Editing Scientology and the Internet (section)

=== The Xenu revelation ===
On December 24, 1994, the first of a large number of anonymous messages was posted to ''alt.religion.scientology'', containing the text of the "secret" writings of Scientology known as the ''[[Operating Thetan|OT Levels]]'' (OT stands for "Operating Thetan"). Included among these postings was [[Xenu|OT III]] (''Operating Thetan Level Three''), which gave L. Ron Hubbard's description of the "[[Xenu]] story". 

The Xenu story had been published in the Robert Kaufman book ''[[Inside Scientology: How I Joined Scientology and Became Superhuman]]'' in 1972, in ''[[The Philadelphia Inquirer]]'' in 1977, and several times in the 1980s in the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'';<ref>[http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/d24819df480c74bb?hl=en&dmode=source The Un-Funny Truth about ARS] alt.religion.scientology, 3 September 2010</ref> nevertheless, this action brought on the actions of lawyers representing Scientology, who contacted various newsgroup participants and posted warnings demanding that the unauthorized distribution of the OT writings cease. The lawyers described the documents as "copyrighted, [[trademark]]ed, unpublished trade secrets", and the distribution of the materials as a violation of [[copyright law]] and [[trademark law]].<ref>{{cite web | first = Alan | last = Prendergast | title = Hunting rabbits, serving spam: The net under siege | url = https://www.westword.com/news/hunting-rabbits-serving-spam-the-net-under-siege-5055579 | work = [[Westword|Denver Westword]] | publisher = [[Village Voice Media]] | date = 1995-10-04 | access-date = 2008-03-08 }}</ref>

The first postings of the ''OT'' documents were done through an [[anonymous remailer]], and the identity of the person who made them available on the newsgroup was never discovered.  However, Dennis Erlich posted replies to these messages on the newsgroup, and his replies contained the entire text of the original messages (including the disputed materials).  Scientology's lawyers therefore approached him, declaring that Erlich had re-published the copyrighted works in his newsgroup messages.  Erlich's reply to this was to deny their requests to remove his postings from the newsgroup.