Attack on Availability of Osho Videos
Freely downloadable Osho audio-video discourses at www.oshoworld.com are temporarily unavailable due to threats by OIF, Zurich
A letter from Oshoworld
Dear Friends,
The freely downloadable Osho audio-video discourses at www.oshoworld.com are temporarily unavailable since May 05, 2009 due to continuous threats by OIF, Zurich to our US server host .
Recently Trademarks applied for in 1991 by the Zurich entity, after Osho left His body in 1990, were cancelled in the United States. The proceedings of the case clearly showed that Osho had never ever wanted Trademarks or Copyrights and did not give out any such rights to any individual or organization, leave alone the Zurich entity.
The Osho International Foundation (OIF), Zurich, started to register the trademarks of Osho and His meditations soon after Osho left His body in 1990. With the support of these Trademark registrations, the Zurich entity threatened Osho centres and got Osho websites pulled down from the internet and Osho activities were restrained, monopolized and controlled.
OIF started to send legal threats to Osho centres and sannyasins engaged in the work of Osho.
On January 13, 2009, the Trials and Appeals Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office in its decision strongly said that Osho cannot be trademarked. This decision was the culmination of a legal battle started nearly 10 years ago by Osho Friends International (OFI), an association of Osho meditation centres and disciples from all over the world.
Osho International Foundation (OIF), Zurich, filed a Notice of Appeal on March 12, 2009 with respect to the January 13, 2009 decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. OIF filed their appeal in the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit in Washington DC. The appeal is about the correctness of the decision rendered by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board on January 13.
Osho World is taking suitable steps for making the free downloads possible again. Many friends have written supporting and asking for reupload of the discourses.
We thank all friends for their love and support.
Your support is highly valuable and appreciated.
from www.oshoworld.com
“Things can be copyrighted, thoughts cannot be copyrighted, and certainly meditations cannot be copyrighted. They are not things of the marketplace. Nobody can monopolize anything. But perhaps the West cannot understand the difference between an objective commodity and an inner experience. For ten thousand years the East has been meditating and nobody has put trademarks upon meditations.”
OSHO
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti