Kim Dotcom Can Be Extradited, Rules A New Zealand Court (reuters.com) 188
Kim Dotcom -- and Megaupload's programmers Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, as well as its advertising manager Finn Batato -- could soon be in a U.S. courtroom. A New Zealand judge just ruled they can all be extradited to the U.S. An anonymous reader quotes Reuters:
The Auckland High Court upheld the decision by a lower court in 2015 on 13 counts, including allegations of conspiracy to commit racketeering, copyright infringement, money laundering and wire fraud, although it described that decision as "flawed" in several areas. Dotcom's lawyer Ron Mansfield said in a statement the decision was "extremely disappointing" and that Dotcom would appeal to New Zealand's Court of Appeal.
U.S. authorities say Dotcom and three co-accused Megaupload executives cost film studios and record companies more than $500 million and generated more than $175 million by encouraging paying users to store and share copyrighted material. High Court judge Murray Gilbert said that there was no crime for copyright in New Zealand law that would justify extradition but that the Megaupload-founder could be sent to the United States to face allegations of fraud.
"I'm no longer getting extradited for copyright," Dotcom commented on Twitter. "We won on that. I'm now getting extradited for a law that doesn't even apply.
U.S. authorities say Dotcom and three co-accused Megaupload executives cost film studios and record companies more than $500 million and generated more than $175 million by encouraging paying users to store and share copyrighted material. High Court judge Murray Gilbert said that there was no crime for copyright in New Zealand law that would justify extradition but that the Megaupload-founder could be sent to the United States to face allegations of fraud.
"I'm no longer getting extradited for copyright," Dotcom commented on Twitter. "We won on that. I'm now getting extradited for a law that doesn't even apply.
whose fraud??? (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the most aggravating things in the US these days, is fraudulent pricing by companies with industrial strength DC political connections.
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at least they are not quoting billions and trillions....
Yet.
At this point, this case exists solely to justify the MPAA. Online movie piracy harming the industry is a debunked myth. Redbox makes what little profit they can, iTunes has it for the sake of being able to say they have it and Netflix is flat-out giving up on the movie model and making original content.
Re:whose fraud??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I doubt the $500m figure on a competitive bid or such pricing basis, at least they are not quoting billions and trillions....
The figures given are meaningless as there's no way to actually know, they're chosen for propaganda value.
They're going after Kim & co. because they have fewer millions to fight back with and fewer US politicians paid off than YouTube/Google who host far more copyright-violating content than Megaupload. As we've seen demonstrated over and over again, if you've got the money and connections you can get away with anything in the US, the Rule of Law means squat.
Strat
Re:whose fraud??? (Score:5, Funny)
In the US, the golden rule applies. He with the gold makes the rules.
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Re:whose fraud??? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's from the comic strip "The Wizard of Id" some time in the 60s
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My favorite. It warped my upbringing as a child. I fondly remember Sir Rodney yelling "Halt, or I'll shoot!" then the twang of the bow and his squire saying "Lucky for you he halted or you would have missed." Such a fun read on Sunday morning.
Re:whose fraud??? (Score:5, Informative)
U.S. ISP revenue was $97 billion in 2016 [ibisworld.com]. The U.S. consumer electronics industry revenue is over $200 billion [cta.tech]. The Internet publishing, broadcasting, and search industry's revenue was about $110 billion in 2014 [census.gov]. Total is over $400 billion. Nearly 3x bigger than music, movies, and TV. Yet they're made to bend over and comply with the wishes of the studios. The tail is literally wagging the dog.
It already destroyed Sony's audio electronics division. Sony was the top name in audio equipment in the 1970s and 1980s. Then in 1987 they acquired CBS records [wikipedia.org] and renamed it Sony Music Entertainment. SME coexisted with Sony Electronics until 1998, when the MP3 player came to market. Sony Electronics came up with an MP3 player, but SME forced them to add DRM to it. Customers avoided it because it was impossible to take their existing CDs and simply copy the music over to a Sony MP3 player.
