## Facts

- Paul Edmond Dowling ran a business producing and distributing unauthorized “bootleg” Elvis Presley phonorecords, including unreleased performances.
- Dowling coordinated with an associate who handled pressing and distribution.
- Dowling shipped the bootleg phonorecords in interstate commerce.
- The United States prosecuted Dowling for multiple offenses, including eight counts of interstate transportation of stolen property under 18 U.S.C. § 2314, based on the bootleg recordings.
- After a bench trial in federal district court, Dowling was convicted on the § 2314 counts (as well as separate copyright infringement and other counts).
- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the § 2314 convictions, treating copyright interests as sufficiently analogous to traditional property for purposes of § 2314.

## Issues

1. Whether shipping unauthorized bootleg phonorecords in interstate commerce qualifies as transporting “goods, wares, [or] merchandise” that have been “stolen, converted or taken by fraud” under 18 U.S.C. § 2314.
2. Whether § 2314 can be applied to copyright infringement absent a prior physical taking of the specific items transported.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s judgment on the § 2314 counts.
- The Court held that § 2314 does not reach interstate transportation of bootleg phonorecords when the asserted “taking” is infringement of intangible copyright interests rather than a physical theft of the transported items.
- The Court left undisturbed Dowling’s separate convictions under federal copyright law.

## Legal Principles

- Federal criminal statutes are construed narrowly; conduct must fall “plainly and unmistakably” within the statutory language to support criminal liability.
- The phrase “stolen, converted or taken by fraud” in § 2314 contemplates a prior physical taking and a physical identity between the items unlawfully obtained and those transported.
- Copyright infringement differs from theft, conversion, or fraud of tangible property because infringement does not typically involve assuming physical control over the copyrighted work or wholly depriving the owner of its use.
- Where Congress has enacted specific criminal provisions addressing copyright infringement, courts will not extend a general stolen-property statute to cover the same conduct without clear congressional intent.
- Interpreting § 2314 to cover infringement risks expanding federal criminal liability into other intellectual-property domains (e.g., patent infringement) without a clear statutory basis.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court held that unauthorized bootleg phonorecords are not “stolen, converted or taken by fraud” within 18 U.S.C. § 2314, rejecting use of the National Stolen Property Act to prosecute conduct addressed by the tailored criminal provisions of federal copyright law.


Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985)