United States v. Liu

Julius Liu (defendant) ran a disc-replication business, Super DVD, requiring clients to certify they held reproduction rights before he would replicate their media. After a raid on one client's warehouse uncovered counterfeit software CDs traceable to Liu's company, the government also charged Liu over DVD copies of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and various music-compilation CDs, though Liu maintained he had been misled about the true content of some source discs and sued one client for misrepresentation once he learned the truth, and that he reasonably believed another client's claimed music rights and vocal performances were legitimate. At trial, the court instructed the jury that willfulness meant acting knowingly and intentionally rather than by accident, but refused an instruction — requested by Liu and accepted by the government — clarifying that mere proof of reproduction alone does not establish willfulness; the jury convicted Liu on all counts.