Sony's 1998 revenue [sony.net] was 1,128 billion Yen for the audio division (page 14), 660 billion Yen for the music division (page 15).
Their 2000 revenue [sony.net] was 935 billion Yen for the audio division (page 47), 709 billion Yen for the music division (page 498).
By 2003 [sony-latin.com] their audio sales had atrophied to 683 billion Yen (page 20), vs 636 billion Yen in music sales (page 18). Music sales were about the same as 1998, but their audio electronics sales had been cut nearly in half because of SME demanding their products comply with their copyright protection requirements. (In 2004 their music division began a joint venture with BMG, so financials are not comparable from then on.)
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In the US, the golden rule applies. He with the gold makes the rules.
Quite true, but luckily for Kim he's spending his time and money in New Zealand courts. Also luckily for Kim, New Zealand judges tend to be a pretty independent lot, and while I'm sure the US is putting huge pressure on the New Zealand Government, the judiciary here are quite capable of telling the Government to mind their own business.
As an aside, I have seen this in person. At a social function years ago, a District Court judge (I think, certainly a judge of one type or another) called the former Prime M
Re:whose fraud??? (Score:4, Interesting)
The bottom line is if you steal from US companies, or facilitate theft, of millions of dollars (it is at least that) in a country with an extradition agreement to the US (or a small country that the US is willing to hurt to get you), prepare to get extradited. I am not sure what the surprise is. On a moral level, Kim knew he was stealing from copyright holders, and making millions doing it. With the advent of the internet, you can commit a crime in a foreign country without physically being there, and if the laws are reasonable or similar to the country you are in, or the country has any conditions mentioned above, it is not a great shock that you will get extradited.
People on Slashdot are constantly pissing and moaning about copyright, and while I agree that copyright duration is too long, this is not even that. Kim Dotcom knowingly and willingly facilitated people downloading newly released movies, software, etc. and ignored requests to take down infringing material (and that is the key difference with YouTube). I know it is not a popular opinion to have on Slashdot, but consider that without copyright we would not be able to have professional actors or musicians or authors among others. The key principles of copyright were violated in this case and we should protect those from violation on the net.
Well, that's wrong for a start (Score:1)
It should start with:
"The bottom line is if a big US company claims you stole from them..."
Since no theft nor loss occurred, all that there is is a claim of loss and/or theft.
I mean, the bottom line is if you're in North Korea, all you have to do is try to destabilise the government through acts of violent terrorism and you're executed by the state.
The uncomfortable problem with it, like with your posts' claims, is that there doesn't actually have to have been a crime committed in reality for you to be puni
Re:whose fraud??? (Score:4, Interesting)
I know it is not a popular opinion to have on Slashdot, but consider that without copyright we would not be able to have professional actors or musicians or authors among others.
Says you. I kind of agree with the implication that Kim knew he was on shaky legal ground and didn't really give a shit, but your assertion here is just not true - or you are at least going to have to back it up with something. People would still need actors and musicians, with or without copyright. Plenty of professional musicians make a living playing out of copyright music (most classical music). Most actors are reading someone else's words.
Perhaps you meant that music, TV and books might not exist? But even that isn't true - things would just work differently. Maybe it would be better. Maybe more people could make a living rather than those at the top taking the biggest slice (I don't know, when have we ever been offered another way). The value just wouldn't be in the 'creation process' anymore - it would be elsewhere in the chain.
Re:whose fraud??? (Score:5, Interesting)
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No, the goal of copyright, at least in the English speaking part of the world, was, to quote the long title of the first modern copyright act,
This is also reflected in the American Constitution, where the Arts & Sciences at the time meant education.
The lengths of copyright was also much shorter, but long enough for creators to recoup their time.
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Plenty of professional musicians make a living playing out of copyright music (most classical music).
Musicians make money mostly from performance of music. Record labels make money from the selling and playing of recorded music, that's not even the musician's part of the pie.
