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-
- Computer underground Digest Sat Jan 7, 1995 Volume 7 : Issue 01
- ISSN 1004-042X
-
- Editors: Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer (TK0JUT2@NIU.BITNET)
- Archivist: Brendan Kehoe
- Retiring Shadow Archivist: Stanton McCandlish
- Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth
- Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala
- Ian Dickinson
- Copy Reader: Laslo Toth
-
- CONTENTS, #7.01 (Sat, Jan 7, 1995)
-
- File 1--Govt. Response to Lamacchia
- File 2--Judge Stearns' Decision in Lamacchia Case Dismissal
- File 3--EFF Personnel Changes Announced
- File 4--EFF Personnel Changes, II
- File 5--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 25 Nov 1994)
-
- CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN
- THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.
-
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 17:31:00 EST
- From: Dave Banisar <banisar@WASHOFC.EPIC.ORG>
- Subject: File 1--Govt. Response to Lamacchia
-
- ((MODERATORS' NOTE: CuD readers will recall that David Lamacchia was
- indicted last year for alleged acts of "piracy" stemming from
- allegations that he made copyright software available over the
- Internet through an MIT computer (see CuD 6.31, 6.32). Critics of the
- prosecution argued that the charges, based on wire fraud, did not
- match the alleged crime. As the following two articles indicate, the
- judge agreed.))
-
- STATEMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS U.S. ATTORNEY DONALD K. STERN
- REGARDING THE DAVID LA MACCHIA CASE
-
- BOSTON, Dec. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is a statement from
- U.S. Attorney Donald K. Stern concerning the Davd La Macchia case:
-
- "Judge Stearns has granted the motion of David La Macchia to
- dismiss the indictment brought against him. Judge Stearns held that
- La Macchia's prosecution for conspiracy to violate the federal wire
- fraud statute could not go forward. The judge's thoughtful decision
- deserves further study before we decide whether to appeal it to the
- First Circuit."
-
- "At the same time, the Judge stated that the objective of this
- prosecution 'is a laudable one' and he further observed that, 'if the
- allegations in the indictment are accurate, La Macchia's actions were
- at best...heedlessly irresponsible, and at worst...nihilistic,
- self-indulgent, and lacking in any fundamental sense of values.'"
-
- "Large scale software piracy remains a serious problem. While we
- believe this indictment to be legally sound and may well appeal, the
- Court's decision suggests that Congress should re-visit this area.
-
- While it will not have any impact on this case, I intend to raise
- with the Department of Justice whether it should file legislation
- explicitly dealing with willful, multiple infringements of copyrighted
- software, in order to remove any uncertainties."
-
- /CONTACT: Joy Fallon or Kathleen Griffin of the U.S. Attorney's
- Office, 617-223-9445/
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Sat, 7 Jan 1995 21:34:01 -0600
- From: jthomas2@SUN.SOCI.NIU.EDU(Jim Thomas)
- Subject: File 2--Judge Stearns' Decision in Lamacchia Case Dismissal
-
- (MODERATORS' NOTE: The following text was made available by Mike
- Godwin of EFF, and posted on The Well)).
-
- UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
- DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
-
- CRIMINAL ACTION NO. 9410092-RGS
-
- UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
-
- v.
-
- DAVID LaMACCHIA
-
- MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER
- ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO DISMISS
-
- December 28, 1994
-
- STEARNS, D.J.
-
- This case presents the issue of whether new wine can be poured into an
- old bottle. The facts, as seen in the light most favorable to the
- government, are these. The defendant, David LaMacchia, is a twenty-one
- year old student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
- LaMacchia, a computer hacker, used MIT's computer network to gain
- entree to the Internet. Using pseudonyms and an encrypted address,
- LaMacchia set up an electronic bulletin board which he named Cynosure.
- [fn 1] He encouraged his correspondents to upload popular software
- applications (Excel 5.0 and WordPerfect 6.0) and computer games (Sim
- City 2000). These he transferred to a second encrypted address
- (Cynosure II) where they could be downloaded by other users with
- access to the Cynosure password. Although LaMacchia was at pains to
- impress the need for circumspection on the part of his subscribers,
- the worldwide traffic generated by the offer of free software
- attracted the notice of university and federal authorities.
-
- On April 7, 1994, a federal grand jury returned a one count indictment
- charging LaMacchia with conspiring with "persons unknown" to violate
- 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1343, the wire fraud statute. According to the
- indictment, LaMacchia devised a scheme to defraud that had as its
- object the facilitation "on an international scale" of the "illegal
- copying and distribution of copyrighted software" without payment of
- licensing fees and royalties to software manufacturers and vendors.
- The indictment alleges that LaMacchia's scheme caused losses of more
- than one million dollars to software copyright holders. The indictment
- does not allege that LaMacchia sought or derived any personal benefit
- from the scheme to defraud.
-
- On September 30, 1994. the defendant brought a motion to dismiss,
- arguing that the government had improperly resorted to the wire fraud
- statute as a copyright enforcement tool in defiance of the Supreme
- Court's decision in Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985) The
- government argues that Dowling is a narrower case than LaMacchia would
- have it, and holds only that copyright infringement does not satisfy
- the physical "taking" requirement of the National Stolen Property Act,
- 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2314.
-
- THE DOWLING DECISION
-
- Paul Edmond Dowling was convicted of conspiracy, interstate
- transportation of stolen property [ITSP], copyright violations and
- mail fraud in the Central District of California. Dowling and his
- co-conspirators sold bootleg Elvis Presley recordings by soliciting
- catalogue orders from post office boxes in Glendale, California. The
- infringing recordings were shipped in interstate commerce to Maryland
- and Florida. The eight ITSP counts on which Dowling was convicted
- involved thousands of phonograph albums. "[E]ach album contained
- performances of copyrighted musical compositions for the use of which
- no licenses had been obtained nor royalties paid ...." Dowling, supra
- at 212. Dowling appealed his convictions (except those involving
- copyright infringement) The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.
- "[T]he [Ninth Circuit] 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 [stolen property] statute." Id.
