Requirements for criminal copyright violations clarified

Description

Abstract: Not surprisingly, the level of guilt necessary to prove a criminal copyright violation is higher than that needed to establish civil liability for copyright infringement. But to precisely what lengths must the government go to secure a conviction? Some clarification was provided last fall in a case in which a plaintiff, having been sentenced for counterfeiting CDs and DVDs, argued to an appeals court that the district court had improperly instructed the jury on the meaning of the terms “willfulness” and “knowledge” under the relevant statutes. This article describes why the appellate court agreed, concluding that the instructions weren’t harmless errors. U.S. v. Liu, No. 10-10613, Oct. 1, 2013 (9th Cir.)