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But it can and should be. The record labels traditionally put up tens of thousands of dollars for the recording studio and to launch the music, but with the digital age, you can have a comparable in home studio for a few thousand and digital distribution channels essentially cost you nothing. The record labels are slowly dying and eventually the digital distribution of music will net more money for artists, especially if they would wise up and form a guild like the SAG or some such, where they could force
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Plenty of professional musicians make a living playing out of copyright music (most classical music).
Musicians make money mostly from performance of music. Record labels make money from the selling and playing of recorded music, that's not even the musician's part of the pie.
(Disclaimer: anecdotal story) Apparently it is if they are serious about it. I'm not a musician but lots of my friends are or work in music industry somehow, and I ended up at a dinner with them and a friend who was from out of town performing (not claiming that's not part of the picture for various reasons) who had a alt college band back in the 80's and the discussion got around to this. The take away quote was "any musician that assumes that the music industry isn't about licensing is just kidding thems
Re:whose fraud??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Out of curiosity, how do you feel about "bong" shops? Does anyone actually believe someone is going to smoke tobacco in a water bong? At least, 99% of the time anyway. But yet "head shops" are legal. Why is "copyrighted" material special? Why does it get protection of "could be used for.."
Disclaimer: yes I know weed is now "legal" many places, but the analogy still holds.
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without copyright we would not be able to have professional actors or musicians or authors among others.
So, do you believe that without copyright Shakespeare wouldn't have written his plays, and there wouldn't have been professional actors to play them for him? Or that Mozart wouldn't have written his music, and there wouldn't have been professional musicians to play it for him?
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"On a moral level, Kim knew he was stealing from copyright holders, and making millions doing it."
How is this different to YouTube or DropBox or iCloud or Facebook?
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... and ignored requests to take down infringing material ...
Bullshit there. Megaupload removed every link to infringing material where notice was given that it was infringing copyright in accordance with the DMCA. They were in fact very careful to comply with the DMCA. What they didn't do was remove links to the same material that weren't in the notice.
Megaupload hashed every file and if more than one person uploaded the same file, they only stored it once and linked both accounts to the same file. So their approach makes sense - if Peter and Paul both upload the
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... By not removing the ACTUAL DAMN FILE, just a link to it, they failed to comply with the DMCA request, which requires deletion of all files associated with the request, not just links. So no, thanks for playing, but that is not DMCA compliance and I was quite correct in my assertion.
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Megaupload was well known all across the web. Pretty much everyone here on slashdot knows what it was. I don't care what Dotcom's lawyers said in court, they were always an illegal file sharing business and probably 95% of their bandwidth was illegal file sharing. That there was one instance where someone was trying to honeypot illegal downloaders using Megaupload does not justify all the rest of megaupload's behavior.
The purpose of rapid entry raids is to prevent the suspect from reacting, either by des
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You are wrong.
They built a tool to share.
Your attempts to attach "copyrighted material" after various sentences means little. And what little it does mean is that you support a future where information is more controlled. No one wants such a future but stupid short sighted people support the steps taken towards it anyway.
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Proof? There were more sales of VHS tapes before that website started up than there were after.
Probably much higher sales of 8mm before that site started too.
Need any more evidence?
heh
Re:whose fraud??? (Score:5, Interesting)
the system, feds, mpaa and some of the new zealand officials can't just drop the case either now since they are all so deep in it that if the case gets dropped without getting him into a court in usa then they're all in deep doodoo already.
basically, what MPAA, FBI etc. want is for fatty fat pants to get dragged into a US court and make him do a plea bargain - since otherwise they're on the hook for fucking up the investigation in many shady ways from day 0. someone(mpaa?) pushed them into this years ago now and now they're already so deep in damages and questionable conduit that the real question is under what authority did they even do everything they did.
like, they don't even want the normal court proceedings - they just want some kind of a plea bargain to get them off the hook. that way it never goes to actual court.
also - how the fuck do you change the reason for extradition in the middle of extradition hearings anyways?
if they wanted just an actual court they might just as well have done that inside new zealand.
Re: whose fraud??? (Score:1)
The normal court proceedings? Almost all cases are plea bargained now. Few ever get a jury trial because they are slapped with multiple charges. If they can't get you on this charge then they'll get you on obstruction just for fighting it.
