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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 be legally considered theft of goods. (Some copyright advocates consider it theft of intellectual property, using a colloquial definition of the term, but the subject of Dowling was whether laws covering stolen property could be applied to illegally made copies.) Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ... // Case citation is the system used in common law countries such as the United States, England and Wales, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and India to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters or law reports. ... This article is about the year. ... The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the judicial branch of the United States federal government. ... Copyright infringement (also known as piracy) is the unauthorized use of copyrighted material in a manner that violates one of the copyright owners exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it. ... Everyday instance of theft: the bike which fits on this wheel has disappeared. ... Everyday instance of theft: the bike which fits on this wheel has disappeared. ...

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. A bootleg recording is a audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. ... Elvis redirects here. ... A previous USPS logo The United States Postal Service (USPS) is an independent establishment of the executive branch of the United States government (see ) responsible for providing postal service in the United States; it is generally referred to within the United States as the post office. ... Founded May 1, 1887 Incorporated July 8, 1911 General Information County Los Angeles County, California Latitude Longitude 34°1049 N 118°1942 W Area  - Total  - Water 45 km² (17. ... The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the federal criminal investigative and intelligence agency, which is the principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ...

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. Official language(s) None (English, de-facto) Capital Annapolis Largest city Baltimore Area  Ranked 42nd  - Total 12,417 sq mi (32,160 km²)  - Width 90 miles (145 km)  - Length 249 miles (400 km)  - % water 21  - Latitude 37°53N to 39°43N  - Longitude 75°4W to 79°33...

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. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (commonly referred to as the CDCA or CACD) is the U.S. district court serving some 17 million people in southern and central California, making it the largest federal judicial district by population. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

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." Copyright symbol. ...

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] File sharing is the activity of making files available to other users for download over the Internet, but also over smaller networks. ...

Notes

1. ^ "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.

External links

• Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207 on findlaw.com