KickassTorrents Lawyer: 'Torrent Sites Do Not Violate Criminal Copyright Laws' (arstechnica.co.uk) 80
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Lawyers representing Artem Vaulin have filed their formal legal response to prosecutors' allegations of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, among other charges. Vaulin is the alleged head of KickassTorrents (KAT). KAT was the world's largest BitTorrent distribution site before it was shuttered by authorities earlier this year. Vaulin was arrested in Poland, where he now awaits extradition to the United States. "Vaulin is charged with running today's most visited illegal file-sharing website, responsible for unlawfully distributing well over $1 billion of copyrighted materials," Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell said in a July 2016 statement. The defense's new 22-page court filing largely relies on the argument that there is no such thing as secondary criminal copyright infringement. While secondary copyright infringement as a matter of civil liability was upheld by the Supreme Court in MGM v. Grokster in 2005, Vaulin and his associates have been charged criminally. "The fundamental flaw in the government's untenable theory of prosecution is that there is no copyright protection for such torrent file instructions and addresses," [the brief's author, Ira Rothken,] argued in his Monday motion to dismiss the charges against Vaulin. "Therefore, given the lack of direct willful copyright infringement, torrent sites do not violate criminal copyright laws." "The extradition procedures have formally been started by the US in Poland," Rothken told Ars. "We are in a submissions or briefing period, and our Polish team is opposing extradition." Rothken also said that he has yet to be allowed to meet or speak directly with his client. For now, Rothken has been required to communicate via his Polish counterpart, Alek Kowzan. "Maybe they are afraid that Artem's extradition defense will be enhanced if American lawyers can assist in defending against the US extradition," Rothken added. No hearings before US District Judge John Z. Lee have been set.
Cool story bro (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cool story bro (Score:5, Insightful)
What's really important is whether the judge follows the law or makes a ruling that is against the law because the judge thinks the law is flawed and should be changed at his discretion.
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What's even more important is that any information such as this is presented before the judges, so that they can exercise their discretion in the first place. Judges are just like computer programs. They only process what they are given.
Re:Cool story bro (Score:5, Interesting)
in fact they dont host content so i agree they dont violate shit, and the argument of facilitation is bullshit since smartphones, google, and your fingertips also make it easier to address the content through a certain channel
load of american horsecrap
the textbook definition of OTT
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Can we please stop posting stories that amount to:
Lawyer Says His Client Wasn't Wrong?
Irrespective of whether any particular guy was wrong or not, his lawyer talking about it is almost never news.
Extradition? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get how everybody on this planet an his dog can be extradited to the fucking USA at their whims. The guy isn't even a US citizen...
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It's not a two way street. Good luck getting a Yank extradited anywhere. ex. Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada...etc
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The U.S. is one of the few countries that does not block extradition of its own citizens (cf. Brazil, China, France, Germany, Japan, etc.). Getting a Yank extradited pursuant to one of the 109 bilateral treaties the U.S. has signed is very possible, even if the reciprocating party will not extradite its own citizens.
Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada wasn't extradited under the U.S. Bolivia Extradition Treaty because there is no comparable crime under U.S. criminal law like the one he is charged with in Bolivia
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It's why Snowden is still in Commie Russia.
Autocratic Russia, yes. Commie, no.
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These treaties should be canceled or at least more limited, because (a) the US justice system does not really guarantee a fair trial, (b) US penal law has around 10 times higher maximum sentences than in the rest of the civilized world, so it is unreasonable from the perspective of other countries, (c) the US still allows and executes the death penalty, which violates human rights and is prohibited or no longer practiced in most other civilized countries (Japan being a notable exception), and (d) the US pen
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Its based on a prior agreement [wikipedia.org].
Re:Extradition? (Score:5, Informative)
And if it's not a crime in the country where the person being sought is staying, it's generally not extraditable. Canada is one such country where the treat with the US allows Canada to refuse to extradite such a person [mcnabbassociates.com]. Another reason in the same treaty is if the extradition is of a political nature:
Article 4, section 1, subsection iii
(iii) When the offense in respect of which extradition is requested is of a political character, or the person whose extradition is requested proves that the extradition request has been made for the purpose of trying or punishing him for an offense of the above-mentioned character. If any question arises as to whether a case comes within the provisions of this subparagraph, the authorities of the Government on which the requisition is made shall decide.
Additionally, Canada can refuse to extradite in cases where the death penalty is in play unless the US agrees beforehand not to seek it, of if such judgment is made, not to follow through with it. And in the case of minor children, extradition can be refused if it is determined that such extradition
ARTICLE 5
If a request for extradition is made under this Treaty for a person who at the time of such request, or at the time of the commission of the offense for which extradition is sought, is under the age of eighteen years and is considered by the requested State to be one of its residents, the requested State, upon a determination that extradition would disrupt the social readjustment and rehabilitation of that person, may recommend to the requesting State that the request for extradition be withdrawn, specifying the reasons therefor.
ARTICLE 6
When the offense for which extradition is requested is punishable by death under the laws of the requesting State and the laws of the requested State do not permit such punishment for that offense, extradition may be refused unless the requesting State provides such assurances as the requested State considers sufficient that the death penalty shall not be imposed, or, if imposed, shall not be executed.
