Team of Destiny® Files SLAPP Lawsuit
Against Internet Critic

Since Quixtar Bog has already broken the story about the suit against me, due to Quixtar Blog receiving a subpoena, and in order for me to avoid answering individual questions about the suit from the thousands of people who visit my site, I publish this page.

On March 15, 2004 Orrin Woodward's Team of Destiny ® filed a suit in United States District for the Western District of Michigan Case No. 1:04CV0165 against the author of this website. SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. This comes after the TOD attorney threatened another website, www.mlmblog.net to remove all mention of Team of Destiny ® and its leaders, or also face a lawsuit.

The suit has two counts. The first count is for copyright infringement and the second count is for eavesdropping (recording of an open meeting, which is commonly done by IBOs!). The complaint noticeably lacks any claim of defamation, libel, slander or tortious interference and makes no specific damage claims other than generic damage claims for the copyright and the wiretapping claims. The suit was filed after numerous exchanges of e-mail between TOD's attorney and myself explaining my rights under the Fair Use provision of the Copyright law as well as the laws concerning recording of conversations.

Even after removing all the tape sound bytes to try to pacify Mr. Kuiper's aggressive stance, Mr. Kuiper still asserted that even my personal summary of the TOD tape sound bytes would still be a copyright infringement! In a January 14, letter to me from TOD's attorney it was written:

No doubt the SLAPP suit is to suppress my criticism of TOD and its leaders.

Basically, TOD's attorney Thomas Kuiper, says it is ok to criticize Quixtar but not specifically the Team of Destiny â. It was obvious that Mr. Kuiper would continue threaten me with a suit no mater what I did short of removing all criticism to Team of Destiny ®. It is my opinion that Mr. Kuiper's sole intent is to threaten me with lawsuits and their associated costs to suppress my first amendment right to criticize their business and express my opinions. In December 2003 he wrote:

Here are the E-mail exchanges.
Here is the TOD complaint with my comments as footnotes.

Count 1 of the TOD Complaint:
In my page critical of the Team of Destiny ® business support materials, I had sound byte excerpts from TOD tapes and quotes from the TOD web site, which were used to support my criticism of TOD. Mr. Kuiper, attorney for Wheeler Upham P.C., admits in his complaint there is fair use of copyrighted material, but in this case he says it is not applicable. Kuiper claims I have some sort of an "alliance" with Bo Short, a former Quixtar Diamond featured on NBC Dateline exposing the short comings surrounding the sale of Business Support Materials (BSM's) in Quixtar. TOD operates a Business Support Material's business as well.

Mr. Short and I both happen to be critical of the Quixtar business support materials business. Mr. Short left the Quixtar business after unsuccessfully trying to change Quixtar practices with regard to the business support materials.

Mr. Kuiper alleges Mr. Short has a business that completes with the Team of Destiny â. Mr. Short's business sells consumer goods, like soap and shampoo. Team of Destiny ® on the other hand sells tapes, seminars and other business support materials for their Quixtar IBOs. The TOD company suing me does not receive any revenue from Quixtar for the sale of consumer products. So Mr. Kuiper comes to the logical(?) conclusion that Mr. Short and Team of Destiny ® are competitors. Interesting is that Team of Destiny ® once promoted Bo Short's books and sold cassette tapes when Mr. Short was in Quixtar and when he was a direct competitor to TOD!

Mr. Kuiper alleges that "my alliance" is substantiated by hyperlinks to Mr. Short's pages critical of the Quixtar business support materials business. Mr. Short happens to have his own MLM business, which does not employ a profit-driven BSM's business. I assume Mr. Kuiper believes if someone happens to share the same opinion about what they believe to be an abusive marketing scheme, they therefore lose their Fair Use right under the law.

Despite the fact that Mr. Kuiper knows that it is improper to file a copyright suit for items, which have not been properly registered with copyright office, Mr. Kuiper none the less lists numerous unregistered items as copyright infringements in his complaint. Interesting to note is that TOD only applied for registrations after my internet criticism of these materials appeared.

Mr. Kuiper also claims a recording I made of a TOD open meeting was a copyright infringement. Again, I explained the law to Mr. Kuiper in the January 19, 2004 letter that in order for a work to even be eligible for a copyright, it must exist on to a media. TOD never made a recording of the meeting and it never can be registered since they never put it in a media. Mr. Kuiper none the less claimed copyright infringement on something that is completely ineligible for copyright protection, despite a non-attorney telling him so. Mr. Kuiper has seen the light, and this claim has since been dropped from their amended complaint.

Obviously Mr. Kuiper cares more about harassing an outspoken critic of TOD and Quixtar than he does about reasonable application of the law.

