US Judge Say Kim Dotcom May Never Be Tried or Extradited 345
vik writes "As Megaupload's Kim Dotcom's megafarce trial continues, the New Zealand Herald reports that his alleged offense not only falls below the threshold for extradition, but also that the warrant may not be properly served. 'My understanding as to why they haven't done that is because they can't. We don't believe Megaupload can be served in a criminal matter because it is not located within the jurisdiction of the United States,' says Megaupload's lawyer Ira Rothken. Not surprisingly, Kim Dotcom has a few choice words to say about having his business trashed this way, with 220 jobs lost, and millions left without access to their legitimate data."
Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
He was put out of business and lost tens of millions of dollars from the raid. His punishment has already been served, without trial, and without due process.
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
Global capital? How do we vote them out of office?
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Interesting)
Completely cut off the flow of money to the entertainment industry and encourage others to do the same.
Whether you pirate or abstain is irrelevant. What matters is that the flow of money stops.
The behemoth entertainment industry was not created out of thin air by Blofeld. It grew from the ground up when clueless consumers chose to buy its products, unaware or unconcerned with what their purchases were fueling.
The entertainment industry did not fall from the sky. The public created it, nurtured it, and fed it. It is what it is because people are willing to fork over huge sums of money for an intangible product of questionable quality with a near zero marginal cost of production.
These days, telling someone to give up their MAFIAA-backed entertainment is like trying to get a smoker to quit. People are hooked and falsely believe that mass produced entertainment is a necessity. In the brain of the average consumer, not buying a DVD and taking a hike in the park instead does not even register as an option.
"completely" not necessay -corporatism's weak spot (Score:5, Interesting)
completely cut off the flow of money to the entertainment industry
There's no need to cut off the flow completely - just reduce it sufficiently.
Doing that is simple. Here's the plan: It's not as tough as you believe. [techdirt.com]
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People still buy Sony products? What worthy product have they even produced in the last two decades?
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Now when we have everything we could wish for, perhaps it is time to reconsider what could make ones life better, could it perhaps be more materiali
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
Global capital? How do we vote them out of office?
Traditionally, With Torches and Pitchforks.
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why we Americans have the second amendment.
The house of representatives was supposed to be about as difficult an office to obtain as city council seats.
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Global capital? How do we vote them out of office?
First, I read your comment.
Then, I laughed out loud.
Then, I sighed.
Then, I cried.
Now I feel like shit.
Thanks :-((
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
Vote RON PAUL, that's how.
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That should read “vote Gary Johnson”.
Ron Paul doesn't believe in evolution.
Ron Paul doesn't believe in a government-funded space program.
Ron Paul doesn't believe in the right of a woman to control her own body.
Ron Paul says he stands for civil liberties, but all that he wants to do is transfer the takeover of civil liberties to the states government.
Ron Paul is ready to go against the status quo by applying unusual ideas, but he's not willing to adapt those ideas to the real world. Some people w
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Yes, because it's ALL his fault, right? The previous guy didn't do ANYTHING wrong and was a perfect saint, a champion of personal freedoms and rights. Voting the other guy isn't going to help, as they end up serving the same masters. You want change, you need to neutralize the power of those masters, and find a way to convince people to vote for someone who won't simply bow to them.
Good luck with that.
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Informative)
The previous guy didn't do ANYTHING wrong and was a perfect saint
Actually, he didn't mention anything about the previous guy...
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But that wasn't the whole point. He said it as if he was saying that the guy he replied to was claiming that the previous guy did no wrong. He didn't.
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
But that wasn't the whole point. He said it as if he was saying that the guy he replied to was claiming that the previous guy did no wrong. He didn't.
What does it matter to what's occurring NOW, what some previous guy did or didn't do?
If the previous guy had burned 10,000,000 live babies to death, does that mean the current guy is OK because he only burned 9,999,999 live babies to death?
Shouldn't we instead be outraged at the whole idea of either guy burning live babies to death?
This is the kind of partisan insanity that keeps those types of leaders in power decade after decade.
Strat
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
Lemme repeat myself for those that missed it the first time. The lesser of two evils is still evil
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but he did imply that voting out Obama would make a difference. It won't.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Are you serious? I get the impression that you believe a Republican would have done better, or more fairly? There really is a "kinder, gentler" way of trashing people's business, I imagine.
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It this meant to be funny? Because if not, it has to be the most clueless post of the day.
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wouldn't judge him on his choice of lawyers though. I'm sure Mitt would do the same thing.
