The potential of the Internet to link individuals from all corners of the world and unify diverse cultures and nationalities makes it a priceless resource for improving understanding between peoples. The freedom provided by the Internet is also open to abuse, and unless certain rules are applied on the Internet -- as well as off it -- we will not have global freedom of expression but rather cyber-terrorism. Over-regulation will also ensue if a few dishonest individuals are allowed to flout the law and spoil the new freedom for everyone. Freedom of speech is an essential component of a free society. So, too, is an individual’s freedom not to speak and to determine where, when, to whom and how much to speak. Similarly, an author by and large has the right to determine whether his words will be published or not, where they will be published, when, to whom and how much. Thus, intellectual property rights and free expression coexist.

The United States Constitution authorized Congress: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

The Church’s recent actions to protect its scriptures from abuse through application of copyright and trade secrets laws have aroused considerable media interest. As a number of religious leaders and computer experts recently pointed out, this is not the first time that the Church has gone where others feared to tread. Just as we pioneered the use of the Freedom of Information Act in the 1970s and 1980s and published a widely used booklet instructing people on how to use it, so today the Church is in the forefront of protecting intellectual property rights in new electronic forums. The individuals whom the Church has sued for illegal copying and distribution of its religious works have made no serious effort to refute the Church’s extensively documented case. Unable to mount a coherent defense that addresses the actual issues, they have instead attempted to route the attention of the courts and the media away from their crimes and into other issues such as free speech. Violators of copyright and trade secret laws traditionally try to hide behind free speech and illegitimate ’fair use’ claims and United States Courts regularly reject such claims in upholding copyrights.

For example, in a 1995 ruling, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California rejected an argument that an injunction to prevent illegal dissemination of the Church's protected works on the Internet would interfere with free speech rights. It held that:

"... the 1976 [Copyright] Act explicitly sanctions the use of preliminary injunctions in the case of copyright infringement.... The Supreme Court has recognized that the Copyright Act itself embodies a balance between the rights of copyright holders, guaranteed by the Constitution... and the protections of the First Amendment."