[1] Between April 1970 and March 1971, Goldstein purchased recordings (vinyl or tape) and reproduced them, without any contractual permission from or payment to the rights holders, onto blank tapes, which he then distributed for sale.

At the time of the infringement, there was no federal copyright law covering sound recordings (As of 2014[update] sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972 remain outside the purview of federal copyright law).

Goldstein argued that California lacked authority to enact state copyright law that conflicted with federal law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, and that its unlimited duration conflicted with the provision of the Copyright Clause which states that "exclusive Right[s]" of copyright be for "limited Times".

If states choose to protect more copyrightable works than the federal government does, they are not prohibited from doing so by the Supremacy Clause.

Justice William O. Douglas filed a dissent asserting that the Supremacy Clause was implicated in state extension of copyright to materials not protected federally, just as it would for a state extension of duration beyond the term of a federally granted copyright.