Kim Dotcom Can Be Extradited To US On Copyright Charges, New Zealand Court Rules (yahoo.com) 205
schwit1 shares a report from Yahoo News: Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom suffered a major setback in his epic legal battle against online piracy charges Thursday when New Zealand's Court of Appeal ruled he was eligible for extradition to the United States. The German national, who is accused of netting millions from his file sharing Megaupload empire faces charges of racketeering, fraud and money laundering in the U.S., carrying jail terms of up to 20 years. Dotcom had asked the court to overturn two previous rulings that the Internet mogul and his three co-accused be sent to America to face charges. Instead, a panel of three judges backed the FBI-led case, which began with a raid on Dotcom's Auckland mansion in January 2012 and has dragged on for more than six years. His lawyer tweeted he would appeal to the NZ Supreme Court.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, different countries sign extradition treaties with each other for a variety of reasons. In many cases, countries seek favorable trade agreements with the US in exchange. The US is especially interested in copyright and IP law since it is a strong export of ours. If IP law is not enforced internationally, the US stands to suffer a huge economic blow (regardless of whether you think it is moral, this is an economic fact)
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Shh, don't remind the rest of the world too much because it will pretty much gaurantee a global shrinking of copyright laws. The US has sanctioned so much it has become the norm and everyone is simply adapting to trading around them. Keep this up and it will not be all that long before the US is the one sanctioned, closer than you think. Want to be a pack of muderous cunts don't be surprised when the rest of the world start treating you like a pack of murderous cunts.
Re: wow (Score:1)
Are you frightened by foreign lands having sovereignty?
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Precisely zero. If I copy your bike, you still have a bike. Granting government enforced monopolies is far from the only, or even best, way of rewarding creativity and innovation.
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Re: wow (Score:1)
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The theory for patents is that the first person has earned a reward for creating a superior design, and that granting a license over that design gets the design into common usage much sooner, to the benefit of all mankind. The theory for copyrights is somewhat different. The short copyright befits there were for publishers and authors, to reward and encourage them to publish new works as well. Otherwise the authors received nothing, no matter how broadly their books might be published.
However, copyright was
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Many jurisdiction treat moral rights separately, the rights of attribution and integrity of the work. You don't need to grant an exclusive license on copying to secure them, and certainly not a grant that lasts over a century.
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That sort of calculation makes a huge assumption as to the design's economic value. Everything from bikes to bars of gold has value only because someone wants it and is willing to give a certain amount of their own wealth in exchange for it relative to how much they want it. In the case of your bike, there is a very good chance that the person willing to give €0 for the bike would have no interest in it at €10. So it is disingenuous to say that the seller is out €10 due to the copy because he
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To reward creativity? What about the creativity of my friends who changed the design for their own purposes, the one that implemented a cool color scheme, the one that added an electric boost, and the one who scaled the design 5x for the sheer ridiculousness of it? Having a rich, well populated commons gives more people the tools to be creative.
How creative is a single business plan anyways? Why not sell merch related to the design, charge for customization services, sell the first design for a lot of mo
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The US is especially interested in copyright and IP law since it is a strong export of ours.
While true, it has zero to do with this case where the USA is going after extradition solely for fraud, rakateering and money laundering.
Naturally you can expect the deal to change once he actually gets on US soil, but the copyright claims are so flakey against him that there is pretty much a zero chance that he would have been extradited on that alone if the USA didn't conjure up some more charges.
Mind you if that's all there is then I'm sure we'd all be okay with it. How does the USA trade agreements sudd
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Still Dotcom's prosecution has violated all moral standards, it's been a farce right from the start. Note that countries never have to extradite and that the US has often chosen not to extradite their citizens in the past. Extradition treaties are for capital crimes like rape and murder, not for religious issues like "This guy facilitated copyright infringement like thousands of others but made the mistake of being an asshole and not wearing a tie." Because that's what this is about, somebody didn't conform
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Indeed, which is why I see the current US isolationism as beneficial for the world.
In the short term world trade will suffer and we'll all become a bit poorer, but in the long term, dismantling the US dominance over global trade is super!
Prior Art (Score:2, Informative)
It's been this way for a long time.
Coast Guard makes seizures and arrests off the coast of Ecuador and Peru.
Extraordinary Rendition
Pressured/forced Extradition
If they want you, they'll get you. But, don;t fret. You're not important and they don't care about you. You need to make or cost someone else shit loads of money to be "important".
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This has nothing to do with "the U.S. imposing laws on the rest of the world".
MegaUpload had servers located in the U.S. If you commit a crime in Country A, you shouldn't be able to escape just by running off to Country B. That's the whole point of extradition treaties.
That said, the case against Kim.Com is mostly just RIAA/MPAA Mafia bullshit, claiming that they lost gazillions of dollars due to "piracy". Unfortunately, like many pirates, Kim.Com may have been involved in other illegal activities as wel
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Mega served lots of malware-infested ads in addition to their piracy.