-
- The Supreme Court granted certiorari only as to Dowling's convictions
- for interstate transportation of stolen property [fn 2]. The Court, in
- an opinion by Justice Blackmun, held that a copyrighted musical
- composition impressed on a bootleg phonograph record is not property
- that is "stolen, converted, or taken by fraud" within the meaning of
- the Stolen Property Act. Justice Blackmun emphasized that cases
- prosecuted under Sec. 2314 had traditionally involved "physical
- 'goods, wares [or] merchandise.'" The statute "seems clearly to
- contemplate a physical identity between the items unlawfully obtained
- and those eventually transported, and hence some prior physical taking
- of the subject goods" Id at 216. In Dowling's case there was no
- evidence "that Dowling wrongfully came by the phonorecords actually
- shipped or the physical materials from which they were made." Dowling,
- supra at 214.
-
- Justice Blackmun felt compelled, however, to answer the government's
- argument that the unauthorized use of the underlying musical
- compositions was itself sufficient to render the offending
- phonorecords property "stolen, converted or taken by fraud."
-
- [T]he Government's theory here would make theft, conversion, or fraud
- equivalent to wrongful appropriation of statutorily protected rights in
- copyright. The copyright owner, however, holds no ordinary chattel. A
- copyright, like other intellectual property, comprises a series of
- carefully defined and carefully delimited interests to which the law
- affords correspondingly exact protections. Id. at 216.
-
- A copyright, as Justice Blackmun explained, is unlike an ordinary
- chattel because the holder does not acquire exclusive dominion over
- the thing owned. The limited nature of the property interest conferred
- by copyright stems from an overriding First Amendment concern for the
- free dissemination of ideas. "The primary objective of copyright is
- not to reward the labor of authors. but '[t]o promote the Progress of
- Science and useful Arts.' Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 8." Feist Publications,
- Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340, 349 (1991). Data
- general Corp. v. Grumman Systems Support, 36 F.3d 1147, 1187 (1st Cir.
- 1994) (same). Justice Blackmun offered the "fair use" doctrine (17
- U.S.C. Sec. 107) and the statutory scheme of compulsory licensing of
- musical compositions (17 U.S.C. Sec. 115) as examples of ways in which
- the property rights of a copyright holder are circumscribed by the
- Copyright Act [fn 3]. Dowling, supra at 217.
-
- It follows that interference with copyright does not easily equate
- with theft, conversion or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a
- separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright:
- "Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright
- owner," that is, anyone who trespasses into his exclusive domain by
- using or authorizing the use of the copyrighted work in one of the
- five ways set forth in the statute, "is an infringer of the
- copyright." There is no dispute in this case that Dowling's
- unauthorized inclusion on his bootleg albums of performances of
- copyrighted compositions constituted infringement of those copyrights.
- It is less clear, however, that the taking that occurs when an
- infringer arrogates the use of another's protected work comfortably
- fits the terms associated with physical removal employed by Sec. 2314.
- The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the
- copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over
- the copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use. While
- one may colloquially like infringement with some general notion of
- wrongful appropriation, infringement plainly implicates a more complex
- set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion
- or fraud. As a result, it fits but awkwardly with the language
- Congress chose - "stolen, converted or taken by fraud" - to describe
- the sorts of goods whose interstate shipment Sec. 2314 makes criminal.
- Id at 217-218 (citations omited).
-
- The ITSP statute, Justice Blackmun observed, had its roots in efforts
- by Congress to supplement the efforts of state authorities frustrated
- by jurisdictional problems arising from the transportation of stolen
- property across state lines. Id. at 219-220.
-
- No such need for supplemental federal action has ever existed,
- however, with respect to copyright infringement, for the obvious
- reason that Congress always has had the bestowed authority to
- legislate directly in this area.... Given that power, it is
- implausible to suppose that Congress intended to combat the problem of
- copyright infringement by the circuitous route hypothesized by the
- government . . . In sum, the premise of Sec. 2314 -- the need to fill
- with federal action an enforcement chasm created by limited state
- jurisdiction -- simply does not apply to the conduct the Government
- seeks to reach here. Id at 220-221.
-
- A review of the evolution of criminal penalties in the Copyright Act
- led Justice Blackmun to observe that:
-
- "[T]he history of the criminal infringement provisions of the
- Copyright Act reveals a good deal of care on Congress' part before
- subjecting copyright infringement to serious criminal penalties.... In
- stark contrast, the Government's theory of this case presupposes a
- congressional decision to bring the felony provisions of Sec. 2314,
- which make available the comparatively light fine of not more than
- $10,000 but the relatively harsh term of imprisonment of up to 10
- years, to bear on the distribution of a sufficient quantity of any
- infringing goods simply because of the presence here of a
- factor-interstate transportation-not otherwise though relevant to
- copyright law. The Government thereby presumes congressional adoption
- of an indirect but blunderbuss solution to a problem treated with
- precision when considered directly. Id. at 225-226.
-
- Finally, noting that the government's expansive reading of the Stolen
- Property Act would have the unsettling effect of criminalizing a broad
- range of conduct involving copyright and other intellectual property
- that had been historically regulated by the civil laws, Justice
- Blackmun concluded that "the deliberation with which Congress over the
- last decade has addressed the problem of copyright infringement for
- profit, as well as the precision with which it has chosen to apply
- criminal penalties in this area, demonstrates anew the wisdom of
- leaving it to the legislature to define crime and prescribe penalties.
- Here, the language of Sec. 2314 does not 'plainly and unmistakably'
- cover petitioner Dowling's conduct" Id at 228 (footnote omitted).
- Dowling's ITSP convictions were reversed.
-
- THE COPYRIGHT LAW
-
- Article 1, Sec. 8, cl. 8 of the U S Constitution grants Congress the
- exclusive power "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,
- by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive
- Right to their respective writings and Discoveries." Thus "[t]he
- remedies for infringement 'are only those prescribed by Congress.'"
- Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S.