This is your mistake. You should judge both Obama and Mitt for a poor choice of lawyers. Both parties favor regulatory capture, judge them both harshly for it.
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Informative)
I posted this here the other day but it seems very appropriate to post again. Bookmark this link List of SOPA/PIPA Supporters [wikipedia.org].
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Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
Do the RIAA and MPAA even have elections?
Plenty of those affected will have no right to vote in either the USA or New Zealand in any case.
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember who was in charge when this happened and vote accordingly next election.
hmm, we remembered who was in charge the election before that, went with a new party, yet nothing has changed.
So why would it change this time?
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. The *AA and their government goons have never cared about process. Same when you get arrested under false pretenses, the establishment gets off with a 'sorry' while in the mean time you lost your job, lost relationships and regardless of conviction you have a record that keeps influencing whether or not you'll get hired in the future and whether or not you keep getting re-arrested and strip searched for simply existing.
These days, the legal system simply has so much cruft, overbearing laws and process hindrances that simply the threat of getting arrested is enough to make you think about complying with whatever they want, getting arrested will give you perpetual problems in your life and getting convicted even if overturned later will make you an outcast.
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I vehemently disagree!
They almost never say "sorry".
FTFY (Score:2)
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I've lived in both the US and the EU, although the US is bad and corrupt on the high level (the politicians), the EU is just as bad and the corruption is more spread out and gears towards the lower levels.
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But... but... without the trillions dollars of statutory damages from copyright infringement, the Entertainment Cartel will certainly go bankrupt. Would anybody please think of the MAFIAA executives' children?
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the new 'justice' system. Isn't it grand?
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Interesting)
He was put out of business and lost tens of millions of dollars from the raid. His punishment has already been served, without trial, and without due process.
Except this whole thing was orchestrated to prove to legislators that the current law cannot be used to stop the bad guys and that America needs those tougher laws that the lobbyists cannot get though.
"Ok, they won't give us the powers we need to make it impossible to send movies to your friends... How about we try and do everything possible we can to take down someone we can paint as the bad guy (fat douche looking hacker with an attitude, nice!) and when it backfires we can say it isn't cause we are not trying hard enough. It is because we need bigger legal guns."
Kim will get his stuff back. He will put Megaupload back online, even without everyone's data, because Kim will want to make a point, and the point will be exactly the point the RIAA and MPAA want him to make. "Look we even had the bad guys raided by a swat team... And they went right back to selling bandwidth to pirates."
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And that's why the people need to send the message that the problem is a DOJ that can't find it's collective ass with both hands and a map attacking innocent people at the request of coke sniffing crooks in Hollywood.
Just one good drug raid on a Hollywood party would probably bag more evidence than the perfectly legal marijuana dispensaries they keep harassing.
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He was put out of business and lost tens of millions of dollars from the raid. His punishment has already been served, without trial, and without due process.
This pretty aptly sums up the whole situation. Please continue to mod-up parent.
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
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Reading "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" leads me to believe that we who care need to make things much worse for those who don't, so they _will_ care. Only then will change happen.
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Reading "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" leads me to believe that we who care need to make things much worse for those who don't, so they _will_ care.
Mmm ... Multiple boxcars full of rocks raining down on MafiAA offices, ... Mmm ...
A boxcar full of rocks falling at terminal velocity would probably surpass anything in the US arsenal short of a nuke. Mmm ...
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against who though? the media industry will just point to law enforcment, saying they had no control over it, all they did was tip off law enforcement to the activity, any "mistake" in due process would be law enforcment's problem, similarly law enforcment will find some low level middle management type and throw them under the bus. They'll get some time off (with pay) and everything will go back to normal.
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Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, they were the muscle. They should have known better.
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Indeed. I'm looking forward to that headline: "U.S. Government sued for damages by MegaUpload, including future loss of business. Total claimed amount is counted in billions.".
Two words:
Sovereign Immunity.
"We don't think we'll allow you to sue us today. We've ordered the judge to drop all proceedings and dismiss the suit with prejudice. You may not refile."
Strat
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I doubt if would even get that far. Turns out that NZ and the US aren't just in bed with each other, the US has NZ gimped out. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt if would even get that far. Turns out that NZ and the US aren't just in bed with each other, the US has NZ gimped out. [wikipedia.org]
Good point.