Re: whose fraud??? (Score:5, Insightful)
thats exactly the thing why they want it in USA rather than NZ.
because it no longer matters in USA if you can win in court because YOU DON'T HAVE TO.
plea bargains are such bullshit in both ways. it's a travesty.
for example, there's far more murders in usa than there are convicted murderers - and same applies to all other kind of cases.
as if what happened depends on if you plea guilty or not - how the fuck is that even supposed to work? now i'm all right with giving more lenient sentences to people who confess but changing the crime based on if you get a confession or not is a travesty on the world of statistics.. and well, morals too.
not to mention of course that you're not supposed to even get a more lenient sentence for confessing because you're not supposed to witness against yourself in the first place.
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Theres also an inverse at play with this shocker as well.
Cop decides he's certain the husband killed the wife. No evidence, just "He seems the sort". So they they tell the guy "We're going to get you the death penalty if you dont take the plea bargain". The husband may well be innocent, but at this point it doesnt matter anymore. He's fucking terrified of spending 10 years in solitar
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You have to be smart enough not to lie, that's all. If you're at least that smart, then none of that situation touches you.
If you're willing to lie, under oath, not even to defend yourself but to implicate yourself, there is nothing that the Court can really do to stop you from coming to an agreement with the prosecutor that sends you away.
Yes, it is a problem for dishonest idiots. But it can be solved very easily on an individual basis.
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I agree that plea bargaining is problematic, as it also leads to massive overcharging (from what a prosecutor knows that they could reasonably get a conviction on) in order to scare the suspect into pleading guilty rather than facing the potential of life in prison for driving a getaway car or some such.
OTOH, the real world is a lot messier than TV crime shows, and in the real world, unless you have a video tape of the crime being committed or a tape of the suspect confessing to a confidant, or the crime wa
Meh (Score:1)
He's still got two more courts to go yet (Appeals and Supreme). Assuming he's still got enough of cash squirrelled away this circus will go on for a few more years yet.
Re: Meh (Score:1)
He's has plenty of cash still, but his accounts have been locked down by the US because he's a "fugitive".
He's going to lose, when the US wants someone, they get them.
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Question for you file sharers (Score:1)
One of the common justifications for illegal filesharing given here is that the record companies (studios, publishers) etc are ripping off the talent, and that the talent typically makes peanuts for their the work. Therefore filesharing is really an act taken against, or in indifference to, the greedy capitalists who were at best passive participants in the creative act.
Suppose the creative talent(s) - the band in the case of an audio recording, the author(s) in the case of a textbook, the director and sta
Re: Question for you file sharers (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. As soon as the bought and paid for copyright lengths are repealed and the public are compensated for the gross bribery that took place.
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I would. I've never heard Metallica again.
Re:Question for you file sharers (Score:4, Insightful)
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Digital has solved this for the future. Once you have music in digital format it's yours for perpetuity. I don't mind buying music from a new artist but I do have a problem with the extended range of copyright. It's messing the system up too. I often see stories where someone is sued because a couple of lines uses the same lick from another song 40 years ago. That's fucking crazy. How do you write music when you have to check millions of songs over decades to make sure you haven't accidentally gotten a
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A perfect example.
My justification (Score:4, Interesting)
Bad Decisions (Score:2, Informative)
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Last year was another good one for Hollywood, despite numerous flops.
The goal here is to further criminalise copyright infringement. The extradition is actually for conspiracy to defraud. That's how they go after people they don't like, they manufacture criminal charges.
It's pointless now, the service is long gone, many others have taken its place, serious pirates are all on VPNs. The only thing they stand to gain is to demonstrate that US law is global law and anyone who annoys a large corporation must hav
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Why this is wrong: (Score:5, Insightful)
A government, particularly one that is elected by the people, exists for the purpose of managing systems to improve the entities that they are governing and to protect the constituents.
Whether or not Kim Dotcom is likely innocent or guilty, this finding will neither improve NZ and completely fails in protecting at least one of its' citizens.
