''Intellectual Reserve, Inc. v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry, Inc.'', 75 F. Supp. 2d 1290 (D. Utah 1999), was a

United States district court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district, which each cover o ...

decision on the subject of

deep linking In the context of the World Wide Web, deep linking is the use of a hyperlink that links to a specific, generally searchable or indexed, piece of web content on a website (e.g. "http://example.com/path/page"), rather than the website's home page ( ...

and contributory infringement of

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

Background

The plaintiff,

Intellectual Reserve, Inc. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian Christian church that considers itself to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. The chu ...

, is a

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

-based corporation that owns the copyright and has the rights to other intellectual property assets used by

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...

. The defendants, Utah Lighthouse Ministries, Inc., operate a web site and publishes material critical of the Church.Summary of Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministries (LDS Copyright Case)
Tech Law Journal, last updated on December 29, 1999, retrieved December 31, 2006. The LDS Church had printed a work of text called the ''

Church Handbook of Instructions The ''General Handbook: Serving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'' is an on-line book of instructions and policies for leaders and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The contents are prepared ...

: Book 1, Stake Presidencies and Bishoprics''. This work had not been published, and had been prepared only for use within the church. The defendants had obtained a copy of the work and published parts of it on their website without reproducing the Intellectual Reserve, Inc. copyright notice. The copyrighted text had also been disseminated to other websites who had published the material, to which the defendants' website linked.

Arguments

The plaintiffs moved for a preliminary injunction and argued that: * they had a valid copyright to the material that the defendants had posted on their website, * that they were likely to establish at trial that those who had posted the material on the three websites had infringed the plaintiff's copyright, * that anyone who browsed the three websites was infringing the plaintiff's copyright by making a copy of the material and * that the defendants actively encouraged the infringement of the plaintiff's copyright. The plaintiffs also argued that * they had demonstrated a likelihood of success and that there was a presumption of injury, and * the plaintiffs would suffer "immediate and real irreparable harm" if the defendants were "permitted to post the copyrighted material or to knowingly induce, cause or materially contribute to the infringement of plaintiff's copyright by others".

Court finding

The court originally granted a

preliminary injunction An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in par ...

for the plaintiff and ordered the defendant to remove from the website the material that allegedly infringed plaintiff's copyright, and to refrain from reproducing or distributing verbatim in a tangible medium any material that allegedly infringed the copyright. The court then issued a

permanent injunction An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in par ...

that "dissolved and vacated" the preliminary injunction, replacing it with an injunction based on a settlement between the parties.November 30, 2000 Permanent Injunction and Judgment and Settlement Stipulation
/ref> In this injunction the court forbade Utah Lighthouse Ministry from posting on the Internet, displaying, or reproducing the ''

''. Lighthouse Ministry was further prohibited from posting on the Internet the URLs of any websites that hosted any materials from the ''

''.

Impact

Preliminary impact

The defendants did not raise the issue of the doctrine of

fair use Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...

in their defense. The case did not affect situations where the material being linked to is posted by the copyright holder or with the permission of the copyright holder. This case did not raise the issue of transitivity, i.e. it is irrelevant whether the site that is being linked to contains any other questionable publications or links not related directly to the referenced material. If the transitivity was assured, virtually no single website would be eligible for linking, as the copyright infringement can occur in user comments or user links. The preliminary finding was, as long as a link leads to a material legally published, the link should be considered valid.

Permanent impact

The permanent injunction "dissolved and vacated" the preliminary injunction's and temporary restraining order's legal effects on the defendants. However, the court's order remains valid case law, and it has been cited by a few other courts.

Notes

References

External links

* {{caselaw source , case = ''Intellectual Reserve, Inc. v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry, Inc.'', 75 F. Supp. 2d 1290 (D. Utah 1999) , courtlistener = , googlescholar = https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=13435684249924022232 , justia =https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/75/1290/2369809/ , other_source1 = Supreme Court (slip opinion) , other_url1 =http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/cjoyce/copyright/release10/IntRes.html
Utah Lighthouse Ministry
(defendants' website)

news and court documents related to the case. 2000 in religion 2000 in United States case law 20th-century Mormonism Mormonism and law History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Christianity and law in the 20th century United States district court cases