Count 2 of the TOD Complaint:
Mr. Kuiper claims the recording I made of an open meeting is somehow a violation of the Federal Anti-Wiretapping Statute. Also in my January 19th letter to Mr. Kuiper I pointed out the fact such a recording is legal when at least one of the participants agrees to the recording. I of course was one of the agreeing parties, but Mr. Kuiper still claims that the recording is some how illegal. Most states permit the recording of speeches and conversations that take place where the parties may reasonably expect to be recorded. Recording of open meetings in the Amway/Quixtar business has always been a common practice.

All of this information is in the public domain on the Federal Courts Website (Pacer) although you must have a password and pay seven cents per page for downloads.

In September 2003 I posted my first pages about TOD. By the end of September, I mailed a CD-ROM based complaint to the 50 state Attorney Generals with evidence of pyramiding violations by TOD and Quixtar.

In November 2003, TOD complains to my host at www.50megs.com and my site is shut down. TOD did not first complain to me be before going to my host. In November 2003, TOD sent a letter to my employer threatening to subpoena their computers if they decide to file a suit against me.

I was the first to initiate contact with Mr. Kuiper after my host, www.1st-amendment.net, sent me a letter from TOD asking for my site to be removed. Between November 2003 and March 2004 numerous e-mails were exchanged.

On March 15, 2004, TOD filed their suit in Michigan.

On May 28th my attorney wrote a brief to strike the copyright infringement sections concerning the sound bytes from TOD tapes and the open meeting since there was no copyright registration for the tapes or the recording of the open meeting. My attorney argues it is improper to file a copyright suit for materials not registered with the copyright office. Any items covered by registration can never the less be used in accordance with the Fair Use provision of the copyright law.

It was also moved to strike the wiretapping claim. There must be a tort claim in order for the court to grant relief. This means I should be accused of an actionable item such as blackmail, defamation, or some other tort before the recording of the conversation becomes actionable. The act of recording by itself is insufficient to justify a lawsuit. TOD made no tort claims. They only imply that the act of recording itself justifies discovery to find a possible actionable tort.

On June 24th TOD filed an amended complaint. TOD removed the copyright claim on the recording of the open meeting since they did not have a copy to register, as I pointed out months earlier to Mr. Kuiper. TOD claimed the 10 tapes were registered but failed to attach a copy of the 10 registrations to the amended complaint. It is no wonder he did not attach the registrations. Almost a month later on July 16th, Mr. Kuiper actually signs the necessary registration forms. In the amended complaint, TOD also added its criticism of Internet critics, the "Dearest Mommy Letter" as an additional copyright infringement, since I display it on my site. It is curious that TOD's actual complaint doesn't make any charges of "libel, slander, cheating and lies", like TOD's satirical page about its critics implies.

On July 14, Mr. Kuiper sends subpoenas to Quixtar Blog, www.1st-amendment.net and Juno, my e-mail provider. It is curious to note that the threat to subpoena my employer's computers was never carried through. Obviously the letter was to try to disrupt my employment situation and was just another form of harassment to employ against me.

On July 16th Mr. Kuiper finally puts his signature on the ten copyright registration forms for the tapes. Registration is backdated and granted from 6/30/2004. Mr. Kuiper finally caught on for the need to register copyrights months after I told him he needed to have registrations before a suit can be enforced.

On July 23rd, the judge orders voluntary facilitative mediation to take place before the end of September. I'm not sure the value of this since it is apparent to me that TOD is mostly interested in silencing its most vocal critic. As highlighted in the E-mails from Mr. Kuiper, anything short of removing all mention of TOD will be unsatisfactory to TOD.

July 30th, 2004. TOD wants to amend the complaint once more. Mr. Kuiper wants to add a count stating a violation of that federal statute that has to do with hacking into E-mail systems. In Mr. Kuiper's reply, he accuses me of "goading" TOD into suing me so that I could obtain access to their financial records. Of course this is totally false. When one views my letters to Mr. Kuiper, one can see I did as much as possible to highlight my rights under the law and to cooperate as much as possible to avoid confusion about my writings critical of TOD. Mr. Kuiper's reply said pretty much, "do what we ask or TOD will sue you". Mr. Kuiper in most cases never answered my questions, rebutted my arguments about my rights, or replied to my e-mails.

On August 13, 2004, my attorney writes a reply brief for the March 28th motion to dismiss certain items of the complaint. My attorney again argues why the wire tap issue is unsubstantiated since TOD claims no torts. Additionally my attorney asserts that TOD's website copyright registration, which is for a composite work, does not automatically provide registration for articles authored by numerous individuals and compiled into the TOD wetsite.

On August 18, 2004, TOD is yet allowed to file a second amended complaint. It must be filed by September 7th. TOD wants to add a third count for violation of 18 USC 2701.

It will be interesting to see how Mr. Kuiper will "interpret" this law since it deals with "communications" via E-mail and messaging. Is he now going to claim I intercepted and read stored TOD E-mail?