- 417, 431 (1984) (quoting Thompson v. Hubbard, 131 U.S. 123, 151
- (1889)). Since 1897, when criminal copyright infringement was first
- introduced into U.S. copyright law, [fn 4] the concept differentiating
- criminal from civil copyright violations has been that the
- infringement must be pursued for purposes of commercial exploitation.
-
- Until 1909, "[t]he crime of copyright infringement was . . . limited
- to unlawful performances and representation of copyrighted dramatic
- and musical compositions." Saunders, Criminal Copyright Infringement
- and the Copyright Felony Act, 71 Denv. U.L. Rev. 671, 673 (1994). The
- 1897 Act defined the mens rea of criminal copyright
- infringement as conduct that is "willfull" and undertaken "for
- profit," a definition that remained unaltered until the general
- revision of the Copyright Act in 1976.
-
- In 1909, the Copyright Act was revised to extend misdemeanor criminal
- sanctions to infringement of all copyrighted material with the
- exception of sound recordings. Copyright Act of 1909, ch. 320, 33
- stat 1075-1082. The 1909 amendments also made criminal the knowing and
- willful aiding and abetting of another's infringing activities.
- Performers and producers of musical recordings were not protected under
- the 1909 Act, and composers were given the exclusive rights to license
- only the first recording of their musical works. After that, a
- compulsory licensing provision allowed anyone to record and distribute
- the work so long as a two cent per copy royalty was paid to the
- original composer. Id, Subsec. 1(e), 25(e).
-
- The framework set out by the 1909 Act remained in effect until 1971,
- when the growth of the recording industry following the musical
- revolution of the 1960's brought the problem of unauthorized
- reproduction and sale of musical works to Congress' attention. See
- H.R. Rep. No. 487, 92d Cong. 1st Sess. 2 (1971). In response, Congress
- passed the Sound Recording Act of 1971, which addressed the perceived
- flaw in the 1909 Act by granting sound recordings full copyright
- protection, including criminal penalties for profit motivated
- infringement. In 1976, Congress revamped the Copyright Act by
- eliminating the crime of aiding and abetting copyright infringement.
- It also eased the mens rea requirement for criminal copyright
- infringement by eliminating the burden of proving that an infringer
- acted "for profit," requiring instead only that the infringement be
- conducted "willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or
- private financial gain." 17 U.S.C. Sec. 506(a). Criminal infringement
- under the 1976 Act was a misdemeanor except in the case of repeat
- offenders (who could be sentenced to a maximum of two years and a fine
- of $50,000).
-
- After lobbying by the Motion Picture Association and the Recording
- Industry Association, Congress increased the penalties for criminal
- infringement in 1982. Act of May 24, 1982. Pub. L. No. 97-180. 97th
- Cong. 2d Sess., 96 Stat. 91. Certain types of first-time criminal
- infringement were punishable as felonies depending on the time period
- involved and the number of copies reproduced or distributed. [fn 5]
- See 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2319. The mens rea element, however,
- remained unchanged, requiring proof of "commercial advantage or
- private financial gain." 17 U.S.C. Sec. 506(a). Most criminal
- infringements remained misdemeanor offenses despite the new penalty
- structure.
-
- In the decade following the 1982 revisions to the Copyright Act, the
- home computing and software industry underwent a period of explosive
- growth paralleling the expansion in the 1960's and 1970's of the
- recording and motion picture industries. In 1992, the Software
- Publishers Association reported in testimony to the Subcommittee on
- Intellectual Property and Judicial Administration of the House Committee
- on the Judiciary that software manufacturers were losing $2.4 billion in
- revenues annually as a result of software piracy. "Rather than adopting
- a piecemeal approach to copyright legislation and simply adding computer
- programs to audiovisual works, and sound recordings to the list of works
- whose infringement can give rise to felony penalties under [18 U.S.C.]
- Sec. 2319," Congress passed the Copyright Felony Act. [fn 6] Saunders,
- supra, at 680. The Act amended Sec. 2319 by extending its felony
- provision to the criminal infringement of all copyrighted works
- including computer software. [fn 7] The mens rea for criminal
- infringement remained unchanged, requiring prosecutors to prove that the
- defendant infringed a copyright "willfully and for purpose of commercial
- advantage or private financial gain." 17 U.S.C. Sec. 506(a). [fn 8]
-
- DISCUSSION
-
- The wire fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1343 was enacted in 1952. In its
- entirety, the statute reads as follows:
-
- Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice
- to
- defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or
- fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes
- to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication
- in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals,
- pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or
- artifice,
- shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than five
- years, or both. If the violation affects a financial institution, such
- person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more
- than 30 years, or both.
-
- The wire fraud statute was enacted to cure a jurisdictional defect that
- Congress perceived was created by the growth of radio and television as
- commercial media. In its report to the House of Representatives, the
- Committee on the Judiciary explained:
-
- [T]he measure in amended form. . .creates a new. but relatively
- isolated
- area of criminal conduct consisting of the execution of a scheme to
- defraud or to obtain money or property by means of false or fraudulent
- pretenses, representations, or promises transmitted in writings, signs,
- pictures, or sounds via interstate wire or radio communications (which
- includes the medium of television). . . The rapid growth of interstate
- communications facilities, particularly those of radio and television,
- has given rise to a variety of fraudulent activities on the part of
- unscrupulous persons which are not within the reach of existing mail
- fraud laws, but which are carried out in complete reliance upon the use
- of wire and radio facilities and without resort to the mails.... Even in
- those cases of radio fraud where the mails have played a role, it is
- sometimes difficult to prove the use of the mails to the satisfaction
- of
- the court, and so prosecutions often fail. Because of the greater
- facility in proving the use of radio, this bill if enacted might often
- rescue a prosecution which would otherwise be defeated on
- technicalities.
-
- H.R. Rep. No. 388, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. 102 (1951).
