Frederick Goldsmith needed to make money to repay a debt. He developed a scheme where he would access foreign movies, video games, and software; would override the copyright protections; and would then make them available for download online. Goldsmith bought and installed hardware and software to set up a computer server, and paid the monthly service charges to connect the server to the Internet. He knew that users around the world could access the server to upload and download copyrighted works. Goldsmith was indicted in a federal district court for the crime of copyright infringement. He claimed that he did not understand that copyright laws protected foreign materials, which it does if they are part of one of the intellectual property treaties. Did Goldsmith commit a crime, and does he have any valid defense?

Ignorance of the law is not a valid defense for criminal liability, one can not make an excuse of not knowing a particular law as a reason good enough to commit a crime.

In this case, Goldsmith admitted that he knew that Internet users from around the world were accessing the server to upload and download copyrighted works. This admission can be linked to a mens rea. Which means they clearly knew their act will result to a wrongdoing or crime but still they intentionally continued with it.

Based on these facts, Goldsmith is likely to be convicted of a crime.