At 7.20 am on 13 February, the 48 year-old manager of a photography business in LA Dennis Erlich, was interrupted checking his e-mail by a police officer brandishing a Federal court order to search his house. An army of computer experts and lawyers seized and deleted hundreds of computer disks and files. Six hours later, Erlich was left facing a lawsuit for copyright theft and violation of trade secrets. A war that has been raging on the Internet for months had finally spilled out into the 'real' world.

"This is not something that's happening in cyberspace. This is something that's happening in my house,"says Erlich.

Erlich is accused of posting copyright material to alt.religion. scientology, an Internet newsgroup that debates the teachings of the Church of Scientology. This 'religion' was founded by sci-fi writer L. Ron Hubbard in 1954 and has a number of celebrity members, such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta. But it has been denounced by many as a dangerous cult. Erlich's accusers are companies owned by the cult itself in order to trademark its writings.

Erlich, who is an ex-minister of the Church of Scientology, claims it just wants to silence his fierce criticism and have already tried other methods, including pursuading Internet operators to closedown the newsgroup. Scientology lawyer Helena Kobrin claims he is involved in "copyright terrorism." Everyone agrees it's a highly-charged test case for the application of intellectual property law in the online world.

The Church of Scientology is also suing Erlich's bulletin board service operator, Tom Klemesrud, and Netcom, which provides his Internet connection, for merely carrying Erlich's postings. This is fuelling the argument, presented by the Shari Steele, legal council for civil liberties organisation the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others, that this is, above all, an attack on freedom of speech on the Net.