The Open Stories Foundation and John Dehlin's lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit the LDS church filed that alleges trademark and copyright infringement. The Motion to Dismiss has 4 key parts.

1. First Amendment Protections.

This part of the motion mentions several cases that offer relevant precedents that allow for the title of an expressive work to have first amendment protections.

In the Rodgers case the court wrote:

>Titles, like the artistic works they identify, are of a hybrid nature, combining artistic expression and commercial promotion. The title of a movie may be both an integral element of the filmmaker’s expression as well as a significant means of marketing the film to the public. The artistic and commercial elements of titles are inextricably intertwined. Film-makers and authors frequently rely on word-play, ambiguity, irony, and allusion in titling their works. Furthermore, their interest in freedom of artistic expression is shared by their audience. The subtleties of a title can enrich a reader’s or a viewer’s understanding of a work. Consumers of artistic works thus have a dual interest: They have an interest in not being misled and they also have an interest in enjoying the results of the author’s freedom of expression. For all these reasons, the expressive element of titles requires more protection than the labeling of ordinary commercial products.

The lawyers highlight several factors in various legal precidents that protect Mormon Stories.

• It's related to artistic and editorial expression. The term Mormon is descriptive of the speech and topics in the podcast. The OSF is an non-profit organization and is nationally recognized for discussion of Mormonism and doesn't infringe on a specific church product or service.
• The title isn't explicity misleading.
• It's dissimilarity to the LDS Church goods and services. The church's lawsuit talks about them as a religion operating humanitarian, genealogical, educational and other services. The lawyers say the Mormon Stories podcast is very clearly dissimilar to that. It is not a religion. It's an interview show.
• Mormon Stories has "additional expressive content". It doesn't just copy what the LDS church offers.
• No evidence of motivation to capitalize on the church's popularity.
• The word "Mormon" is used to describe the content of the Mormon Stories shows and publications.
• There are no public statements by John or OSF that they represent the church. They have had disclaimers from the beginning.

All of these bullet points reflect requirements that courts have set in other previous cases to apply first amendment protections over a trademark claim. The lawyers are saying Mormon Stories meets all these requirements.

2. The Trademark Claims by the Church are barred under the principle of "Laches" - meaning the church waited too long. This is also one of their affirmative defenses in the answer to the lawsuit, but they say it is also appropriate to consider in the motion to dismiss. The church admitted that the podcast has been in existence for 20 years. There is a principle in the laches argument that when the accused infringing party spent time, effort and money to a trademark then it is harder for an accuser to come in late and say they have to stop it now. This is termed as "defendant's prejudice".

3. THE CHURCH FAILS TO PROVIDE A CLEAR PICTURE OF ITS TRADEMARK THEORIES. This argument is interesting. The church is vague and ambiguous in it's claims which makes responding to them difficult for the defense. This is a principle in the law that you must make specific claims that can be discussed and debated.

• The church inappropriately lists over a dozen trademark registrations and vaguely accuses Mormon Stories of violating this group of marks. There is no such legal idea of a group of marks.
• The church lists multiple visual and historical design choices across 20 years of podcasting but never explicitly specify which exact action violates which propprietary Church trademark.
• Under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a lawsuit can't rely on sweeping conclusions. This is what the Church lawsuit does. Because the church fails to provide precise, itemized list of trademark theories Mormon Stories can't properly respond and so the trademark complaints should be dismissed.

4. PLAINTIFFS’ COPYRIGHT CLAIM SHOULD BE DISMISSED FOR FAILURE TO PLEAD WHEN THE ALLEGED INFRINGEMENTS OCCURRED

• In this section the lawyers highlight the four requirements of a copyright claim. This only relates to the claim that Mormon Stories used 51 copyrighted images in their materials. The 4 requirements are: Identify the specific items, demonstrate they own the copyright, that the works have been registered and state when the infringement occured.
• The church never states when the infringement of the copyrighted works occurred making this claim deficient and should be dismissed. They cite other cases where this information was missing and the case was dismissed.
• They state that if they church is allowed to amend their complaint, that they be required to state when and for how long the copyrighted works were infringed.

The plaintiffs will file a response to the Motion to Dismiss and eventually a hearing on the motion will be scheduled. So it will be interesting to watch this play out.

Below I've summarized the Answer and Counterclaims of OSF and John Dehlin to the LDS Church's lawsuit against them. In responding to the LDS Lawsuit, the OSF attorney's make some defenses and then counter claims.

So first in answering they make 16 affirmative defenses. An affirmative defense describes how what you did (even if true as the church is claiming) is not illegal for various legal reasons.

Summary of Affirmative Defenses

1. "Laches and Aquiescence". This is a valid defense in trademark cases. Laches is a word that goes back to latin roots. In the law it's been used in English for about 900 years meaning negligence in the performance of a legal duty. If the party holding the trademark waits too long to act then they can't try to enforce the trademark now. A party over time may invest a lot in their brand and it's not then deemed allowed to come in after that long term investment and try to enforce a trademark.

