Dowling v. United States

• Decision Date: 28 June 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-589,84-589
• Citation: 105 S.Ct. 3127,87 L.Ed.2d 152,473 U.S. 207
• Parties: Paul Edmond DOWLING, Petitioner v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

473 U.S. 207

105 S.Ct. 3127

87 L.Ed.2d 152

Paul Edmond DOWLING, Petitioner

v UNITED STATES.

No. 84-589.

Argued April 17, 1985.

Decided June 28, 1985.

Syllabus

Title 18 U.S.C. § 2314 provides criminal penalties for any person who "transports in interstate or foreign commerce any goods, wares, merchandise, securities or money, of the value of $5,000 or more, knowing the same to have been stolen, converted or taken by fraud." Petitioner was convicted in Federal District Court of violating, inter alia, § 2314, arising from the interstate transportation of "bootleg" phonorecords that were manufactured and distributed without the consent of the copyright owners of the musical compositions performed on the records. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

Held: Section 2314 does not reach petitioner's conduct. Pp. 213-229.

(a) The language of § 2314 does not "plainly and unmistakably" cover such conduct. The phonorecords in question were not "stolen, converted or taken by fraud" for purposes of § 2314. The section's language clearly contemplates a physical identity between the items unlawfully obtained and those eventually transported, and hence some prior physical taking of the subject goods. Since the statutorily defined property rights of a copyright holder have a character distinct from the possessory interest of the owner of simple "goods, wares, [or] merchandise," interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The infringer of a copyright does not assume physical control over the copyright nor wholly deprive its owner of its use. Infringement implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud. Pp. 214-218.

(b) The purpose of § 2314 to fill with federal action an enforcement gap created by limited state jurisdiction over interstate transportation of stolen property does not apply to petitioner's conduct. No such need for supplemental federal action has ever existed with respect to copyright infringement, since Congress has the power under the Constitution to legislate directly in this area. Pp. 218-221.

(c) The history of the criminal infringement provisions of the Copyright Act indicates that Congress had no intention to reach copyright infringement when it enacted § 2314. Pp. 221-226.

(d) To apply § 2314 to petitioner's conduct would support its extension to significant areas, such as interstate transportation of patent- infringing goods, that Congress has evidenced no intention to enter by way of criminal sanction. Pp. 226-227.

739 F.2d 1445 (9 CA 1984), reversed.

Michael D. Abzug, Los Angeles, Cal., for petitioner.

Carolyn Frances Corwin, Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Justice BLACKMUN delivered the opinion of the Court.

The National Stolen Property Act provides for the imposition of criminal penalties upon any person who "transports in interstate or foreign commerce any goods, wares, merchandise, securities or money, of the value of $5,000 or more, knowing the same to have been stolen, converted or taken by fraud." 18 U.S.C. § 2314. In this case, we must determine whether the statute reaches the interstate transportation of "bootleg" phonorecords, "stolen, converted or taken by fraud" only in the sense that they were manufactured and distributed without the consent of the copyright owners of the musical compositions performed on the records.

I

After a bench trial in the United States District Court for the Central District of California conducted largely on the basis of a stipulated record, petitioner Paul Edmond Dowling was convicted of one count of conspiracy to transport stolen property in interstate commerce, in violation of 18 U.S.C § 371; eight counts of interstate transportation of stolen property, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2314; nine counts of copyright infringement, in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 506(a); and three counts of mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341.¹ The offenses stemmed from an extensive bootleg record operation involving the manufacture and distribution by mail of recordings of vocal performances by Elvis Presley.² The evidence demonstrated that sometime around 1976, Dowling, to that time an avid collector of Presley recordings, began in conjunction with codefendant William Samuel Theaker to manufacture phonorecords of unreleased Presley recordings. They used material from a variety of sources, including studio outtakes, acetates, soundtracks from Presley motion pictures, and tapes of Presley concerts and television appearances.³ Until early 1980, Dowling and Theaker had the records manufactured at a record-pressing company in Burbank Cal. When that company later refused to take their orders, they sought out other record-pressing companies in Los Angeles and, through codefendant Richard Minor, in Miami, Fla. The bootleg entrepreneurs never obtained authorization from or paid royalties to the owners of the copyrights in the musical compositions.⁴

