From the Blawgernacle – October 5, 2009
Jeff Breinholt has two legal posts on Mormon Matters. The first looks at family court cases involving Mormons. The second examines the LDS Church and intellectual property cases, focusing primarily on cases in which the Mormon Church was sued. There are enough IP cases brought by the Church to fill a whole different post.
Dave Banack has a very good post at Times & Seasons about the founding of Nauvoo , drawing from Glen Leonard’s Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, a People of Promise. I was interested to read about the Nauvoo city charter, which some historical commentators have criticized for allowing habeus corpus powers and legislation that conflicted with state law. Leonard’s book points out that this was common language from previously drafted city charters. Even in the example of authorizing a militia or university, institutions normally not addressed in city charters, Dave notes: “These institutions were generally organized by separate charters. Later friction with neighboring communities was largely rooted in the use and exercise of charter powers by the municipal government in Nauvoo, not with the actual provisions of the charter themselves.”
At Adventures in Mormonism Bruce Webster writes on the expulsion of Mormon missionaries from Guyana. He notes, as I did, that the expulsion seems to be politically motivated, and quotes an MSNBC article that suggests that the People’s Progressive Party may have been suspicious of Mormon humanitarian relief programs in the country.
Shawn Nevers of Hunter’s Query notes that BYU Law prof Lynn Wardle has posted two new articles to SSRN. Professor Wardle is one of a small group of law professors that argue against same-sex marriage, and I gather that his positions are rather unpopular in the larger academy. I actually heard him speak on same-sex marriage at a law school several years ago, and I have never heard so many angry comments at the Q&A session that followed.
There are enough IP cases brought by the Church to fill a whole different post.
Are there? I looked into this recently, and the only published case I could find in which the Church sued to enforce its IP rights was Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry. The Church sends out DMCA letters somewhat regularly, but I’m not sure that it actually litigates many cases.
Thanks for the shout-out, Peter. I really enjoyed Leonard’s discussion of the Nauvoo charter, which provided a lot of detail that could easily have been covered in other discussions I’ve read in general LDS histories but wasn’t. The context provided by Leonard is a good example of why LDS history is best written by real historians.
Whoops. Steve, you’re exactly right about the actual number of cases being small. I was thinking about incidents of infringement, which are very common on the internet. The most frequent document seems to be the Church Handbook of Instructions, as was at issue in the Utah Lighthouse Ministry case. I believe the Handbook is still currently available on WikiLeaks, along with a sizeable collection of Scientology documents. I guess the LDS Church is sticking with DMCA requests and C&D letters, rather than raise the visibility of the infringement further. It’s probably a prudent course of action, considering the backlash Scientology copyright litigation has caused.
Dave, thanks again for the post. I’m not much of a LDS Church History expert, but I’ve seen enough bits and pieces to know that most of it is pretty amateur.