The document goes over how Mormon Stories has been in existence since 2005 (more than 20 years) and gives evidence that higher ups in the church knew about it (meetings between John and Apostle Holland for example).

2. Prior Use by Mormon Stories. John started the podcast in 2005. The church didn't get a trademark on Mormon for education until 2007. John has priority of use.

3. Genericness of the word "Mormon". Shouldn't be trademarked.

4. Fair Use of the copyrighted images. The OSF response says that 48 of the 51 images are available for free on the PR page of the church where the church says news media can use them. They claim all the images were used strictly for commentary and criticism which is a defense under fair use.

Summary of Counterclaims

1. OSF and John Dehlin ask the court to cancel 11 different trademarks the church has registered.

• Mormon (1 trademark)
• Book of Mormon & Book of Mormon Stories ( 6 trademarks)
• Mormon Channel (1 trademark)
• Mormon Messages (1 trademark)
• Mormon Tabernacle Choir (2 trademarks)

They claim evidence of abandonment of all of them. They also give evidence of fraud and misrepresentation in sworn statements to the US Patent and Trademark Office where the church has made recent submissions that falsely and fraudulent claim they are still using these names. For example in 2005 they submitted a CD case cover from 2005 for that had the words "Mormon Tabernacle Choir" as if it were recent. They submitted a concert program from 2023 for a "Mormon Tabernacle Choir Alumni" live Christmas Concert. While all public materials and concerts referred to them as the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. This was their "Specimen of Use" to document they still were actively using the name "Mormon Tabernacle Choir". What a bunch of liars the LDS Church is.

2. In the counterclaims they discuss the public purging of the word Mormon while submitting false declarations to the USPTO to maintain registrations. They discuss how the church president said calling the church by the name Mormon is a "victory for satan".

They claim the Deseret Book product page for the choir CD was actually an edited altered specimen for their filing. The LDS Church appears to be dishonest here.

3. They try to take apart the churches examples of consumer confusion. The church lawsuit had comments on social media. The defense exposes these as deceptive. They discuss how they were for non-Mormon Stories content. That they were often taken out of context. Of the comments taken from Mormon Stories channel pages, the OSF lawyers contend none of them are examples of confusion.

4. They discuss the good faith efforts by John to immediately respond in November 2025 and show emails where the church kept moving the goal posts and asking for more and quickly then saying it needed to go to mitigation.

The OSF lawyers say the Church's press release was deceptive and made false statements.

"Worse yet, as quoted below, the Church falsely stated that Defendants refused to adopt a disclaimer, leaving the public with the mistaken impression that Defendants were unwilling to do so. The Church's deceptive press release resulted in numerous online comments labeling Dehlin as deceitful and even threatening comments directed toward Dehlin, such as people hoping that Delhin is squashed like a cockroach or threatening Dehlin with something far worse than a lawsuit."

They show the leaked document from years ago showing John Dehlin as one of the "Issues and Ideas Leading People Away from the Gospel". Essentially their enemies list from 2015.

What is OSF and John asking for?

• Dismiss the complaint with prejudice in favor of the defendants.
• Deny all requests by the Plaintiffs.
• Declare the defendants didn't infringe trademarks or copyrights
• Declare the use of copyrighted images to be fair use.
• Directing the cancelation of the 11 Trademarks discussed
• Declare that the Plaintiff has abondoned trademark rights in the term "Mormon"
• Judgement that the Plaintiffs trademark infringement claims are barred by laches, estoppel and acquiescence. (They waited too long).
• Judgement that the copyright infringement claims are barred by laches, estoppel, acquiescence and statute of limitations. (They waited too long).
• Declare that the church has engaged in trademark and copyright misuse.
• Enjoining the church from misusing the Church's trademark rights and copyrights to interfere with John's podcast and other operations.
• That the judge declare this is an exceptional case and award attorneys' fees and costs (apparently allowed under federal law).
• And a final catch all to award OSF and John further relief as the Court may deem just and proper.

YouTube has just implemented a feature that tells other people which channel shared the link and allows others to direct message your channel on YouTube.

If your channel is simply your name this may dox you.

Three ways to protect your identity.

1. Change privacy settings to disable this. Open the YouTube app and tap You at the bottom right.
   Tap the Gear icon (Settings) in the top right.
   Go to Privacy.
   Scroll down and toggle off Channel Visibility for Shared Links.

2. Create an anonymous channel with a secondary name. You don’t need another email address to do this.

3. I believe deleting everything after the “?” In the YouTube link will eliminate the tracking and identification information.

Happy discussions here on r/mormon.

I believe this is why Christian wasn’t included in the DOD list.

The name of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is so long that the database field wouldn’t hold it AND the word Christian.

Evidence - they couldn’t add Christian to rectify the problem when the blow back happened. They had to remove Christian from all the other names.

It’s so funny how much discussion this DOD list has generated.