The Longmont (Colorado) Daily Times-Call Tuesday, August 22, 1995 -- Front Page HEADLINE: Marshals raid homes in county (by) Pam Regensberg and B.J. Plasket The Daily Times-Call NIWOT - U S. Marshals raided Niwot and Boulder homes today seizing computer software, hardware and other electronic gear to halt what the Church of Scientology claims is copyright infringement. Church officials claim Bob Penny of Niwot and Larry Wollersheim of Boulder, who were both reportedly excommunicated from the church, placed copyrighted Scientology material on the Internet. However, Penny, speaking through a friend over the telephone today, said the material that was placed on the Internet was legally obtained information from court documents. The material placed on the electronic bulletin board was information taken from a California case in which Steven Fishman sued the church and won over a similar copyright case. At noon today, marshals were boxing up Penny's belongings. According to a press release issued by a church spokesperson, today's search and seizure follows a similar raid 10 days ago on a colleague of Wollersheim's and Penny's in Virginia. "The courts take these matters very seriously," said the plaintiff's Denver lawyer, Todd Blakely. "The law is clear-if you are going to violate copyrights, you will have to answer for it in court." Gail Armstrong, a spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles, scoffed at claims the materials were in the public domain because they were contained in a public court record. "The fact that copyrighted material is contained in a court record does not at all mean the copyright can be violated," she said. "Anything filed in court does not become public domain if it is copyrighted." Helena Kobrin, cited by the church as an intellectual property law expert, also discounted the argument that Wollersheim and Penny's right to free speech allows them to place the copyrighted material on the Internet. "Violators of copyright and trade secret laws traditionally try to hide behind free speech claims," she said. "The church is a strong advocate of free speech, however free speech does not mean free theft and no one has the right to cloak themselves in the First Amendment to break the law." Tina Rowe, the head of the U.S. Marshal's office in Denver, was unavailable for comment on the raid at press time this afternoon.