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Also his name was Dotcom, he should be executed for that alone. If I met someone and their last name was Informationsuperhighway I'd call the police.
Re:wow (Score:5, Interesting)
I've seen some info about servers being transported to the US for the prosecution, which means those, at least, weren't in the US to begin with. But I didn't immediately find any info if some were already operating here.
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They're accused of literally transferring money to the US, transferring it between each using the US banking system, and traveling in person to the US to take actions involving this money.
Everything they're accused of happened in the US. Maybe you spend too much time on reddit, but nothing about this story involves the US caring about where the network data was routed.
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Yes, the US is seeking extradition over the transfer of money in the US, not copyright infringement. Of course, the transfer of money is not itself illegal. It is only illegal if there was copyright infringement. However copyright infringement doesn't warrant extradition. Hence the need to seek extradition though tack-on charges instead.
However, to answer the previous poster, yes, I believe the relevant server was in the US (which raises the question of why there was a need for an armed raid in NZ). Th
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It doesn't matter when the original thing you did wrong was. When you do something a little bit naughty, but you use international banking systems to do, it might be felony fraud in any of the countries whose banks you used. And when you have a group of people doing something naughty together as a group, and even flying to a foreign country to move money around, yeah, only idiots on the internet care that original thing would have only been a little bit naughty if one person was doing it. None of the people
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Money laundering ch
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You don't get to decide what the purposes of money-laundering laws are.
We have a legislature who passes those laws, and we vote on who is in the legislature.
You'd prefer to just tell us what our laws are or why we have them, but you don't matter that much in the world; the range of activities that the current money-laundering laws are designed to combat is something you would learn by listening, not something you would decide by thinking or arguing.
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This seems relevant:
Adams (2000) Tacking on money laundering charges to white collar crimes: What did congress intend, and what are the courts doing?
https://readingroom.law.gsu.ed... [gsu.edu]
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> the case against Kim.Com is mostly just RIAA/MPAA Mafia bullshit, claiming that they lost gazillions of dollars due to "piracy".
Not "mostly just" but IS bullshit.
Where does Piracy show-up in their quarterly financial statements?
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Great argument, and brilliant commentary! *Sarcastic slow clap*
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How odd.
YouTube has servers in the USA which provide gigabytes of infringing content, care to mansplain why they aren't being prosecuted?
Or are you just a mindless RIAA shill?
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If only there were laws that gave such hosting providers such protection. You could call it a safe harbor, and add a whole bunch of hoops to jump through in order to qualify for it. Then youtube could jump through those hoops and avoid civil infringement and not willfully violate copyrights in order to avoid criminal infringement.
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MegaUpload had servers located in the U.S.
Nope. Their servers were in Hong Kong. [wikipedia.org]
As far as I can tell Megaupload had no presence in the US at all.
Also, despite the latest ruling, the NZ Police have already apologised to Kim Dotcom and paid him compensation for their illegal raid.
I am at a loss as to why copyright infringement is even a criminal offense.
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Their fat asses were present in the US to withdraw the money in furtherance of their conspiracy, money that they were receiving for actions that violate US law.
If the horseshit you ate in your echo chamber was higher quality, you'd know that. People mislead you by pointing at the servers, why? Because the location of the servers isn't relevant to the case. That's why they gave you that information; because it's not relevant. Gee, why would they do that? If you understood you'd be less credulous of what your
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I'm not sure what you mean by echo chamber, I'm basing what I know about Megaupload on what the local media has reported, and I don't remember any mention of transactions in the US. I am happy to be proven wrong however, if you can provide a link? I couldn't find anything.
It seems odd to me that a Hong Kong company, run by a New Zealand resident (along with a bunch of Europeans) would do any financial transactions in the US.
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If they go to Saudi Arabia and commit crimes there, they do go to jail there.
That is the way the world works.
You're choosing journalists, but actually yes journalists do get arrested if they go to foreign countries and, while still in that country, write stuff that is illegal in that place. Instead, they go and visit, see what they see, and go home, then they write the story from their own country.
If they open bank accounts in Saudi Arabia, and use those bank accounts to receive payment for their work, and
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If you commit a crime in Country A, you shouldn't be able to escape just by running off to Country B. That's the whole point of extradition treaties.
OK, I need to ask then, George W. Bush re-framed the entire US constitution into a wartime stance on the signature of his lawyer, not the Attorney General. Why can't he be extradited for war crimes against Iraq?
Can anyone explain to me exactly why the US is *still* in Iraq now that OBL is dead?
And why talking about a nobody like Kim.Com is any more relevant than that?
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Iraq won't let the US leave. That's why. They insist they still need security assistance, they're not willing to force their troops fight by themselves, and they aren't able to maintain control of their land without constant warfare.
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That doesn't seem plausible, I couldn't find a single article supporting that position and, it doesn't answer the other two questions.
