AUTHOR: Booker, Ellis TITLE: Church files lawsuit to keep teachings off-line CITATION: Computerworld. v29n9. Feb 27, 1995. p. 4, 1 pages. PUB DATE: 950227 JOURNAL INFO: ISSN: 0010-4841 NAMED COMPANY 1: Church of Scientology NAMED COMPANY 2: Netcom On-Line Communications Services Inc COPYRIGHT: Copyright CW Publishing Inc 1995 TEXT: Last week, the Church of Scientology failed in its attempt to hold a computer bulletin board service (BBS) provider and an Internet access provider responsible for the public postings of a former Scientologist critical of the church. A federal judge in San Jose, Calif., refused to grant a preliminary injunction to stop the companies from publishing any material that the church claimed was copyrighted. The church alleged that former Scientology minister Dennis Erlich illegally posted copyrighted material and revealed the church teachings, which the church said it considers to be "trade secrets." U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Whyte, while refusing to grant the injunction, did agree to a restraining order against Erlich from publishing additional materials. Erlich could not be reached for comment last week. But one of those named in the Church's suit, Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc. in San Jose, said the outcome of the case will be significant for Internet providers. "We as a company believe the involvement of our firm is inapplicable," said Warren Kaplin, executive vice president at Netcom. Tom Klemesrud, a BBS operator in Los Angeles, and Netcom were each served with a complaint and a request for a preliminary injunction on Feb. 4. Whyte denied the requests last Tuesday. Two other cases have been decided by federal courts on the matter of copyright violations via on-line systems, but both involved BBS operators and not Internet access providers. The court found in both cases that the services had been aware of and actively invited the copyright infringements. No surprise Legal experts said the court's decision not to extend liability for Erlich's messages to the access providers was not surprising. "It looks like the judge did not want to exercise prior restraint against Netcom or the BBS," said Lance Rose, a principal at Lance Rose & Associates in Montclair, N.J. Shari Steele, director of legal services at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a Washington advocacy group, was also not surprised. "I was very pleased; that's the way it should have gone," she said. A more significant development, Rose said, was the church's apparent success earlier this month in a separate case in Finland. The church succeeded in pressuring Finnish police to force Johan Helsingius, creator of a popular anonymous server, to release the name of a user on the system it believed had stolen a church document. "We're probably in the early stages of a seesaw battle between the people who want anonymity and the people who want to keep people from being anonymous," Rose said. "There may be various reasons to be anonymous, but when people want to commit criminal acts or violate property rights, that's not a legitimate reason," said Helena Kobrin, a lawyer representing the church. In the Erlich case, Kobrin argued that technologies are available to help access providers monitor the actions of their users. Rose countered it is "perfectly reasonable" for carriers of communications such as Netcom to say they cannot watch over all their traffic. "That's what we argued," said Randy Rice, a partner at Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, the San Jose law firm representing Netcom. He said that being alerted to Erlich's presence on Netcom "doesn't tell us whether he is violating their copyright" and that monitoring every upload would be "an impossible burden." Rice said Netcom intended to file a motion to dismiss the case on or before March 16. Censor-y perception A proposed law is drawing opposition from those who say it will have a chilling effect on the open flow of on-line information and extend Federal Communications Commission regulation over new technologies, including computer networks. Proponents of the Communications Decency Act of 1995 say it would simply extend laws against obscene and harassing phone calls. But others counter that the legislation, introduced Feb. 2 by Sen. James Exon (D-Neb.), would force access providers to become censors or face $100,000 fines and possible two-year jail terms. "We should hold wrongdoers responsible and not shoot the postman or turn him into a censor," said David R. Johnson, chairman and senior policy fellow at the EFF in Washington.