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Piracy The Courts United States

Kim Dotcom Loses Extradition Case (stuff.co.nz) 98

Posted by Soulskill from the this-case-is-finally-coming-to-a-middle dept.
BitterOak writes: Kim Dotcom has lost his extradition case in New Zealand, and will now (probably) have to face trial in the U.S. on charges of money laundering, racketeering, and copyright violation. Three of Dotcom's associates face extradition as well. "Although the U.S. didn't need to prove the charge, counsel had to at least prove there was an answerable case overseas to fulfil extradition requirements. Lawyers for the four argued that the court didn't have jurisdiction to order extradition and that copyright law showed they weren't required or expected to filter every single piece of copyrighted material on Mega." Dotcom's lawyers say they plan to appeal, which would see the case reviewed by New Zealand's High Court. All four will remain free on bail in the meantime.
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Kim Dotcom Loses Extradition Case More

Kim Dotcom Loses Extradition Case

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  • What a criminal (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stormwatch ( 703920 ) <(rodrigogirao) (at) (hotmail.com)> on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @12:37AM (#51169833) Homepage

    How dare he provide an useful service at a reasonable cost? He's a monster, I tell ya!

    • Re:What a criminal (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @12:54AM (#51169891)

      I am amused he is being charged with 3rd party piracy (piracy by by providing a service that allows others to pirate material) called now "criminal copyright infringement" Which isn't even defined in the US justice system and many, many other US companies are guilty of.. yet remain unprosecuted to this day. (mega even removed known pirated material once it was issued with takedown notices)

      The other charges he/they could be guilty of, not enough information. But sadly if he is extradited I doubt he will get anything close to a fair trial, the servers as I understand it were not even located on US soil, yet the US is claiming jurisdiction for prosecution based on copyrighted material being produced in their country.. new ground indeed, a landmark case that when lost (as we all know it will be) means that people can be extradited to a country, based on a service they provided to others that "that" 3rd party abused.. why aren't the persons responsible for the infringement of the copyright being charged?

      Captcha: Sorely

      • Re:What a criminal (Score:5, Informative)

        by beaverdownunder ( 1822050 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @01:38AM (#51170005)

        Quoted from a comment on HN:

        "Not accurate. Read the indictment.

        - Bottom of page 11: thirty-nine infringing copies of copyright motion pictures were present on their leased servers at Carpathia Hosting... in the Eastern District of Virginia

        - Page 18:The Mega Conspiracy leases approximately 25 petabytes of data storage from Carpathia to store content associated with The Mega Site.

        - It also looks like they leased servers in the US from Cogent, Leaseweb. They paid Carpathia $13M US to host Mega files in the US.

        - They also used a US-based Paypal account to receive funds and pay the different hosts in the US.

        - They made "reward" payments to US residents who provided copyrighted material.

        Mega was running an illegal business in the US."

        • Re:What a criminal (Score:5, Insightful)

          by EzInKy ( 115248 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @01:55AM (#51170031)

          So if he hadn't leased servers in the U.S. he would be in the clear? There might be a lesson for other foreign entrepreneurs to be learned here. It's no wonder so many IT jobs are being outsourced overseas.

          • Re:What a criminal (Score:4, Interesting)

            by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @03:35AM (#51170301) Homepage Journal

            or.. like blogger?
            or... like google docs/drive/files?
            or... like amazon?

            all these are used for same kind of purposes with advertising based rewards that go to the actual perpetrators(the people using the service to share).

          • Re:What a criminal (Score:5, Insightful)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @05:37AM (#51170615) Homepage Journal

            Exactly correct. When selecting a county to host your data, you need to consider what it's copyright laws are like. That rules out the US fit most uses, although having some caching servers there that are run by a third party can work.

            Europe is a mixed bad, really depends how stupid the host is and if you plan to violate anyone's privacy, since privacy laws are much stronger there.

            Be sure to encrypt everything too, preferably in a way that makes it impossible for you to police content. Otherwise you will be required to by lawsuit, even if the law says you aren't.

