Ruickbie v. Moonstone copyright dispute

Here are the facts:

Leo Ruickbie, Ph.D. included Origins of Halloween (and possibly other articles) by Rowan Moonstone in his Samhain Sabbat; this material was included in the Riders of the Crystal Wind Book of Shadows (a non-profit gift to the pagan community). He has also copied material from Dorothy Morrison, Joe Berthancourt, Leighanne Hussey and the OTO (or so Moonstone's allegiation claims).

His defense is that the work was in the public domain despite the authors' copyright notice (1989), and that his inclusion of the material in a for-profit work was permissible under fair use.

Rowan Moonstone said:

Please be advised that any inclusion of anything written by Rowan Moonstone in any work edited, written or distributed by Dr. Leo Ruickbie is not authorized. I have expressly forbidden him from using anything that I have ever written, or will write in the future, in any of his works now and in the future---Rowan Moonstone (October 2009).

Ruikbie has removed Samhain Sabbat from sale before a single copy was sold. There was some communication between the two parties, then communications broke down. As always in a situation like this, there are conflicting stories about what really was said by whom.

We do know that Ruickbie advised Morgan Drake Eckstein that he could be sued, claiming that by publishing the original statement of Rowan Moonstone that MDE has became the publisher of said statement and therefore liable to legal action himself (supposely for libel, slander and hate mongering). MDE considered using freedom of the press as his defense.

Instead MDE took down the original post by Moonstone, and substituted this one. These are the facts...therefore draw your own conclusions about the people involved.

Edited yet again on 6 October 09---any day now we are going to end up with a post about the curse of people trying to control the new media.