These days, it seems being a US ally is more damaging than being a hostile nation. Look at how the US has all but cut the legs out from under Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, and the only one that doesn't kill gays/lesbians, doesn't treat women as chattel, and allows Muslim Arabs to be citizens and enjoy full citizenship privileges. Compare that to how the Muslim Arab nations treat Christians, Jews, and women within their own borders. For that matter, look at how the Arab nations refused and still refuse to allow Palestinian refugees into their countries in favor of using them and their suffering as a cat's paw to attack Israel and the US.
The antisemitism on open display in the US and elsewhere by groups like OWS scares the piss out of me. Does nobody remember or has anyone not been taught about WW2 and the Holocaust? Just as then, Jews are now increasingly being blamed for all the ills caused by the political leaders of their own political parties & nations.
This way leads to genocide and other horrors on a mass scale, and not just to Jews, either. Remember that the concentration camps were not exclusively for Jews, but for any "defective" people like gays, the mentally challenged, the physically "deformed", and anyone that opposed the regime, or were simply "inconvenient" in some way.
History doesn't always exactly repeat itself, but historical patterns sure do. Hold on tight, because it's going to get really nasty for everyone, and sooner than you think.
Strat
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You know, Israel deserves some upbraiding. 20 years ago I would have argued that Israel was interested in peace. They actually tried to make peace and were spurned and that have been fighting for their survival since against hostile parties in the Arab states. And I get that now 60 years later the Arabs are finally making offers now that they (Arabs) realized they can't accomplish by force so they are trying to work the other side and that the hypocrisy of doing so while funding and supporting terrorism wor
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Between seizing Palestinian land without payment,...
I'll just leave this here for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7ByJb7QQ9U [youtube.com]
And this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY6JKALNwKE [youtube.com]
Don't you hate it when facts make a huge post like yours, with all the time you spent typing it, into nothing but fantasy, nonsense, and drivel? Personally, I'd track down whoever gave you your talking points and slap them for making you look ridiculous in front of the whole world.
Strat
Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not the AC, but I'll respond anyway.
The AC never said anything hate-filled. He never said anything bigoted. He never said anything that bore the marks for ignorance, intolerance, or hatred. You said all that.
You're the one that seems to think antisemitism is the norm in the U.S. You're the one thinking jews are blamed for all the ills of the nation (silly me, I thought it was the Democrats, or the Republicans, or the financial industry, or etc. etc. etc.). You're the one who thinks we're only one step away from setting up concentration camps.
In other words, you're the one who's acting like a Zionist troll.
You seem to equate disliking Israel's policies with being a hate-filled bigoted troll. Well, I'm not hate-filled, bigoted, nor a troll, and I don't care for Israel's policies. Sure, they got the whole democracy thing down, which is good, and they have a decent record for civil rights as far as those they consider citizens (i.e. not palestinians), but hey - so does the U.S., and I don't like a lot of our policies either.
What we're sick of is the neverending "peace process" which is basically just Israel spinning its wheels and doing nothing about the status quo. You might like the status quo, but palestinians do not. You blame arab nations for not allowing palestinian refugees into their countries, but you hold blameless the country responsible for making them refugees in the first place. Israel can't even keep basic promises, like not building settlements in the West Bank. Israel shows no interest in the welfare of the palestinians.
That's what he meant by apartheid. If you can't see parallels there, you're blind.
Now, you're just going to say I'm just another troll (I'm not), and that I'm an antisemite (I'm not), and that I want a war against Israel (I don't), because you've got a chip on your shoulder the size of Syria. That's fine, I don't care. I'd like to think, though, that maybe, just maybe, you'd engage your brain and realize that just because some people don't suck off the "chosen of God" doesn't mean we want to slaughter them wholesale.
Shit Like This... (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'll be voting Socialist come November
That'll show them.
Voting is necessary but not sufficient. The vote comes too late: If the incumbent wins, he thinks he's got a mandate to keep doing what he's been doing. If the incumbent loses, the new guy thinks he's got a mandate to do whatever he wants. In no event does voting send the right message, unless your vote actually changes the outcome of the election -- and good luck with that.
You need to make sure they understand what you need them to do before the election, that way they can actually do it.
Re:Shit Like This... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I think you're confusing libertarian and anarchist. (common misconception)
Re:Shit Like This... (Score:5, Insightful)
This would have never gone down with a liberatarian administration.
You may be right: for example, the extremely wealthy backers of the MPAA and RIAA would simply pay top dollar to a platoon of mercenaries, who would level the data centers and murder everyone that provided the services. If there were still a DoJ and Court system, they would already have bought off all the prosecutors and judges. Case closed.
