The National Stolen Property Act and Computer Files: A New Form of Property, a New Form of Theft
Todd H. Flaming · bepress Legal Repository · 1993
Section 2314 of the National Stolen Property Act ("NSPA") imposes a fine and a jail sentence on any person who "transports, transmits, or transfers 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."'In Dowling v United States, the Supreme Court held that the Act's "stolen, converted or taken by fraud" language did not extend to a case of pure copyright infringement.2 Although ostensibly a case about whether copyright infringement is equivalent to stealing, converting or taking by fraud, the opinion contains hints that the NSPA does not apply at all to the taking of purely intangible property.What happens to a person who uses his computer to connect to another person's computer without permission through the use of a modem and instructs that person's computer to download a confidential file? 3 Like pure copyright infringement, there is not the kind of "physical" taking involved that there would be were the person to break into the victim's home and steal data disks.However, unlike pure copyright infringement, an uninvited intrusion into the victim's privacy occurs, albeit through the use of analog signals over the phone lines.BA.