-
- As the legislative history makes clear, the wire fraud statute was
- intended to complement the mail fraud statute by giving federal
- prosecutors jurisdiction over frauds involving the use of interstate (or
- foreign) wire transmissions. [fn 9] Thus what can be prosecuted as a
- scheme to defraud under the mail fraud statute (18 U.S.C. Sec. 1341) is
- equally susceptible to punishment under Sec. 1343 so long as the
- jurisdictional element is met. Carpenter v. United States. 484 U.S. 19,
- 25 n.6 (1987). McEvoy Travel Bureau, Inc. v. Heritage Travel, Inc. 904
- F.2d 786, 791 n.8 (1st Cir. 1990). The concomitancy of the two statutes
- underlies the government's argument that significance should be read
- into the fact that the limited grant of certiorari in Dowling left
- Dowling's convictions for mail fraud undisturbed.
-
- A scheme to defraud is the defining concept of the mail and wire fraud
- statutes. Because of the conjunctive use of the word "or" in the
- statutory phrase "any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining
- money or property by false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or
- promises." the federal courts (encouraged by prosecutors) have
- essentially bifurcated mail and wire fraud into two separate offenses;
- the first, the devising of a scheme to defraud, the second, the devising
- of a scheme to obtain money or property by false pretenses. While the
- latter crime comports with common law notions of fraud, "[t]he phrase,
- 'a scheme to defraud' came to prohibit a plan, that is, to forbid a
- state of mind, rather than physical conduct." Moohr, Mail Fraud and the
- Intangible Rights Doctrine: Someone to Watch Over Us, 31 Harv. J. on
- Legis. 153, 161 (1994).
-
- The incarnation of mail fraud as an inchoate crime has its most
- celebrated expression in federal prosecutions of state and local public
- officials accused of depriving citizens of their intangible right to
- honest public service in violation of their fiduciary duty to disclose
- conflicts of interest. [fn 10] See United States v. Mandel, 591 F.2d
- 1347, 1360-1362 (4th Cir. 1979). Because of the so-called "intangible
- rights doctrine," mail fraud and its sister offense, wire fraud, have
- become the federal prosecutor's weapon of choice. "Mail fraud . . . has
- been expanded to the point that a fiduciary, agent, or employee commits
- an offense when, through a material deception or a failure to disclose,
- a beneficiary, principal or employer suffers even an intangible,
- constructed detriment." Moohr, supra, 31 Harv. J. On Legis. at 163. Wire
- fraud offers an especially pleasing feature from the government's
- perspective that is particularly relevant to LaMacchia's case. Unlike
- the criminal copyright statute, 17 U.S.C. Sec. 506(a), the mail and wire
- fraud statutes do not require that a defendant be shown to have sought
- to personally profit from the scheme to defraud. See United States v.
- Silvano, 812 F.2d 754, 759-760 (1st Cir. 1987).
-
- While it is true, as LaMacchia contends, that the denial of a writ of
- certiorari "imports no expression upon the merits of the case," United
- States v. Carver, 260 U.S. 482, 490 (1923), the more interesting issue
- is whether the Ninth Circuit's mail fraud analysis (the significant
- portions of which the Supreme Court left intact) is applicable to the
- facts of his case.
-
- Dowling brought himself within the orbit of the mail fraud statute by
- mailing catalogues advertising his bootleg phonograph records. So, too,
- the government argues, LaMacchia subjected himself to the wire fraud
- statute by advertising infringing software via computer transmissions.
- The government in Dowling (as here) did not argue any more than
- jurisdictional significance for Dowling's mailings, that is, the
- mailings themselves did not make any false or misleading
- representations. They did, however, serve as an obvious means of
- furthering Dowling's scheme to defraud. See Schmuck v. United States, 489
- U.S. 705. 710-711 (1989).
-
- The Ninth Circuit nonetheless focused on the fact that Dowling had
- "concealed his activities from the copyright holders with the intent to
- deprive them of their royalties." 739 F.2d at 1449. "It is settled in
- this Circuit that a scheme to defraud need not be an active
- misrepresentation. A nondisclosure or concealment may serve as a basis
- for the fraudulent scheme." Id. at 1448. See also United States v.
- Silvano, supra, 812 F.2d at 759 (same). The Ninth Circult rejected
- Dowling's argument that non-disclosure can serve as the basis of a
- scheme to defraud only when a defendant has a fiduciary duty to make an
- affirmative disclosure. It also rejected the government's contention
- that "the presence of illegal conduct alone may constitute the basis of
- the 'fraud' element." 739 F.2d at 1449. "Rather, we conclude that a
- non-disclosure can only serve as a basis for a fraudulent scheme when
- there exists an independent duty that has been breached by the person so
- charged." Id. This duty, the Ninth Circuit noted, could be fiduciary in
- nature, or it could "derive from an independent explicit statutory duty
- created by legislative enactment." Id. In Dowling's case, the duty
- located by the Ninth Circuit was the duty implicit in the compulsory
- licensing scheme of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. Sec. 115, which
- requires vendors to notify copyright owners of the intention to
- manufacture and distribute infringing records.
-
- In conclusion, we stress that the narrowness of our holding permits
- nondisclosures to form the basis of a scheme to defraud only when there
- exists an independent duty (either fiduciary or derived from an explicit
- and independent statutory requirement) and such a duty has been
- breached. To hold otherwise that illegal conduct alone may constitute
- the basis of the fraud element of a mail fraud conviction would have
- the
- potential of bringing almost any illegal act within the province of the
- mail fraud statute.
-
- 739 F.2d at 1450.
