(Text from Kooks of the Month website, "www.wetware.com/mlegare/kotm/") 

Kook of the Month (KotM)
August 1995
Helena Kobrin
(hkk@netcom.com)

Lawyer associated with the Church of Scientology, made the breathtaking 
threat to sue ALL OF USENET in order to prevent the dissemination of 
"trade secret" religious text of the CoS.

Evidence:

Lawyer Sues Internet - Film at 11! Here's the letter that won Helena 
Kobrin the KotM Award for [August] 1995

Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: (fwd) NOTICE FROM RTC TO ALL INTERNET USERS
Path: news.gate.net!news.sprintlink.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!uune
t!in1.uu.net!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!hk k
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 12:19:04 -0700 (PDT)
From: Helena Kobrin
Subject: NOTICE FROM RTC TO ALL INTERNET USERS
Message-ID:
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Distribution: world
Lines: 58

Dear Net Users:

I represent Religious Technology Center ("RTC"), the owner of the 
confidential Advanced Technology of the religion of Scientology, and the 
holder of the exclusive rights under the copyrights applicable to the 
Advanced Technology materials. Among these copyrighted and confidential 
materials are the Advanced Technology materials of a level known as "OT 
Levels." I have been informed that many of you are wantonly and widely 
distributing approximately 80 pages of OT Levels numbered I - VII 
without the authorization of my client, who, of course, would not have 
given such authorization had it been requested. Your action violates my 
client's legal rights in that it is the unauthorized making of an 
electronic copy of the copyrighted material and the wholly unauthorized 
disclosure of trade secrets materials.

These actions constitute violations of applicable copyright laws and 
trade secret misappropriation entitling our client to damages and an 
injunction. This is true regardless of whether you ever signed an 
agreement with respect to the confidentiality of the OT materials. You 
are on notice that they are regarded as trade secrets, and case law from 
several jurisdictions holds that an individual who is on notice is 
liable for trade secret misappropriation. The only way these materials 
could ever have left the church is through outright theft or 
misappropriation.

It is essential that you take immediate and effective action to remove 
the unauthorized copies from your Web pages, servers, net news groups 
and any other places or means of distribution, and that you refrain from 
any repetition of this or similar acts in the future. You are also to 
delete these and any other OT materials from your hard drive and any 
floppy disks and to destroy any hard copies you have made.

In addition, your downloading of the copyright and trade secret 
materials also violates laws prohibiting copyright infringement and 
trade secret misappropriation. Your use and disclosure of these 
materials is *not* fair use. United States courts routinely find that 
the unpublished nature of a work is a factor which weighs against a 
finding of fair use. No court has ever found that use of stolen 
unpublished works is fair. There is also no fair use defense to trade 
secret misappropriation. The OT materials have been found to be trade 
secrets by the United States District Court for the Southern District of 
California in Bridge Publications, Inc. v. Vien, 827 F. Supp. 629, 633 
(S.D. Cal. 1993). No court has ever ruled to the contrary.

I will expect immediate responses from all of you with a statement of 
your willingness to comply with these demands. If known abusers of my 
clients confidential materials do not comply immediately, we will have 
no other recourse but to initiate legal action against all of you to 
compel compliance.

Sincerely,
Helena K. Kobrin