Despite any extradition treaty, NZ must protect their citizens.
Australia is guilty of similar neglect with the lack of assistance to Assange. Our government does not represent Australia or Australians and all policies are either self-serving or to the benefit of another nation (US & UK). There is continuous dumbing-down of political matters to the extent that constituents no longer identify treason when it is shoved in their face.
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Re: Why this is wrong: (Score:2, Informative)
Except he lied on his recedancy application about not having any criminal conviction so should not of even been allowed in.
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Pissing off the US for refusing to extradite someone? Ok, there was Panama but the US aren't going to invade a first world country over that.
Frostiness, sure. But I'd rather have that than my government rolling over and shipping people over there to suffer the travesty they call justice.
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See my post above. In a nut shell, a non citizen resident who lied on his application for residency of NZ violated criminal law and stole millions of dollars worth of copyrighted materials and made millions of dollars from what amounts to the worlds policeman and current superpower/main stabilizing force in the world (the US). When the US told him to stop, he gave the US the finger.
The US could sanction/blockade NZ and destroy their economy for less cost to the US than Dotcom inflicted in copyright infrin
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Sure, because Japan, Australia and the UK would sit idly by and not take action to defend New Zealand. Fucking get over yourself.
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Whether or not Kim Dotcom is likely innocent or guilty, this finding will neither improve NZ and completely fails in protecting at least one of its' citizens.
Neither will pissing off the United States, so I think the situation might be a bit more complicated than your fifth grade civics class suggests.
It's best to leave grown up things to grown up.
Re:It's best to leave grown up things to grown up. (Score:1)
Re:Why this is wrong: (Score:5, Interesting)
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The America hating around the world has always bothered me with it's irrationality. It is akin to having a bodyguard protect you for decades, get shot and bleed for you, ask only that you treat them with respect, and they pay you (through imbalanced trade deals or outright foreign aid) for the pleasure... The deal the civilized world has had with the US for 70 plus years has been extraordinary. I guess the asshole attitude towards the US has finally reached the US citizens, because now we have Trump, and
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Try that watch when the emus [wikipedia.org] get there first and nuke your ass.
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America is probably going to get Australia dragged into a war with China
Don't fool yourself; at the highest levels of influence, us Yanks are just as much the bitches of the "international old money feudal elite" (i.e. those snakelike fucks that Crown Colony countries pay homage to on their currency)... but I digress; Oz won't need our help dragging you into conflict with Chi-Com; the allure of your resources will eventually do that.
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Why should we have to bend over for anybody?
NIMBYs.
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But the piracy thing apparently didn't stick, or it's not enough to warrant
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There is no such thing. The only condition is that countries that do not allow the death penalty require that the person not be facing potential execution.
Other than that, the requirement is that at least one of the things you're accused of is a legit type of crime. Like fraud. They're not going to examine the evidence, they're going to examine the accusation.
The trial will determine the value of the evidence. That happens later. These steps do matter. The apparent important fact is that he and others are a
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NZ should take the same approach as the USA, and give the US the middle finger.
The US will not even extradite murderers
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/89593559/The-case-of-the-bullet-fired-in-US-that-killed-a-teenager-in-Mexico
Germany (where Kim Dotcom comes from) takes a different position to shooting innocents
http://www.rferl.org/a/1084033.html
Mexico Border Shooting (Score:3)
The case you cite in Mexico, there are a few things you should know about Mexico. It is basically a lawless state with every official and police officer corrupt and run by the drug cartels. Anyone who was not corrupt was systematically murdered over the last 20 years. US border patrol is ROUTINELY fired at by Mexican nationals who are running drugs and people across the border from the Mexico side. This teenager and 3 male friends attempted to enter the US illegally, they fought with border patrol agent
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Australia is guilty of similar neglect with the lack of assistance to Assange.
Help him with what, exactly? The man is on the run from a rape accusation. I don't know of many countries that will help you out with that.
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The man is on the run from a rape accusation. I don't know of many countries that will help you out with that.
