SAN FRANCISCO—A federal judge Thursday questioned what further action the organizational body of the Jehovah’s Witness faith plans to pursue after an anonymous Reddit user took down disputed works in a copyright case where the user’s identity hangs in the balance. 

“The poster is outside the territory of the U.S.; the church’s main concerns have been addressed by the takedown,” said U.S. District Judge James Donato of the Northern District of California at a hearing Thursday morning. “Isn’t that enough to call it a day?”

Donato seemed skeptical of the possible legal avenues for Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ administrative organization that subpoenaed social media site Reddit in January. The subpoena seeks to reveal the identity of a foreign user who reportedly infringed upon two of Watch Tower’s copyrights in the website’s forum for former Jehovah’s Witnesses. Digital rights nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation has intervened on behalf of the anonymous user.

In the hearing, EFF lawyers argued that the subpoena should be quashed, arguing that the Reddit poster’s use of the material—a one-page magazine advertisement encouraging readers to make online donations to the church and a Watch Tower chart that describes its personal data gathering policies—amounted to fair use under copyright law. Reddit has since taken down the ad, and the user, who goes by Darkspilver, has taken down the chart. 

Despite the takedowns and Darkspilver’s international status, Watch Tower’s in-house counsel Paul D. Polidoro said that it’s the organization’s right to de-anonymize Darkspilver to bring a permanent injunction, wherever the user is. Donato pointed out that it could not be a U.S. injunction by law. 

The judge, however, also pushed back against the idea that the posting of entire documents could be considered fair use. “When you take a wholesale document and throw it up, how is that fair use?” he asked. 

Alex Moss, EFF staff attorney and its Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents, said the advertisement is functional, not creative, and that Darkspilver could not use any less than the whole advertisement to make his point that the church is devoting a whole page of its magazine to solicit online donations, against its own teachings. Moss also suggested that page is one part of a larger copyrighted magazine. 

“It’s a small portion of a 32-page work,” Moss said. “What’s registered is the entire magazine, even if its a standalone article on [Watch Tower’s website].”

Donato said he would deliver his ruling shortly. “Well shortly, in district court terms,” he said.