Ashley Sloboda , The Journal Gazette; Religious education group sues Fort Wayne man over copyright claims
"LifeWise claims in its lawsuit that Parrish signed up online to volunteer with the hope of publishing information that might damage the organization’s reputation and prompt parents to oppose LifeWise Academy chapters in their communities.
Parrish accessed LifeWise’s information storage systems, downloaded internal documents and posted them along with the LifeWise curriculum on his website, parentsagainstlifewise.online, according to the lawsuit. It said Parrish also posted links to the curriculum on the Facebook group.
“He improperly obtained our entire copyright protected curriculum, and he posted to his website without our permission,” LifeWise said in a statement Monday.
LifeWise tried to get Parrish to voluntarily remove its curriculum, but the complaint said the organization’s efforts – including an attorney’s cease-and-desist letter and social media messages the chief operating officer sent him – were unsuccessful.
The lawsuit said Parrish responded to the letter with a meme stating, “It’s called fair use (expletive).”
LifeWise disagrees. In its statement, the organization said its curriculum is licensed through a publisher called LifeWay, and anyone is welcome to purchase the LifeWay curriculum through its website.
“Posting the entire curriculum is not ‘fair use,’ and we are confident that the judge will agree,” LifeWise said Monday."
