United States v. Keith C. McCool and Sherman Smith

Appellants were convicted of one count of copyright infringement in violation of 17 U.S.C. §§ 506(a) and (b) and 18 U.S.C. § 2319(b)(1)(B), and eight counts of mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341. The copyright violation arose when appellants distributed videotaped copies of twenty-one copyrighted motion pictures, without authorization from the copyright owner, to various military clubs at bases overseas. The mail fraud counts arose from misrepresentations in the same scheme.

We publish this opinion not because the appellants’ principal argument has merit, but simply to insure that it…