Given that the "rape accusation" is utterly fabricated, every country should. The rape issue was created to give cause to punish him for leaking information that hurt the U.S.. An interesting timeline. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-... [bbc.com]
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It's a shame there is no legal procedure he could make use of to prove the accusation is fabricated, then, isn't it?
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I have a feeling in the end he'll get a lot more process than he wanted.
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Do you likewise claim defectors from the old Soviet Russia were criminals on the run???
No, because that is a completely different situation in nearly every conceivable way.
He's not even facing an accusation yet
Because he is, by his own choice, delaying the legal process so that it can not proceed to that point.
He's still only wanted for questioning.
Which is required before charges can be filed, by Swedish law.
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Actually, the citizens of NZ and AU greatly benefit from good relations with the US. Consider what would happen if the US blocked all trading between the US and those states. What would happen to their economies? How many popular movies, games and software come from the US, not to mention physical goods from US companies? Consider if the US pulled all of our carrier groups back to US assets. What would happen between NZ and AU and China? I hope you can speak Mandarin, with your large amount of desirab
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Idiot. He isn't dividing anything. He's taking advantage of the divide that was here. The vast majority of middle America has been seething for decades in resentment. He just tapped into it. They didn't have a leader as the Republican Cucks in DC are just as much whores as the Democrats. Now Trump volunteered to lead them. Is he full of shit? Most likely. Is he the only person to address their anger? Yes. I'm just enjoying watching him shake up the bullshit up there. The fucking press who are bi
Trump Rules! (Score:1)
proves one thing (Score:1)
Don't do business with americans
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They weren't doing business with Americans. What it proves is not to travel to the US to do financial transactions if the transactions are not legal here. That's the thing that they did that causes other countries to be willing to hand them over.
I'm as usual torn in this case (Score:4, Insightful)
On one hand, it's not a good thing to see that the international bully gets its way again.
On the other hand, it's Kimmie getting it up the ass...
No matter what side I root for it feels just wrong.
Re:I'm as usual torn in this case (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not.
On the one hand we have a arrogant fat shitstain on society, on the other we have the MAFIAA.
The former for all his character flaws has actually provided people a product that had a need, an improved it along the way. The latter exist solely to skim money from the middle of artists and consumers by artificially limiting supply and then suing customers.
As bad as Kim is, he's one person. He could have a history of eating babies and yet on the grand scheme of his effect on population, the economy and the adoption of future high-tech models of entertainment, he is still no where near as bad as an international consortium that does nothing but stifle the entertainment industry.
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The former for all his character flaws has actually provided people a product that had a need, an improved it along the way. The latter exist solely to skim money from the middle of artists and consumers by artificially limiting supply and then suing customers.
Which is which again? Because the fat shitstain was profiting from artists without paying them at all. The "product" he provided was a thin veneer for a pirate site.
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Yes, but there was evidence that they were facilitating copyright infringement. That's a big no-no.
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Which is which again? Because the fat shitstain was profiting from artists without paying them at all. The "product" he provided was a thin veneer for a pirate site.
From the artists? So Mega has a music upload business, and a search engine for it's files then? No. Mega was purely a file storage service. There was no functionality to search for music or infringing content on it. There was way to identify what content is what on its site. The download links weren't tied to file names which made any kind of indexing or even guessing at content on their site pointless. The only link that Mega had to piracy is that someone using their service to store data then posts links
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So if you don't know which is which I urge you to get a clue followed by some perspective.
I urge you to cut the bullshit. You already acknowledged he was a fat shitstain. You ignored what I wrote and made some shitty analogies instead. His site wasn't just a neutral download site. It was a thin veneer for piracy, and there was evidence to back that up via internal email. That's what fat shitstains do.
For all your huffing and puffing about artists, this guy was nothing but a parasite.
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You already acknowledged he was a fat shitstain.
On a personal level, which has nothing to do with his business.
You ignored what I wrote and made some shitty analogies instead.
Nope I addressed it directly.
His site wasn't just a neutral download site.
His site provided a place to store data and share a link. Nothing more.
It was a thin veneer for piracy,
Conjecture.
and there was evidence to back that up via internal email.