Or do you think this wouldn't happen under a Libertarian administration either? If so, what do you understand to be the Libertarian proposal for a system of justice?
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They can't begin to concieve of a gov't that's not beholden to some sort of special interests.
Humans always favor some over others. Unless we're to be ruled by circuitry, government will always exhibit the same behavior. The brand name doesn't matter.
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Two people will never agree entirely on right and wrong, that's the human factor. That's why there competing parties, competing ideas. That's also the basis for democracy. There would be no need for elections if everyone believed in the same sets of right and wrong. The mere fact that we have self-consciousness makes pure altruism unattainable. We vote for whoever has a belief system that's closest to our own. Then we hope they'll stay true to their campaign rhetoric, we end up disappointed once again
Re:Shit Like This... (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of us know perfectly well what libertarianism is. I was a libertarian myself back in uni days.
We also do know our history, which has ample examples of why "very small government" inevitably leads either to anarchy, or to an authoritarian take-over (and often it's the first followed by the second). It simply isn't a stable state of affairs: a power vacuum will be filled, and if you refuse to fill it with what you believe is best, it will be filled by those most willing to fill it: i.e., sociopaths with a power lust.
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What? From what I've saw, libertarians in the US are generally pro-free market. Copyright doesn't allow for a free market at all.
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Because a government enforced monopoly (i.e. patents and copyrights) wouldn't be supported by a libertarian government. If you want to protect your idea, protect it yourself by never telling anyone.
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If people opposed to it (either out of ideology or ignorance) lie about it long enough, people who don't know any better believe them. Arguments like M1FCJ's are why the current corrupt politicians continue to win: they're willing to lie repeatedly about policies which might actually change something. Power brokers simply describe the opposition as the antithesis of what the opposition actually stands for and people without the time/intelligence/morals (pick one) continue to support the power brokers.
Be thankful, Kim. (Score:5, Interesting)
"...having his business trashed this way, with 220 jobs lost, and millions left without access to their legitimate data."
Kim, you should be thankful that this attempt to bring democracy to your country ended with so few casualties. The United States is generally far more aggressive regarding its use of military forces to support economic (corporate) policies. You could have been picked up by a bounty hunter, or kidnapped by operatives. I wish I could say I was joking here -- several federal legislators and officials have stated that they consider filesharing and copyright infringement to be supporting terrorism.
On the upside, your sacrifice may bring additional business to New Zealand, as well as prompt a review of disaster recovery with an emphasis on protection against foreign governments. Again, I wish it was a joke -- ten years ago, disaster recovery plans centered around the damage backhoes and hurricanes could do. Today, those risks can be cheaply mitigated thanks to cloud architecture and data centers in almost every major city worldwide. The biggest threat which cannot be managed by a business anymore is the threat posed by a rogue foreign government such as the United States. Though I am hardly singling them out -- the UK, China, Iran, North Korea, India, Iraq, France, Germany and Egypt join them on the list of foreign governments who have attempted to destroy businesses extrajudicially.
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Two companies popped into my head:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT_Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company
These companies serve as an example how US government can overthrow newly elected governments because some US corporation requests it.
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Not that these are the only possible examples.
These companies serve as an example how US government can overthrow newly elected governments because some US corporation requests it.
Also examples of how this kind of thing isn't "new". The US Government acting on behalf of supposedly "private business" goes back at least as far as the late 19th century.
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What they want is the power to censor negative comment about themselves...
"Plus ca change, ..."
Even the Soviets couldn't do that, with threats of bullets in the back of heads. See what they couldn't stop no matter how hard they tried. [wikipedia.org]
Whoops! (Score:2)
Ah well, no harm done!
I wonder if he will be able to sue the US government for the millions/billions lost in buisiness.
Re:Whoops! (Score:5, Insightful)
if there were justice, he would be able to sue the .nz officials(who failed to do their duty), the fbi officials(who failed to do their duty) and the RIAA posse who misinformed those officials.
and all customers should be able to too.
in case someone is wondering, apparently the .nz officials failed to serve the company mega upload with a notice - a notice that would have probably allowed their lawyers to fight. furthermore it seems the intent of the american officials was to sue the individuals who had assets in megaupload for conspiracy instead of suing megaupload(it seems copyright violation is 4 years max in .nz, which wouldn't qualify for extradition - though even more likely is that the original real plan was just that dotcom would do a plea bargain.. ).
