Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell that to the SCOTUS: interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The infringer of a copyright does not assume physical control over the copyright nor wholly deprive its owner of its use. Infringement implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud. By the way, the infringer was acquitted, since the court agreed he h…
A counterpoint to this interpretation of the Dowling verdict - http://lawtheories.com/?p=1881 : > This lack of “physical removal,” as required by the statute, meant that Dowling’s infringing copies were not “the sorts of goods whose interstate shipment § 2314 makes criminal.” But this doesn’t mean that Dowling’s acts of infringement in creating the physical records were not themselves acts of theft or conversion.
The example of the other case (which, by the way, was only a District Court decision) also seems weak. AFAIK (IANAL), the fact that copyright law preempted state law doesn't mean the two are equal, it just means that both theft and copyright infringement occurred - which is easily seen to be the case, since physical plans were actually removed from a place.