There's evidence of every company that stores or moves bits at some point discussing the use of their platform for piracy.
That's what fat shitstains do.
I really get the feeling that you are incapable of separating a person from a business.
I urge you to cut the bullshit.
Yeah I will by ignoring what you say from this point. Quite frankly the level of bullshit increased infinitely when you joined th
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On a personal level, which has nothing to do with his business.
It has everything to do with his business. That's his history [wikipedia.org], running criminal enterprises. That he's a fat piece of shit just makes him easier to scorn.
Conjecture.
No, based on evidence and using common sense.
There's evidence of every company that stores or moves bits at some point discussing the use of their platform for piracy.
It went beyond that. [wikipedia.org]
Yeah I will by ignoring what you say from this point.
Of course you will, because your argument is indefensible. You're defending a parasite with a criminal history.
Seems reasonable, but why extradite? (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair that seems a bit hard to prove, but I don't know the details of how he sold the product, which he'll presumably argue was just bandwidth.
That said, I'm confused why, if he committed fraud he isn't prosecuted in New Zealand?
So if someone gets caught running a randsom-ware scam do all countries then take turn having the person extradited, prosecuted and jailed...
Don't get me wrong, I hate randsom-ware scam authors as much as the next guy, but giving someone just 6 months prison in every country where a crime was committed easily turns into a life sentence. Honestly, that seems a little harsh.
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If he were prosecuted in New Zealand he'd get a fair trial. That's why he must be prosecuted in the USA. So that he gets an unfair trial.
Weird ruling (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAL, and I don't know New Zealand law. However: this is a weird ruling.
The judgement agrees that copyright infringement is not a criminal offense in New Zealand, and that DotCom cannot be extradited on this. However, it then goes on to conclude that distributing copyrighted materials may deprive copyright holders of their property, and that this therefore is fraud (which is criminal). That latter seems like an end-run around the intent of the law, and it contradicts the first conclusion. It seems likely that DotCom will win the next level of appeal.
That said, he's a idiot. He's counting on New Zealand to defend him, and yet he keeps badmouthing the country, its laws and its government. He really is a total jerk.
Re: (Score:2)
That said, he's a idiot. He's counting on New Zealand to defend him, and yet he keeps badmouthing the country, its laws and its government. He really is a total jerk.
Are you saying the legal system of a country bends to opinion tweets? Shit I prefer if they stick to bending to foreign corporate will.
Conspiracy to defraud (Score:3)
The New Zealand Herald has the full text of the judgment with its article here [nzherald.co.nz]
Paragraph 77 onwards of the judgment are an absolutely crushing demolition of the Dotcom team's arguments that facilitating copyright infringement on an industrial scale should not be considered "conspiracy to defraud".
"Conspiracy to defraud" is extradictable to the USA; Dotcom & co are likely to be going away for a long time.
Re: (Score:2)
Like I said, read the judgment, which cites 100 years of cases in the UK, under laws essentially similar to NZ's.
Also note that this is about "conspiracy to defraud" -- which is a specific thing in law, significantly broader and *different* to fraud. Again, see the judgment for the statutory definition in NZ law.
Thinking that this is about "fraud" is a mistake. It's not. And news reports that write about it as "fraud" are significantly misleading.
where is the damage proof? (Score:1)
Big guy vs little guy, money always wins. (Score:2)
Follow the money, follow the power, follow the influence.
Do you guys think for a mother fucking SECOND if this was some tinpot little country, smaller than New Zealand, this would happen?
Do you think, if NZ pushed for this, from an American, this would happen?
This is retarded.
Re: Let this be a warning to all punks (Score:1)
Where did you come from? That is just stupid
Re: (Score:2)
Just because someone is a lying cheating cunt does not make it ok to skip justice.
The law should protect everybody, even you.
Re: (Score:3)
That's odd, you seem to want to lose any protection your government might offer you against foreign interference.
Kick out Kim Dot Fuckwit for being someone you don't want in the country if you don't like him, but don't roll over and drop your trousers for the US first.