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On October 25 1996, the day of the premiere of FOX's new show Millenium, Gil Trevizo, a member of the X-Phile community, received a cease-and-desist order concerning the Unofficial Millennium site he had made. When he didn't follow the order, his 'net access disconnected. The college student could not access to either the web or his email account.
Many X-Philes became fearful, wondering if this was just the first step in a campaign by FOX against all unofficial websites. Many people flooded the company with emails protesting against their actions, even managing to crash FOX's email server. Gil attempted to negotiate with David Oakes, the FOX representative, but there was no compromise. The site came down Monday, October 28, meaning FOX won. It could have ended there. But it hasn't. Suggestions are that this is the first step in a FOX Network campaign to end the existence of unofficial web sites for their shows ... a test case to see the response on the world wide web.
We intend to give them a response, all right - we intend to fight.
We cannot even begin to understand why a company would insult its many fans by shutting down our sites. Many, such as mine, show loyalty to the shows and the characters we enjoy watching. It is becoming clear that this is not just a matter of either copyright or trademark ... but that FOX wants complete and total control over how everything about their company is shown on the Internet. If we cannot reach a fair and peaceful conclusion, we are willing to fight for our rights.
Juliet A. Singleton, Owner of The X-File Shrine
The basic text on this page created by Deirdre Warshall, [email protected], originally modified by D. Joan Leib. I rewrote it for my own site, excluding the letter. Permission to reproduce this page, in whole or in part, with proper attributions, is freely granted.