It can be argued pretty easily that Snowden, Manning, and Assange all have a defense under Article 2.1(iii) to have safe haven in Canada, since the whole mess has taken on a HUGE political angle, overshadowing everything else. Unfortunately, Obama's [nytimes.com] kill list [wikipedia.org] has no geographical limit [democracynow.org] - it's fine to kill Americans anywhere in the world, even in the USA, in violation of their constitutionally protected right to due process. Looks like Obama is taking a page from Bush's "the constitution is just a damn piece of paper" playbook and ran with it.
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The argument that the kill list has no geographic limit is misguided at best, deliberately misleading at worst. The leaked white paper [upenn.edu] specifically says (emphasis added):
The Obama administration has never claimed it is fine to kill Americans in the US. It has claimed that what delineates the battlefield is unclear
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Bush's "the constitution is just a damn piece of paper" playbook
Sidenote: I was trying to explain my beliefs on politics to my son earlier this week, and decided to look up this quote on the fly while I was telling him about it. I learned that there's no evidence Bush ever actually said this. Although he did certainly act like he felt that way.
I realize you're not necessarily asserting that Bush actually said it - but I thought you might be interested. It was interesting to me.
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Whats really ironic is he was extradited from poland.
One of the countries that won't hand over roman polanski for being a guilty as hell pedo.
rape kids? thats ok. put up a website? we'll hand you right over.
Re:Extradition? (Score:4, Interesting)
/sarcsam Because America has the "best" government money can buy son.
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/sarcsam Because America has the "best" government money can buy son.
What was sarcastic about that comment?
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sarcasm, noun; the use of irony to mock or convey contempt.
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There's nothing ironic, mocking or conveying contempt about your perfectly ordinary and true sentence.
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That's why I put "best" in quotes.
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Sorry. I get it now, must have been a slow week for me :-)
Because he had a server in the USA (Score:4, Interesting)
Everyone seems to miss this tiny detail. He had a server running in CHICAGO. Plus they tied the site to his personal email address. So he wasn't even trying to be discrete.
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Of course nobody would do anything against the Big Bully, until you get a government crazy enough to do. We had a Chavez, we have a Kim, we may even have a Trump, so I'd rather not have that sort of jurisprudence.
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Not just that. As "secondary copyright infringement" had only been ruled on, incorrectly, in a civil case in US and such a concept doesn't exist in Poland or indeed anywhere else, there is no criminal case in the first place. There is no extradition for civil "offences" (quoted because the offence doesn't exist except in mealy-mouthed law twisting Hollywood asshole imaginations), so the request is invalid.
Where is the extradition request for Google Ireland board members for doing the same thing? They have s
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Everyone seems to miss this tiny detail. He had a server running in CHICAGO. Plus they tied the site to his personal email address. So he wasn't even trying to be discrete.
No, he rented a server from someone in Chicago.
It would be reasonable if the US government decided that they don't like if people rent servers to criminals and went after the one who actually committed a crime in the US.
The problem here is that the one who owns the server is a company and the US government have decided that they don't have to follow the law so they try to go after the individual in another country instead.
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Using your logic I can host all the infringing content I please as long as someone else owns the hardware it runs on. I can also run over people with my car because the bank still owns it and they are therefor responsible. The bottom line is the court believes he was infringing copyright in the USA and sent a legal extradition order to Poland. What is the court supposed to do, subpoena the hardware itself?
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According to the copyright mafia, if you make it easy to violate their copyright then it's your fault.
The case is well prepared, on page 6 of the motion are previous cases (past practice, normally called Precedence ) that back their claim https://www.documentcloud.org/... [documentcloud.org]
He's also charged with money laundering. (Score:3)
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I think the point is that everything covered by money laundering is covered by other laws that were existing at the time, either the root crime generating the ill gotten gains, or the account fraud that takes place with laundering. The problem is that it's easier just to make up magic new laws than do police work.
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I think the point is that everything covered by money laundering is covered by other laws that were existing at the time, either the root crime generating the ill gotten gains, or the account fraud that takes place with laundering. The problem is that it's easier just to make up magic new laws than do police work.
I imagine that they got pissed off never catching the perp with his hand in the cookie jar, tho they could catch him later with the cookie in his hand.
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This. Either the court case will barely even touch on IP, or if it does that portion of the case will be dismissed. However, they will get him on money laundering probably. Kind of like getting Al Capone for tax evasion. Not really what they arrested him for, but good enough to put him in jail.
But... eBay..?? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never understood why KAT, TPB et al are considered to be the very epitome of modern day evil, yet eBay can carry on selling fakes and bootlegs by the tens of thousands apparently unmolested by the US authorities?
eBay's "committment" against forgery (Score:1)
eBay's "committment" against forgery is complete and utter bullshit. I bought a DVD series from a seller overseas (it was not a domestic series) who had lots of listing proudly proclaiming he doesn't sell bootlegs. DVD's arrive, and the first few episodes have the same shitty fan-subs that would see with crap downloaded online. Some episodes even have the f***ing scan-lines where they were recorded to DVD from an analogue source. The only thing that looked remotely legit about them was the silkscreening and
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Intent. ebay is first and foremost a shopping mall. For everything you find on there that's fake, I'll show you 10 things that are not.
KAT on the other hand was first and foremost a platform for copyright infringement. Sure you may say it was just about tracking torrents, but when the specific criteria and options presented are given only for copyright infringement and the daily top 10 is purely based on copyright infringement and they even provide you with a nice voting system to identify if the infringing
I am Kickasstorrents (Score:2)
I am Kickasstorrents
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I am Groot.
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I am Zontar. Pleased to meet yas.
Meanwhile lawyers request delay... (Score:2)
Shooting the messenger (Score:2)