-
- The difficulties in applying the Ninth Circuit's Dowling analysis to
- support a wire fraud prosecution in LaMacchia's case are three. First,
- no fiduciary relationship existed between LaMacchia and the
- manufacturers whose software copyrights he allegedly infringed. Second,
- there is no independent statutory duty of disclosure like the one that
- snared Dowling because there is no software equivalent to the compulsory
- licensing scheme. [fn 11] Third, even were I to accept the argument made
- by the government in Dowling, that illegal conduct alone may suffice to
- satisfy the fraud element of [Sec. 1343], the holding would not cover
- LaMacchia's case for the simple reason that what LaMacchia is alleged to
- have done is not criminal conduct under Sec. 506(a) of the Copyright
- Act. [fn 12]
-
- The government's second and more plausible argument relies on the
- unobjectionable proposition "that [the] enactment of particularized
- federal interest statutes does not oust a more general interstate
- commerce statute from application." Government's Memorandum at 11. The
- government cites a number of areas of specialized federal law where the
- mail and wire fraud statutes have been held to remain viable enforcement
- tools. This same argument, however, did not impress Justice Blackmun in
- Dowling, as none of the cases cited there (as here) "involved copyright
- law specifically or intellectual property in general." Dowling, supra at
- 218 n.8. [fn 13] The government also points to 18 U.S C. Sec. 2319(a),
- which provides that "[w]hoever violates section 506(a). . . of title 17
- shall be punished as provided in subsection (b) of this section and such
- penalties shall be in addition to any other provisions of title 17 or
- any other law." The government emphasizes the last four words of the
- statute without apparently noticing the first four. LaMacchia is not
- alleged to have violated section 506(a). See also Dowling, supra at 225
- n.18 ("In the absence of and such indication [that Congress intended to
- approve the use of Sec. 2314 in a copyright prosecution], we decline to
- read the general language appended to Sec. 2319(a) impliedly to validate
- extension of Sec. 2314 in a manner otherwise unsupported by its language
- and purpose"). Finally, the government cites Carpenter v. United
- States, 484 U.S 19 (1987), which holds that intangible as well as
- tangible property interests are protected by the mail and wire fraud
- statutes. "Absolutely nothing in Carpenter," the government argues,
- "distinguishes intangible right to copy, distribute and license computer
- software from other intangible property interests...." Government's
- Memorandum at 13. But see United States v. Riggs, 739 F. Supp. 414,
- 422-423 (N.D. Ill. 1990) ("As Dowling . . . recognized, the copyright
- holder owns only a bundle of intangible rights which can be infringed,
- but not stolen or converted. The owner of confidential, proprietary
- business information, in contrast, possesses something which has clearly
- been recognized as an item of property").
-
- The issue thus is whether the "bundle of rights" conferred by copyright
- is unique and distinguishable from the indisputably broad range of
- property interests protected by the mail and wire fraud statutes. I
- find it difficult, if not impossible, to read Dowling as saying anything
- but that it is. [fn 14] "A copyright, like other intellectual property,
- comprises a series of carefully defined and carefully delimited
- interests to which the law affords correspondingly exact protections."
- Dowling, supra at 216. If, as the government contends, Dowling stands
- for nothing more than the proposition that one cannot equate copyright
- infringement with a "physical taking" for purposes of the Stolen
- Property Act, [fn 15] it is difficult to explain why Justice Blackmun
- devoted the bulk of his opinion to the issue of "whether the history and
- purpose of Sec. 2314 evince a plain congressional intention to reach
- interstate shipments of goods infringing copyrights." Dowling supra at
- 218. [fn 16] Nor can one explain why the same analysis should not be
- applied to the mail and wire fraud statutes, which like the Stolen
- Property Act, were enacted to fill enforcement gaps in state and federal
- law. Why is it not true of mail and wire fraud, as it is of ITSP, that
- "[n]o such need for supplemental federal action has ever existed ....
- for the obvious reason that Congress always has had the bestowed
- authority to legislate directly in this area [of copyright
- infringement]"? Dowling supra at 220. Finally, why would not the
- government's position here produce the same pernicious result that
- Justice Blackmun warned of in Dowling, of permitting the government to
- subvert the carefully calculated penalties of the Copyright Act by
- selectively bringing some prosecutions under the more generous penalties
- of the mail and wire fraud statutes? [fn 17]
-
- What the government is seeking to do is to punish conduct that
- reasonable people might agree deserves the sanctions of the criminal
- law. But as Justice Blackmun observed in Dowling, copyright is an area
- in which Congress has chosen to tread cautiously, relying "chiefly . . .
- on an array of civil remedies to provide copyright holders protection
- against infringement," while mandating "studiously graded penalties" in
- those instances where Congress has concluded that the deterrent effect
- of criminal sanctions are required. Dowling, supra at 221, 225. "This
- step-by-step, carefully considered approach is consistent with Congress'
- traditional sensitivity to the special concerns implicated by the
- copyright laws." Id at 225. Indeed, the responsiveness of Congress to
- the impact of new technology on the law of copyright limned earlier in
- this opinion, confirms Justice Blackmun's conviction of "the wisdom of
- leaving it to the legislature to define crime and prescribe penalties"
- Dowling, supra at 228.
-
- "The judiciary's reluctance to expand the protections afforded by the
- copyright without explicit legislative guidance is a recurring theme.
- Sound policy, as well as history, supports our consistent deference to
- Congress when major technological innovations alter the market for
- copyrighted materials. Congress has the institutional authority and the
- institutional ability to accommodate fully the varied permutations of
- competing interests that are inevitably implicated by such new
- technology."
-
- Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S.
- 417, 431 (1984) (citations omitted).
-
- While the government's objective is a laudable one, particularly when the
- facts alleged in this case are considered, its interpretation of the
- wire fraud statute would serve to criminalize the conduct of not only
- persons like LaMacchia, but also the myriad of home computer users who
- succumb to the temptation to copy even a single software program for
- private use. It is not clear that making criminals of a large number of
- consumers of computer software is a result that even the software
- industry would consider desirable. [fn 18]
-
- In sum, I agree with Professor Nimmer that:
-
- The Dowling decision establishes that Congress has finely calibrated
- the
- reach of criminal liability [in the Copyright Act], and therefore
- absent
- clear indication of Congressional intent, the criminal laws of the
- United States do not reach copyright-related conduct. Thus copyright
- prosecutions should be limited to Section 506 of the Act, and other
- incidental statutes that explicitly refer to copyright and copyrighted
- works.
