January 3, 1995 TO: INTERNET REMAILER OPERATORS FROM: THOMAS M. SMALL COUNSEL FOR RELIGIOUS TECHNOLOGY CENTER AND BRIDGE PUBLICATIONS, INC. I represent Religious Technology Center ("RTC"), which owns the unpublished, confidential Advanced Technology of the religion of Scientology, and holds exclusive rights under the copyrights applicable to the Advanced Technology materials. I also represent Bridge Publications, Inc., which holds the exclusive right to print, publish and sell various non-confidential works by the founder of the Scientology religion, L. Ron Hubbard, and to make and publish compilations and derivative works of and from those works and to enforce all rights in them. It has come to my attention that there are two alternate newsgroups on the Internet to which individuals have been annonymously posting certain of my clients' published and unpublished copyrighted materials, including certain of the confidential Advanced Technology materials. These confidential materials being posted were stolen from my client. There is reason to believe that the materials which are uploaded by these users may also be downloaded by other users, and that these activities may be occurring through the systems which are linked into the Internet. The two newsgroups into which these materials are being copied are alt.technology.clearing and alt.religion. Scientology. We request your assistance in dealing with the problem. The spread of infringements and misappropriations by the users will be lessened if you lock out from your systems the two newsgroups involved, alt.religion.scientology and alt.technology.clearing, limiting the potential for reposting and downloading. It will then be easier to deal with the intentional infringers through appropriate channels. Both the uploading and downloading of these materials constitute unauthorized copying and distribution of the materials in violation of our clients' rights under United States copyright laws and the law of other countries, where applicable. Damages and an injunction against further unauthorized copying and distribution may be obtained against infringers and, all unauthorized copies and all materials and equipment by which the unauthorized copies may be reproduced can be impounded. Unauthorized disclosure of the confidential Advanced Technology materials also violates applicable trade secrets laws. Action is being taken directly with the systems users who we know are primarily responsible for these violations of my clients' rights. We hope those actions will put an end to the infringements by these users. We do {not} wish to involve others in litigation. Unfortunately, however, such actions will be unavoidable where there is contributory infringement by those who knowingly induce or contribute to the infringing conduct of these users by providing facilities or systems that enable the direct infringers to infringe, because we legally must take all actions to protect our clients' property rights. Courts are holding such contributory infringers liable. Two examples are: Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Maphia BBS, 30 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1921 (N.D. Cal. 1994) and Playboy Enterprises v. Frena, 839 F. Supp. 1152 (M.D. Fla. 1993). Recent proposed legislation regarding potential liability of systems operators and others who provide facilities or services, such as annonymous remailers, for information passing through their systems has understandably created concern on the part of systems operators as a potential liability. We ask your voluntary assistance in dealing with these known wilful infringers so that we can both deal with the problem without legal hassles, and legal liability can be confined to those who intend to create the situation. We ask that you confirm that you have blocked access to these newsgroups through your remailer. If you are unwilling to do so, we ask that you inform us as to the reasons for your position. Sincerely, Thomas M. Small