Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court case that discussed whether copies of copyrighted works could be regarded as stolen property for the purposes of a law which criminalized the interstate transportation of property that had been "stolen, converted or taken by fraud" and holding that they could not be so regarded under that law.

The two men used the services of a record-pressing company in Burbank, Los Angeles County, California.

The charges of mail fraud arose out of his use of the United States Postal Service to distribute the records.

From the Reporter of Decision's syllabus: The phonorecords in question were not "stolen, converted or taken by fraud" for purposes of [section] 2314.

Infringement implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.