-
- 3 Nimmer on Copyright, Sec. 15.05 at 15-20 (1993). See also 2
- Goldstein, Copyright, Sec. 11.4.2.2 at 304 n. 67 (1989) ("[A]lthough the
- Court did not directly rule on whether the mail fraud statute
- encompassed the infringing conduct, its reasoning with respect to the
- Stolen Property Act, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2314, suggests that it would have
- treated the mail fraud statute similarly.")
-
- Accordingly, I rule that the decision of the Supreme Court in Dowling v.
- United States precludes LaMacchia's prosecution for criminal copyright
- infringement under the wire fraud statute. [fn 19]
-
- This is not, of course, to suggest that there is anything edifying about
- what LaMacchia is alleged to have done. If the indictment is to be
- believed, one might at best describe his actions as heedlessly
- irresponsible. and at worst as nihilistic, self-indulgent, and lacking
- in any fundamental sense of values. Criminal as well as civil penalties
- should probably attach to willful, multiple infringements of copyrighted
- software even absent a commercial motive on the part of the infringer.
- One can envision ways that the copyright law could be modified to permit
- such prosecution. But, "'[i]t is the legislature, not the Court which is
- to define a crime, and ordain its punishment.'" Dowling, supra at 214
- (quoting United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76, 95 (1820)).
-
- ORDER
-
- For the foregoing reasons, defendant LaMacchia's motion to dismiss is
- ALLOWED.
-
- SO ORDERED.
-
- [signed, Richard G. Stearns]
-
- United States District Judge
-
-
-
-
-
- Footnotes
- ---------
-
- [1] The allusion is presumably to the North Star, a faithful
- astronomical reference point for mariners.
-
-
- [2] The Court observed a split among the Circuits concerning the
- applicability of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2314 to the interstate transportation
- of infringing articles.
-
- [3] Another example is the finite duration of a copyright. See 17
- U.S.C. Sec. 302.
-
- [4] Act of January 6, 1897. ch 4. 29 Stat. 481--482.
-
- [5] While the offense of criminal copyright infringement remained
- defined by 17 U.S.C. Sec. 506(a), the penalties were moved to a new
- freestanding statute, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2319.
-
- [6] Pub. L. No. 102-561 [S. 893] (October 28, 1992) (enacted after
- amendment). This is not to say that Congress had been inattentive to the
- needs of the emerging software industry. In 1980, Congress added
- "computer program" to the list of definitions of works protected under
- the copyright statute See 17 U.S.C. Sec. 101. The Computer Software
- Rental Amendments Act of 1990 gave further protection to holders of
- software copyrights, although declining to subject violators to the
- criminal penalties of 17 U.S.C. Sec. 506 and 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2319. See
- 17 U.S.C. Sec. 109(b)(4).
-
- [7] The Report that accompanied the Senate version of the bill declared
- that "[t]he only defense against [software] piracy is the
- copyright law." S. Rep. No. 268. 102d Cong., 2d Sess. (1992) (emphasis
- added)
-
- [8] As Senator Hatch, the Senate sponsor of the Act noted, "the copying
- must be undertaken to make money, and even incidental financial benefits
- that might accrue as a result of the copying should not contravene the
- law where the achievement of those benefits [was] not the motivation
- behind the copying." 138 Cong. Rec. S. 17958-17959 (October 8, 1992).
-
- [9] The "interstate" limitation was inserted into the statute both out
- of jurisdictional concerns and to "avoid intrusion on the police power
- of the States." H.R. Rep. No. 388, supra, at 3. The police power of the
- States, of course, does not extend to the regulation of copyright,
- leading one to doubt, as defendant points out, that the statute was
- enacted to supplement state efforts to police copyright infringement.
- Defendant's Memorandum at 18.
-
- [10] The origins and contours of the intangible rights doctrine (and the
- short-lived effort of the Supreme Court to reground the mail fraud
- statute in traditional concepts of property, see McNally v. United
- States, 483 U.S. 350 (1987)) are capably portrayed in Moohr, supra, 31
- Harv. J. on Legis at 158-170. The doctrine has been applied with similar
- effect to schemes rising in a commercial context. See United States v.
- George, 477 F.2d 508 (7th Cir. 1973) (commercial kickbacks, employee's
- duty to disclose).
-
- [11] In Cooper v. United States, 639 F Supp. 176, 180 (M.D. Fla. 1986),
- cited by the government, the petitioners did not raise the sufficiency
- of the allegation of a scheme to defraud, but rather the possibility
- that the jury might have perceived the interstate transportation of the
- pirated cassette tapes as the gravamen of the scheme, a theory
- indisputably precluded by the Supreme Court's Dowling decision.
-
- [12] I do not believe that the Ninth Circuit's mail fraud analysis
- survives Dowling in any event, as I will explain. Dowling, I note, did
- not contest his conviction for criminal violations of Sec. 506(a) of the
- Copyright Act.
-
- [13] The suggestion that the felony provisions of the wire fraud statute
- were enacted with the punishment of copyright infringement in mind in
- somewhat difficult to accept when one remembers that in 1952 the
- Copyright Act authorized only misdemeanor prosecutions, a circumstance
- that continued until 1982. Equally difficult to accept is the idea that
- Congress has in some fashion acquiesced by silence to the utilization of
- mail and wire fraud as copyright enforcement tools. One need only
- contrast the infrequent and, with exception of the Congressional
- reaction to McNally, technical amendments to the mail and wire fraud
- statutes with Congress' exhaustive attention to developments affecting
- copyright law.
-
- [14] The government strenuously disagrees with me on this point.
- However, even the dissenters in Dowling (Justice Powell and White) saw
- the issue framed by the majority no differently than I do. As Justice
- Powell characterizes the opinion: "The Court holds today that 18 U.S.C.
- Sec, 2314 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." Dowling, supra at 22 (Powell, J., dissenting)
-
- [15] See Government's Memorandum at 8.
-
- [16] The government's suggestion "that the legislative history of
- copyright protection serves only to provide additional reason to
- hesitate before extending Sec. 2314 to cover the interstate shipments in
- this case'." and that Dowling simply held that "'Congress has not spoken
- with the requisite clarity.'" seem to me equally applicable to the
- analysis of Sec. 1343. Government's Memorandum at 8 (quoting Dowling,
- supra at 221, 229).