In the beginning, Dowling, who resided near Baltimore, handled the "artistic" end of the operation, contributing his knowledge of the Presley subculture, seeking out and selecting the musical material, designing the covers and labels, and writing the liner notes, while Theaker, who lived in Los Angeles and had some familiarity with the music industry, took care of the business end, arranging for the record pressings, distributing catalogs, and filling orders. In early 1979, however, having come to suspect that the FBI was investigating the west coast operation, Theaker began making shipments by commercial trucking companies of large quantities of the albums to Dowling in Maryland. Throughout 1979 and 1980, the venturers did their marketing through Send Service, a labeling and addressing entity, which distributed at least 50,000 copies of their catalog and advertising flyers to addresses on mailing lists provided by Theaker and Dowling. Theaker would collect customers' orders from post office boxes in Glendale, Cal., and mail them to Dowling in Maryland, who would fill the orders. The two did a substantial business: the stipulated testimony establishes that throughout this period Dowling mailed several hundred packages per week and regularly spent $1,000 per week in postage. The men also had occasion to make large shipments from Los Angeles to Minor in Miami, who purchased quantities of their albums for resale through his own channels.

The eight § 2314 counts on which Dowling was convicted arose out of six shipments of bootleg phonorecords from Los Angeles to Baltimore and two shipments from Los Angeles to Miami. See n. 1, supra. The evidence established that each shipment included thousands of albums, that each album contained performances of copyrighted musical compositions for the use of which no licenses had been obtained nor royalties paid, and that the value of each shipment attributable to copyrighted material exceeded the statutory minimum.

Dowling appealed from all the convictions save those for copyright infringement, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed in all respects. 739 F.2d 1445 (1984). As to the charges under § 2314, the court relied on its decision in United States v. Belmont, 715 F.2d 459 (9 CA 1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1022, 104 S.Ct. 1275, 79 L.Ed.2d 679 (1984), where it had held that interstate transportation of videotape cassettes containing unauthorized copies of copyrighted motion pictures involved stolen goods within the meaning of the statute.⁵ As in Belmont, the court reasoned that the rights of copyright owners in their protected property were indistinguishable from ownership interests in other types of property and were equally deserving of protection under the statute. 739 F.2d, at 1450, quoting 715 F.2d, at 461-462.

We granted certiorari to resolve an apparent conflict among the Circuits ⁶ concerning the application of the statute to interstate shipments of bootleg and pirated sound recordings and motion pictures whose unauthorized distribution infringed valid copyrights. 469 U.S. 1157, 105 S.Ct. 901, 83 L.Ed.2d 917 (1985).

II

Federal crimes, of course, "are solely creatures of statute." Liparota v. United States, 471 U.S. 419, 424, 105 S.Ct. 2084, 2087, 85 L.Ed.2d 434 (1985), citing United States v. Hudson, 7 Cranch 32, 3 L.Ed. 259 (1812). Accordingly, when assessing the reach of a federal criminal statute, we must pay close heed to language, legislative history, and purpose in order strictly to determine the scope of the conduct the enactment forbids. Due respect for the prerogatives of Congress in defining federal crimes prompts restraint in this area, where we typically find a "narrow interpretation" appropriate. See Williams v. United States, 458 U.S. 279, 290, 102 S.Ct. 3088, 3094, 73 L.Ed.2d 767 (1982). Chief Justice Marshall early observed:

"The rule that penal laws are to be construed strictly, is perhaps not much less old than construction itself. It is founded on the tenderness of the law for the rights of individuals; and on the plain principle that the power of punishment is vested in the legislative, not in the judicial department. It is the legislature, not the Court, which is to define a crime, and ordain its punishment." United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76, 95, 5 L.Ed. 37 (1820).

Thus, the Court has stressed repeatedly that " ' "when choice has to be made between two readings of what conduct Congress has made a crime, it is appropriate, before we choose the harsher alternative, to require that Congress should have spoken in language that is clear and definite." ' " Williams v. United States, 458 U.S., at 290, 102 S.Ct., at 3094, quoting United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 347, 92 S.Ct. 515, 522, 30 L.Ed.2d 488 (1971), which in turn quotes United States v. Universal C.I.T. Credit Corp., 344 U.S. 218, 221-222, 73 S.Ct. 227, 229-230, 97 L.Ed. 260 (1952).

A.

Applying that prudent rule of construction here, we examine at the outset the...