        • Re: What a criminal (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @02:41AM (#51170141)

          The gov't should check out the pirated content on YouTube.

          • And what about the way Facebook allows people to steal other people's videos from Youtube or whatever, host them of Facebook, Facebook gains ad revenue and when the injured party complains, the video gets taken down a couple of months later - and after the buzz for the video has waned & Facebook had gained most of the revenue it could expect to from the pirated media.

        • - They made "reward" payments to US residents who provided copyrighted material.

          Was that really true?

      • Re:What a criminal (Score:5, Informative)

        by greenfruitsalad ( 2008354 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @03:22AM (#51170259)

        you have probably never heard a story from the other side. like my wife's former classmates (small time artists composing and recording classical music for use in semi-professional videos) whose original work ended up on megafiles. they spent months trying to get megafiles to delete their work. to absolutely NO AVAIL!!! links to their work spread around the internet and their income slowly dropped to almost zero. when, after 2 years and lots of money spent, they managed to push this scumbag company to drop the files, they reappeared almost immediately and links spread again. the new files had the same md5sum so i suggested they ask for deletion of all files with the same hash, but the people they dealt with just taunted them.

        • they spent months trying to get megafiles to delete their work. to absolutely NO AVAIL!!!

          Did they actually send a DMCA takedown request, or just do a bunch of useless crap that was guaranteed not to work?

          when, after 2 years and lots of money spent, they managed to push this scumbag company to drop the files, they reappeared almost immediately and links spread again.

          Welcome to the modern world. You may recycle your buggy whip to the left

          • DMCA only applies to US. neither our friends, not megaupload were based there. so it went through an IP lawyer who knew how to approach this on an international level. (their email address for reporting copyright infringement was probably an alias for spam@megaupload) they kept dodging the bullet by claiming they're not subject to this and that, later they claimed to have made it unavailable in our country only (all bullsh*t). it was really pointless and frustrating. their each answer took at least 2-4 week

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Evidence suggests that piracy boosts profits, so perhaps you should consider other reasons why revenue declined. Did you expect it to go up for some reason, or have a control to compare it with?

          Chances are you wasted a lot of effort that could have been invested in promoting and creating new content.

          • Evidence suggests that piracy boosts profits, so perhaps you should consider other reasons why revenue declined. Did you expect it to go up for some reason, or have a control to compare it with?

            Chances are you wasted a lot of effort that could have been invested in promoting and creating new content.

            I don't doubt it; the problem is far too many people think "found on internet" equates to "free to use." One company I used to work for had copyrighted material in some of their training material used for public, paid seminars. When I pointed out that was not a good idea since the stuff was copyrighted a senior VP said "We found it on the internet so we're free to use it..." Schmuck was a lawyer to boot. I pointed out I can find our copyrighted training materials, books, etc on the internet as well so are t

          • Evidence suggests that piracy boosts profits

            Except that in this case it didn't. So, um, maybe it's not always true.

            so perhaps you should consider other reasons why revenue declined

            I think in this particular case revenue declined because people could download the music for free instead of paying royalties to use it.

        • This story sounds very questionable. If they were selling music for use in commercial videos, rather than to consumers, how could their income go down with piracy? Using their music in commercial videos without permission would mean a major payday for your musician friends in court and massive loss for the people who pirated the music. They were wasting their time with the wrong target at best.

          • from what i remember, it was basically a string quintet they started on extended maternity leave. their music was meant primarily for wedding/anniversary/baptism videos. for a few of them, this was their only source of income (single mothers). just like somebody above pointed out, once the links to their work became ubiquitous, people just assumed it was public domain. when they contacted a few people who used their music in youtube videos, the people were always surprised it was copyrighted. that was also

            • Yah right, because the consumers of string quartet music are hanging around in shady forums ready to pounce and rip off the music. Come on get serious. String quartet music is a dime a dozen.