-
- [17] For example, a first offender who reproduces fewer than ten copies
- of a computer software program in a one hundred and eighty day period is
- subject to a maximum punishment of one year imprisonment 18 U.S.C. Sec.
- 2314(b)(3). The same prosecution under the wire fraud statute would
- entail a maximum prison sentence of five years. As defendant also notes,
- use of the wire fraud statute to punish criminal copyright infringement
- would override the shorter three year statute of limitations of the
- Copyright Act.
-
- [18] In 1992, in hearings before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on
- Intellectual Property and Judicial Administration, the Vice-President
- and General Counsel of the Computer & Communications Industry
- Association testified as follows: "There are millions of people with
- personal computers to make copies. That is exactly one of the reasons I
- think you want to be very careful. You do not want to be accidentally
- taking a large percentage of the American people, either small business
- or citizens, into the gray area of criminal law." Hearing on S. 893
- (August 12, 1992) at p. 65.
-
- [19] The issue presented in this case is one of infringement only.
- Infringement is a technical concept describing interference with the
- statutorily defined rights of a copyright holder. A scheme or artifice
- to defraud, the object of which was to fraudulently obtain possession of
- the copyright itself would, I believe, be clearly punishable under the
- mail and wire fraud statutes. See Dowling, supra at 217 ("[The
- infringer] does not assume physical control over the copyright, nor does
- he wholly deprive the owner of its use").
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Thu, 22 Dec 1994 18:44:08 -0500 (EST)
- From: Stanton McCandlish <mech@EFF.ORG>
- Subject: File 3--EFF Personnel Changes Announced
-
- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
-
- Personnel Announcements at EFF.
- Contact: EFF: Andrew Taubman <drew@eff.org>, +1 202 861 7700
-
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced today several
- significant personnel changes. EFF is a non-profit, public interest
- organization that seeks to protect and enhance the growth of "Cyberspace"
- (the Global Information Infrastructure) as a diverse, free, responsible and
- empowering environment.
-
- David Johnson has been named Chair of the EFF Board of Directors and Senior
- Policy Fellow of EFF. Johnson, an EFF Board member since 1993, has been
- practicing computer law with the Washington, DC, law firm of Wilmer,
- Cutler & Pickering. He has direct experience with computer networks as
- Chairman of LEXIS Counsel Connect (an on-line system for lawyers). He joins
- Andrew Taubman, Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, who began
- at EFF in September of 1994.
-
- Esther Dyson has been named Vice-Chair and will serve on the EFF Executive
- Committee. Dyson is President of EDventure Holdings Inc., a venture
- capital firm focused on emerging information technologies, particularly in
- Eastern Europe. Dyson is a member of the US National Information
- Infrastructure Advisory Council, has board memberships at the Global
- Business Network, Perot Systems, the Santa Fe Institute, and is a founding
- member of the Software Publishers Association.
-
- Johnson and Dyson join David J. Farber and Rob Glaser on the EFF
- Executive Committee. Farber holds the Alfred Fitler Moore Professorship
- of Telecommunications at the University of Pennsylvania, is a fellow at the
- Annenberg School for Public Policy and at the Glocom Institute in Japan and
- was one of the creators of many of the parts that evolved into the modern
- Internet - such as CSNet, CREN, and NSFNet. Glaser is President and CEO of
- Progressive Networks, an interactive media and services company and serves
- on such boards as the Foundation for National Programs and the Washington
- Public Affairs Network.
-
- EFF co-founders Mitchell Kapor (immediate past Chair) and John Perry Barlow
- (immediate past Vice-Chair) remain Directors and will continue to
- participate actively in the development and implementation of EFF policy
- programs.
-
- Also announced, Jerry Berman, who held the position of Policy Director, has
- left EFF. Janlori Goldman and Daniel Weitzner, who have worked closely
- with Mr. Berman over the years, and other policy staff members, also have
- left to establish with Mr. Berman a new organization to be called the
- Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). EFF wishes CDT success in its
- new venture and thanks Jerry and his colleagues for their substantial
- contributions over the past three years.
-
- In 1995, EFF will continue to pursue its policy mission of protecting the
- health and growth of the global computer networks. The 1995 policy agenda
- includes such projects as an innovative new "State of the Net" report;
- studies of the implications of the global nature of the net for
- jurisdictional and governance questions; a study of the protection of
- intellectual property on networks; and efforts to preserve the free
- flow of information across the Global Information Infrastructure. EFF
- expects to continue to intervene actively to counter threats to
- computer-mediated commmuniations networks, and virtual communities, such
- as limitations on the use of cryptography and intrusions into personal
- privacy, as it has in previous years.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1994 17:01:12 (PST)
- From: CyberWire Dispatch <brock@well.sf.ca.us>
- Subject: File 4--EFF Personnel Changes, II
-
- CyberWire Dispatch // Copyright (c) 1994 //
-
- Jacking in from the "Back to the Future" Port:
-
- Washington, DC -- The Electronic Frontier Foundation has fired its Policy
- Director Jerry Berman and will soon release a sweeping new agenda for 1995
- that promises to return the organization to its original grassroots
- beginning.
-
- Asked to comment on his firing, Berman bristles and says: "I think that's
- baloney." Then he quickly adds: "Did you ever think I might have wanted to
- leave?"
-
- Berman has, in fact, left EFF, to head a new, as yet unannounced, policy
- group called the Center for Democracy and Technology. His departure from
- EFF and the creation of CDT will be made public this week in a joint
- announcement with EFF, sources said. The official line that will be spun
- to the public is that the two came to a "mutual parting of the ways."
-
- That benign statement, however, doesn't reflect the long hours of the
- behind the scenes deliberations, in which the language of the press
- releases will be a cautiously worded as an official State Department
- briefing.