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The IP Nazis made an "Example" of him (Score:2)
millions? (Score:2)
I really doubt that millions of people were more than slightly inconvenienced. Smart people didn't put their only copy of any data they thought was important there. A service like that is for backups and exchange with other users. Unless either you were stupid or list your original due to a crash, you can just re-upload to another service.
Otherwise only Megaupload itself and Carpathian are really up a creek.
Re:millions? (Score:5, Insightful)
I really doubt that millions of people were more than slightly inconvenienced. Smart people didn't put their only copy of any data they thought was important there. A service like that is for backups and exchange with other users. Unless either you were stupid or list your original due to a crash, you can just re-upload to another service.
You are really silly.
I had my whole photo album there (12GB or so of photos), uploaded over a very long period of time. Of course, it was not the only copy, but it was the copy which family/friends could always see.
It did not require me to give any 'identifiable' details when creating an account, it doesn't really know who I am, I haven't been getting spam to email address which I've used for registration, it was extremely fast for everyone, it was much faster than other services I've tried, blah, blah, blah. I still have backups of my photos, but do you realize how long I'll have to upload them, on 512Kbit uplink, to another service? That won't happen.
Can't you just accept that they were providing a good service? I'd rather pay them for premium account, than have it for free and have my data being sold to everyone who asks for it.
There is not such thing as a free lunch.
If you still don't understand what I am talking about, maybe this will help:
http://verydemotivational.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/demotivational-posters-facebook-you.jpg [wordpress.com]
Lawsuit (Score:2)
Hopefully those "choice words" are only the beginning, and turn into an expensive lawsuit against the U.S. Government.
The evil empire strikes again! (Score:2)
Millions/Billions of $ lost, tens of thousands dead, all for the profit of the mega corporations that control the whores on Capitol Hill!
Re:Seems Poetic (Score:5, Informative)
The argument will always be that he merely offered a service that was in huge demand. What the users did with it cannot be blamed on the operator. At least, not when you stick to basic common sense and not U.S. protectionist copyright laws.
Re:Seems Poetic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seems Poetic (Score:5, Insightful)
While the legality of the move raises questions, I have to admit, there seems something poetic about someone who earned a fortune on ill-gotten, pirated material complaining about having his business trashed and jobs lost.
Yet who was it that claimed that Megaupload's principle use was copyright infringement? Megaupload had large numbers of law-abiding users, including people within the Justice department and even more ironically, within the entertainment industry. You might as well claim that ISPs are built on "ill-gotten, pirated material" -- after all, practically all downloading activity takes place on the Internet.
An indictment is not a conviction, it is a preliminary accusation backed up with some amount of evidence. If indictments were conclusive, we would never need trials.
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Yet who was it that claimed that Megaupload's principle use was copyright infringement?
Anybody with an iota of common sense could tell that, long before they were raided.
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While the legality of the move raises questions, I have to admit, there seems something poetic about someone who earned a fortune on ill-gotten, pirated material complaining about having his business trashed and jobs lost.
You really need to stop using that catchphrase.
I think it would be obvious by now that there are many many people who did not use Mega for things you did.
He earned his fortune by providing a really good service to customers. What the customers were doing, you can't know so stop assuming so much.
Re:Don't feel sorry for him or his business (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't feel sorry for him or his business
The US government very likely didn't follow procedure, as we see here. Do you not see how dangerous this is to allow them to do as they please? Whatever you think of Kim and Megaupload, think of yourself and others first. If they can do this to him, they can do this to anyone. They can ruin anyone's business. That's not good.
I don't feel sorry for anyone who uploaded their only copy of their files to Megaupload, either.
Sorry that everyone isn't as technologically minded as you are.
You know what's funny, though? While they may not have had an expectation that their data would stay there forever, I'm almost positive Megaupload would have informed them if they were going to legitimately shut down their website. That would give them time to get their files. But here, thanks to the US government, it was shut down instantly and without notice. Very nice.
This whole situation is just children, Brazilians and the mentally challenged just whining about not being able to get their warez
Uh... what about people with legitimate data hosted there? You even mentioned them in the above paragraph. I have a feeling they're "whining" about it, too. Probably whining that it's the US government's fault.
Nice generalizations, though.
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Kim Dotcom may be able to escape criminal prosecution because of issues with extradition.
However there is still the matter of civil and criminal claims against Megaupload.
Given statutory damages it is highly unlikely Megaupload will ever exist as an operating entity in the US again.
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But this is part of the point. They never did exist as an operating entity in the US in the first place.
