Dowling v. United States
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Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court case deciding on whether copyright infringement could legally be considered theft of goods. (Some copyright advocates consider such infringement theft of intellectual property, using a colloquial definition of the term "theft". However, the subject of Dowling was whether copies of copyrighted works could be regarded as stolen property by virtue of the infringing acts that resulted in their creation.)
Paul Edmond Dowling ran a bootleg recording business distributing Elvis Presley records through the United States Postal Service. Dowling, a zealous Presley fan, worked with William Samuel Theaker to produce records of unreleased Presley recording such as those from concerts and television shows. The two men used the services of a record-pressing company in Burbank, Los Angeles County, California, although after a short production period the parties separated due to Theaker's suspicions of an FBI investigation. Dowling and Theaker then turned to Richard Minor to press the records.
Dowling used his extensive knowledge of Presley to find music to bootleg. Theaker handled the marketing and sales. When the two suspected the FBI was investigating, they partnered with Minor, in Miami, in order to move the operation off the west coast. Theaker would mail and collect order forms and ship them to Dowling, in Maryland, to be filled. Dowling would regularly send several hundred packages a week, spending $1,000 on postage in the process. Minor also received many of the packages to sell on through his own means.
In the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Dowling was convicted of one count of conspiracy to transport stolen property in interstate commerce, eight counts of interstate transportation of stolen property, nine counts of copyright infringement, and three counts of mail fraud. The charges of mail fraud arose out of his use of the United States Postal Service to distribute the records.
Dowling appealed all convictions besides those of copyright infringement, saying that his records were not stolen, converted or taken by fraud. The government argued his guilt because he had no legal authority to distribute the records. The Court saw it Dowling's way, saying "18 U.S.C. 2314 [transport of stolen property in interstate commerce] does not apply to this case because the rights of a copyright holder are 'different' from the rights of owners of other kinds of property."
This statement, that copyright infringement was not theft of goods under the federal statute being used to prosecute Dowling, has since been interpreted by many advocates of file sharing as a declaration that copyright infringement is not "stealing"--though the Supreme Court has never interpreted it this way, nor has any other court. Rather, the Supreme Court made plain in its ruling that the Copyright Act already contains a criminal provision, making it unlikely that the authors of the statute being used to prosecute Dowling intended for it to cover copyright infringement in addition to theft of goods.
Nevertheless, debate about this ruling and its implications for file sharing continues to this day.[1]
[edit] Notes
- ^ "To earn public support for its mass-litigation campaign, the industry had repeatedly compared unauthorized copying to theft and likened file-sharers to shoplifters. Unfortunately, the industry's analogy was far from correct. First, the law on copyright infringement is not as clear and well settled as laws against theft and shoplifting. Copyright law is 'notoriously complex and subtle.' It includes many 'muddy rules,' such as the idea-expression dichotomy, the fair use privilege, the first sale doctrine, and various statutory exemptions that allow for limited sharing of copyrighted works. Indeed, the RIAA and civil liberties groups have significant disagreements over the extent of legitimate private copying. Second, unlike theft, copyright infringement does not necessarily deprive copyright holders of the use of their copyrighted materials. As the United States Supreme Court observed in Dowling v. United States, a case involving the manufacture and distribution of bootleg recordings by Elvis Presley, 'interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud.'" from 667-668 of Peter K. Yu (Summer 2005). "P2P and The Future of Private Copying". University of Colorado Law Review 76: 653-765.