-
- Heroes and pioneers always take the arrows; EFF lately has looked more
- like a pin-cushion than its self-appointed role as protector of all things
- Cyberspace. The beleaguered organization has over the course of the past
- two years endured often withering criticism from the very frontier citizens
- it was sworn to uphold and protect.
-
- The reason: A perceived move away from its grassroots activism to the role
- of a consummate Washington Insider deal maker.
-
- Berman is the man largely responsible for cutting EFF's policy cloth. He
- wears the suit well. Maybe too well. Although he has the political acumen
- to arm-wrestle inside-the-beltway, it comes at the expense of his
- management style, EFF insiders said. Those shortcomings came at the
- expense of EFF's day-to-day operations and didn't go unnoticed by its board
- of directors.
-
- The EFF board in October fired Berman for mismanaging the group's
- organizational and fiscal responsibilities. No impropriety or malfeasance
- was alleged, the board was simply dissatisfied with Berman's day-to-day
- managing of the shop.
-
- In a precursor to the board's October decision, it split Berman's job,
- giving him charge of just the policy arm, which board members said played
- to his strength. They then hired Andrew Taubman as executive director to
- oversee the day to day tasks.
-
- Separate from the organizational and fiscal misgivings, the board also
- couldn't brook with priority on policy affairs that Berman had engineered.
- Although Berman expertly navigated EFF through the choppy political waters
- of Washington, that course increasingly steered the organization away from
- its original vision as a populist group.
-
- Never was the hardcore policy-driven slant of EFF more apparent than during
- the two-plus year political firestorm that surrounded the FBIs infamous
- Digital Wiretap.
-
- The political wrangling during that time, in which Berman brokered the
- influence of EFF with the backing of the telephone, computer and software
- industries, to reach a compromise with legislators and the FBI on the
- bill's language, increasingly drove a wedge between the organization and
- its grassroots membership.
-
- Nobody within EFF interviewed for this article disagreed with how Berman
- ran his policy tour de force. In fact, the board was generally in
- agreement that Berman did an excellent job in helping to broker a less
- nefarious version of the FBI's wiretap bill than would have otherwise
- passed without his involvement on EFF's behalf.
-
- As effective as Berman was in shuffling between the political and
- ideological interests of EFF and its members, the "inside baseball"
- political bullshit was largely lost on the community of the Net, who viewed
- it as a kind of betrayal.
-
- The fact that there would be a backlash from the Net came as no surprise to
- Berman and EFF, who recognized the fine line they had to walk in dealing
- with a politically charged issue rivaled only by the Administration's
- insipid Clipper Chip encryption policy.
-
- You see, the Net community is a binary braintrust, a world of ones and
- zeros -- either on or off -- in which shades of grey are rarely an option.
- Yet it is exactly these shades of grey in which Berman excels and thrives.
- It is a skill -- and damn near an art form -- to be able to move among the
- shadows and Washington's land of a thousand different agendas. And that's
- right where Berman had steered EFF.
-
- However, it's not where the EFF board thought the organization belonged.
-
- And so, in a few days the Net community will read a grand announcement in
- which EFF and Jerry Berman state they've had a "mutual parting of the
- ways." The announcement will be several fold, including:
-
- -- The formation of Berman's new Center for Democracy and Technology.
-
- -- That EFF has hired current board member David Johnson, currently a
- computer law attorney with the Washington law firm of Wilmer, Cutler and
- Pickering, to be its new policy director, although that exact title has
- yet to be finalized.
-
- -- A new policy agenda for EFF that includes creation of an annual "State
- of the Net" report.
-
- EFF Executive Director Taubman declined to comment on Berman's firing,
- saying only that the organization and its former director had, indeed,
- agreed to a "mutual parting of the ways." He said EFF and Berman's new
- group would continue to work closely with each other and that the efforts
- of each would be mutually beneficial.
-
- Johnson said he was excited about the new policy efforts he would be
- heading up for EFF, which, in addition to the "State of the Net" report,
- includes commissioning papers and studies to help build a more solid idea
- of what exactly constitutes the Net "community" on a global basis and
- helping to define the Net's community as recognizable legal entity.
-
- In addition to the new policy efforts, Johnson will have to restock EFF's
- policy department: All the EFF policy wonks have jumped ship, resigning
- their positions and joining with Berman's new venture.
-
- The upheaval at EFF -- which included moving the entire operation here to
- new digs in Washington -- apparently hasn't hurt moral which has "never
- been higher," Taubman said.
-
- Underscoring Taubman's remarks is EFF's on-line legal council Mike Godwin,
- who said the changes "create an opportunity for us to return to our more
- populist mission and vision that we started with."
-
-
- All Things Being Equal
- =================
-
- Adversity for a political junkie is the warp and woof of Washington
- culture. Berman is no worse for the wear, having parachuted out of EFF and
- into his new organization. He said CDT will be differ from EFF "on what to
- emphasize." That emphasis will be to focus on "on the ground public
- policy," he said.
-
- And it won't only be Berman's staff that sets the scene for familiarity as
- he jump starts CDT. The former EFF policy staffers will supply him with
- horsepower and his political currency will open doors. But he needs cold
- hard cash to feed the troops and pay the rent.
-
- That means his new organization must have financial backing and here, too,
- there are no strangers. Berman's bringing along a fair chunk of EFF's
- corporate sponsors to his new home.
-
- Companies providing seed money to Berman's CDT include AT&T, Bell Atlantic,
- Nynex, Apple Computer and Microsoft. These same companies provided a
- combined $235,000 in donations to EFF in 1993, minus Nynex, which wasn't
- listed as a major donor (over $5,000) on EFF's tax returns.
-
- It's not known if these companies will continue to fund EFF in full or in
- part or what amount they have pledged to Berman's group. Just how
- well-heeled CDT is and exactly who makes up the full roster of its
- sponsorship remains to be seen. We'll know that after the organization
- files its first tax returns, which will be a matter of public record.
-
-
- Meeks out...
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1994 22:51:01 CDT
- From: CuD Moderators <tk0jut2@mvs.cso.niu.edu>
- Subject: File 5--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 25 Nov 1994)
-
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