Religious Technology Center V. Netcom - Facts

Facts

Plaintiff RTC held copyrights in the unpublished and published works of L. Ron Hubbard, the late founder of the Church of Scientology. Defendant Dennis Erlich was a vocal critic of the Church via the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology ("a.r.s."). Erlich posted portions of copyrighted works of RTC on a.r.s.

Erlich gained his access to the Internet through defendant Tom Klemesrud's bulletin board service ("BBS"), which had approximately 500 paying users. Klemesrud's BBS was linked to the Internet through the facilities of defendant Netcom. When Erlich posted messages to Usenet, he transmitted his messages to Klemesrud's computer using a telephone and a modem, and the messages were briefly stored on Klemesrud's computer. Then the messages were automatically copied from Klemesrud's computer to Netcom's computers and other computers on the Usenet according to a prearranged pattern. Once the messages were on Netcom's computers, they were available to Netcom's customers to download. The messages were stored on Netcom's system for eleven days and Klemesrud's system for three days.

RTC failed to persuade Erlich to stop his postings, and contacted Klemesrud and Netcom. Klemesrud asked RTC to prove that it owned the copyright to the works posted by Erlich, but RTC refused. Netcom similarly refused RTC's request that Erlich not be allowed to access the Internet through its system.