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In practice they are likely to be highly selective in doing this kind of thing. It's not like we will see Microsoft, Sony or even the MPAA "taken out" next week.
Re:Don't feel sorry for him or his business (Score:5, Interesting)
He was knowingly running a warez hub
Which was also used by the United States government, the recording industry, and an enormous number of other law abiding people.
On top of that, he was running it as a for-profit warez distribution website
So why are ISP operators not behind bars as well? What, do you really think that broadband service is not targeted at people who upload and download copyrighted material without permission? Let's not get caught up in external marketing here.
This whole situation is just...
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So why are ISP operators not behind bars as well?
Probably has something to do with how ISPs don't pay people to upload copyrighted material to their servers.
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First rule of usenet! Mod parent down.
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I don't feel sorry for him, I feel sorry for the law.
Re:Don't feel sorry for him or his business (Score:5, Informative)
I don't feel sorry for him or his business. He was knowingly running a warez hub. On top of that, he was running it as a for-profit warez distribution website. What his external marketing showed is meaningless compared to what actually occurred behind the scenes.
I don't feel sorry for anyone who uploaded their only copy of their files to Megaupload, either. It's no one's issue but the uploader's if he was dumb enough to not have multiple physical backups of files that he definitely couldn't lose. Anyone dumb enough to also pay money to share their files on a site that is filled with ads also gets what's coming to him. There are at least 10 sites out there that provide you with a clean, easy to use and efficient service - even for free - for sharing files without any ads.
This whole situation is just children, Brazilians and the mentally challenged just whining about not being able to get their warez, or losing a couple of dollars to a company that shut down and didn't give them a refund. I didn't see any cries from the people who lost hundreds or even thousands of dollars when Etology scammed every advertiser and publisher, last summer.
This whole post is a huge straw man: the story here isn't about feelings of sorrow or otherwise. We hav a very clear (il)legal situation. Changing the topic in this fashion to raise tempers and mislead the attention of the readers - this is called trolling.
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They will extradite him
Yes, for copyright infringement. My heroes! The US, the world's police force, has saved us all from such a heinous criminal. Think of all the bits that they stopped from being copied! Totally worth all of this taxpayer money being wasted.
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Yeah, but it ultimately comes down to intellectual property nonsense. Even if it didn't, the US absolutely should not be involved.
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ffs, everything is 'money laundering' these days, if it involves suspected illegality and money.
Meanwhile a US judge is suggesting that he wont get tried or extradited. So you're calling a US judge a liar. Dangerous ground indeed.
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The catch with the money laundering charge is that it hinges on the copyright infringement charge. Because if he's not guilty on the cpoyright infringement then the money he earned was earned legally, and hence the money laundering charge falls apart. so really if you can't prove the one, nothing else matters.
Re:Millions of legitimate users? (Score:5, Informative)
Really? Millions of users who used megaupload for backups, or for distributing their own material and nothing else, _and_ who have no other copy of the data? Might the submitter be just slightly exaggerating?
Unlikely. Apparently, there were 15'000 premium accounts from the US army alone. Millions of legitimate users sounds quite reasonable. Also take into account that there is only so many movies and software that can be shared and music does not take a lot of space. Compare that with the size of the Megaupload storage and it sounds quite possible that the majority of data was actually legitimate. Of course, a major part of the Megaupload profits were from copyright infringement, but that is not the fault of the legitimate users.
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Re:For crying out loud (Score:5, Insightful)
It may or may not. I don't know, and I can't tell because it hasn't gone to trial.
What has happened is that someone's had their business disrupted, and their customers have had their personal data stolen from them, all without due process of the law.
There has been a crime here, and even copyright infringers deserve a fair trial. Those trying to deny it to them need prosecuting.
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When you're the subject of a raid like this, it doesn't matter if you have backups. They take those too.
If the above is the lesson learned, then anyone backing up their data needs to do it onto a server in a country which has no legal reciprocity with the US. In those cases, the US just uses the military instead of the judiciary.
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They only paid cash to people to upload files if they couldn't prove those files were copyright infringing; that's why they had all those spreadsheets identifying what the members of their revenue sharing scheme were uploading. This saved them quite a bit of money.
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But you have no requirement that they actually do prove it? the allegation is sufficient for you? you're ok with the mere allegation of a crime being enough to ruin someone's entire life?
Due process exists for a reason. If you don't care about it in one specific case, then you are willing to dismiss it in ALL cases, including ones you might find yourself in in the future.