their own, US-based court cases. This may be an indication of why Spaink can still fight the church, and why it is claimed by Scientology critics that the barrage of law suits brought on by the church is not the making use of a legal right, but a form of harassment
Harassment
Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour intended to disturb or upset, and it is characteristically repetitive. In the legal sense, it is intentional behaviour which is found threatening or disturbing...
(barratry
Barratry
Barratry is the name of four legal concepts, three in criminal and civil law, and one in admiralty law.* Barratry, in criminal and civil law, is the act or practice of bringing repeated legal actions solely to harass...
).
The Church of Scientology appealed this decision. A court date was originally planned for September 2002, but was postponed several times. Finally in September 2003, the court decided in favor of Spaink and the internet service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
s on all points, including the below-mentioned decision on links.
The three judges found that Spaink and the providers might indeed have broken Dutch copyright law; quotation is not allowed of works that have not been previously published, and whether or not the release as evidence in a US court case counts as 'publication' was considered dubious. However, the judges felt that they did not have to rule on this subject, because European law states that quotation is legal in case the quotation serves a higher goal. The court held it proven that Scientology is an organisation that tries to undermine democracy, and therefore ruled that Spaink had the right to quote the Church in her exposé.
Scientology appealed once more, this time to the Supreme Court of Netherlands. In July 2005, a few days before the court was expected to rule, Scientology withdrew the appeal. The Supreme Court dismissed Scientology's claims while accepting Scientology's withdrawal. As a consequence of this withdrawal, Scientology has no possibility to appeal to the European Court
European Court
European Court could mean:* the European Court of Justice , an institution of the European Union for the resolution of disputes under EU law, based in Luxembourg....
, because this is only possible when all legal means on country level have been exhausted. The verdict of the appeal court stands, but the Supreme Court did not add an evaluation of its own.
Spaink has continued to criticize Scientology, and actively participates in Project Chanology
Project Chanology
Project Chanology is a protest movement against the practices of the Church of Scientology by members of Anonymous, a leaderless Internet-based group that defines itself as ubiquitous...
's monthly pickets against the organization.
Effects of this court case
In the original court case, the judge upheld the law that ISPs whose customers on their homepages link to copyright infringement are as liable as if the customers infringed on that copyright themselves.This part of the judge's decision caused an uproar in the Dutch internet community, where many claim that a link is not a mechanism for publishing works but merely a reference to a work, although there are a number of voices who feel the judge's decision was correct.
In the verdict of the appeal on September 4, 2003, this ruling was reversed.
Right to Die
Karin Spaink is also involved in the Right to DieRight to die
The right to die is the ethical or institutional entitlement of the individual to commit suicide or to undergo voluntary euthanasia. Possession of this right is often understood to mean that a person with a terminal illness should be allowed to commit suicide or assisted suicide or to decline...
movement; she hosts a website which offers access to information concerning methods of suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. This website has garnered much controversy when, in October 2005, Christopher Aston (25) and Maria Williams (42) from Liverpool and London respectively, entered into a suicide pact
Suicide pact
A suicide pact is an agreed plan between two or more individuals to commit suicide. The plan may be to die together, or separately and closely timed. Suicide pacts are important concepts in the study of suicide, and have occurred throughout history, as well as in fiction.Suicide pacts are generally...
after meeting on a newsgroup discussing the same subject.
External links
- Karin Spaink's homepage in Dutch and English
- Spaink's cancer blog, or clog, in Dutch