        • While your story might enact some sympathy the reality is that these files are traded in thousands of forums so getting if off mega wouldn't solve much. Plus it is actually hard for companies to police this stuff. Copyright infringing material goes up on YouTube millions of times a day, and nobody is prosecuted.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      How dare he provide an useful service at a reasonable cost? He's a monster, I tell ya!

      Well the money laundering and racketeering are small time stuff, just charges to sweeten the pot. It's copyright infringement that's the real crime here. Such a heinous and despicable crime, I hear they cant keep the Infingers at San Quentin any more as the murders and rapists might start learning from them, they're having to build a new wing at ADX Florence just for them.

      • Well the money laundering and racketeering are small time stuff, just charges to sweeten the pot. It's copyright infringement that's the real crime here.

        Yes, but they are the most serious charges. Criminal copyright infringement won't get you any more than 5 years in prison for the first offense. Money laundering and racketeering could get each him 20 years in the slammer.

        Incidentally, there are lots of things wrong with our criminal system, and the fact that you can put "money laundering" on almost any crime is ridiculous. Congress never intended for this to be more than a 5 year prison sentence.

    • Re:What a criminal (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @05:48AM (#51170657)

      The fun (or rather, sad) bit is that he actually IS a criminal. He pretty much did everything in the book that should get him locked up, from insider trading to fraud, fleecing pretty much everyone he ever dealt with and causing damages in the millions to thousands of "business partners" (others would say patsies). Not once he's really gotten into any more serious trouble than what amounts to a slap on the wrist.

      But then Kimmie dared to butt heads with an organization that is FAR better at this game than even he is.

    • He should just admit that he is a Muslim, then rather than being forced to come to this country he will not be able to come to this country.
  • Good luck to him.

  • Goodluck Kim (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Marquis231 ( 3115633 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @01:00AM (#51169905)
    Soon he'll be off to the USA, to disappear within the US federal justice system on trumped up charges of breaking the law in a country he's never set foot inside of. A warning to the wise, just like it was with the British Empire, break our laws and we will find you no matter where on the globe you reside. USA Law is universal apparently.

    • So it's a good thing that USA will never be under the International court of justice because that would violate the citizens of the United States inherit civil rights?

      If it's not a good thing, then I'd posit that some treaties need to be re-examined and changed.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        So it's a good thing that USA will never be under the International court of justice because that would violate the citizens of the United States inherit civil rights?

        If it's not a good thing, then I'd posit that some treaties need to be re-examined and changed.

        People like Dick Cheney would be held accountable for war crimes if the US was a member of that international court.

        The US is not about what's just and morally right, the US is about MIGHT MAKES RIGHT. DO be sure to update your own
        worldview accordingly.

  • What came before the initial seizure of Jan 2012 (Score:5, Informative)

    by EdgeCreeper ( 1618161 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @02:37AM (#51170121)

    Interestingly Kim Dotcom was creating his own much fairer music service/label before the seizure of the servers etc in January 2012.

    Here is the best article I could find on google [torrentfreak.com] about it and the MegaUpload song takedown on YouTube.

    There were questions about whether this was the real reason the takedown happened. For anyone who doesn't remember.

  • This is what the state of militarization of our police departments has caused. https://youtu.be/pMas0tWc0sg [youtu.be]
    This alone is sufficient cause for any sane court of law to deny extradition. Additionally, it provides more than sufficient justification for US citizens to assert their second amendment rights. We are in international embarrassment.

     

    • That occurred in New Zealand, and did not involve anyone from US police. What does that have to do with US citizen's second amendment rights, or the militarization of US police departments?

      Also, that is not an example of militarization, it was the equivalent of a SWAT team, which is supposed to have the equipment and training that the average police officer doesn't have. However, I don't know why NZ decided to deploy them in this case, unless there was some indication that Kim owned numerous firearms and

  • Kim Schmitz (Score:3)

    by khelms ( 772692 ) on Wednesday December 23, 2015 @03:18PM (#51174503)
    Just because he likes to use a catchy assumed name doesn't mean the rest of us have to observe it.

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