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You can't find the story because my frank synopsis doesn't match the propaganda of either side. You'd have to actually read the stories that report on the negotiations between the two countries about troop levels, over a period of 10 years, to understand it. Afghanistan has similar issues, too, but they can't get as much ongoing assistance because they don't cooperate well enough. (e.g., too many of their soldiers turn out to be enemies)
Regarding the unanswered questions, one was flamebait, and the other wa
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Send 'em on - I'll read em.
Regarding the unanswered questions, one was flamebait, and the other was whataboutism.
Well at least you agree that GWB should be indicted for war crimes - at least we can agree on that.
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At least we agreed that you don't understand English, so it isn't like you didn't understand any of the words at all. That's something.
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I said I would consider your POV if you sent supporting materials. Since you can't support the one statement you made with any fact the only logical conclusion is that it is fiction designed to justify US presence in those countries as the one point you answered. I won't be wasting cognitive effort trying to validate your position.
Essentially your saying that an Iraqi or Afghani military presence in New York or the rest of the world having military bases in every state in the US to sort out your domestic
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I read half the first senctence, "I said I would consider your POV if you sent supporting materials. Since you can't support the one statement you made with any fact the only logical conclusion..."
Why read more? If you start with that, why would you think your words have value?
Neither of us are encyclopedias. I'm not going to hand-feed you supporting materials. If you don't know how to look things up using resources you trust, take a fucking class in study skills at the community college. Don't ask me to do
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I read half the first senctence,
Judging from the emotional reactions you've provided, you read the entire thing over and over and it took you a few days to calm down, so it's clear they have an element of truth and you feel like a hypocrite for supporting this war.
Why read more? If you start with that, why would you think your words have value?
Because they already *have* had value, it's just not one you can recognize. However I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt because I think you have been deceived by your media.
I'm not going to hand-feed you supporting materials.
Calm down, there is no need to have a temper tantrum, its an adolescent technique of someo
Headline is misleading. (Score:2, Informative)
He's found extraditable due to the fraud charges, not the copyright charges, because the countries essentially share the same fraud laws. However once he's there he will face all charges. The distinction is too subtle for headline speak.
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The haters have their panties bunched so tight, they won't comprehend that the fraud and related conspiracy charges are what bring all the jail time, once they start bleeting about copyright they can't receive any new inputs until they get distracted and switch to a new topic.
Even after he's years into his sentence, they'll still think he's in jail for copyright, because knowing how to read and being able to do it in a way that increases knowledge are not the same thing.
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Once he's in a US court, he will DEFINITELY stand on trial both for the fraud AND for the copyright charges. Why wouldn't they?
Because doing so requires prosecutors to obtain special permission from New Zealand in order to do so. If they decided to charge and prosecute Kim Dotcom for the copyright charges without seeking the permission from New Zealand then it would be in violation of extradition treaties which would make other states question whether to extradite individuals in other cases.
https://www.justice.gov/usam/u... [justice.gov]
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Yes, it isn't civilized.
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that's disgusting. US laws now World Laws? I'm expat soon
You must be mentally deficient if you think becoming an expat will make any difference in your life, when the US has repeatedly demonstrated that it can and will hunt down people anywhere in the world and do with them as it wishes. You can be just as free or "un-free" anywhere. There has never been less advantage to being an expat than there is today. By the way, unless you RENOUNCE your US citizenship, you will still have to pay US taxes on your income. I bet you didn't know that, did you, little wannabe e
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uh maybe he's going to expatriate to the US? kind of a risky move at this point, but it might still pay off in the long-run, at least if he doesn't look hispanic. US domestic policy is still not quite as nightmarish as US foreign policy.
Re: wow (Score:2)
You could be perfectly safe from extradition living in Russia, China, NK, Iran, and a few other countries.
Any of which would be perfectly happy turning you over to whomever they fucking choose.
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Yes. Privilege of being a global hegemon who's defence umbrella and guarantees of free maritime trade states like NZ need for survival.
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Don't fool yourself. Russia is only providing shelter because it serves their purpose in tweaking the U.S. If it ever becomes advantageous for Putin to turn Snowden over to the U.S. it will happen so fast his head will spin. Assange is finding Ecuador, after a change in government leadership, is about done with him too.
None of the countries mentioned are bastions of freedom. They are U.S. adversaries practicing realpolitik.
time for him to pick another country (Score:3, Insightful)
and hold out somewhere else that doesn't extradite.
Maybe Snowden would like some company?
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He would need to leave the country to do that... and I imagine given his current state, the Kiwi authorities probably would prevent him from getting on an airplane.
Sure, he could take a boat... though that's a ~1300 mile trip and there isn't all that much passenger traffic back and forth.
Re:time for him to pick another country (Score:5, Interesting)
The case against him is honestly a bit trumped up, they are basically trying to prosecute him for offering a legitimate service a-la Google Drive, DropBox, icloud, etc and the government is going to be faced with trying to prove his service only offered infringing services (because valid uses for the service mean it's legal, just like the government can't ban ownership of crowbars). Providing he's already funded some good lawyers with prepaid retainers before he's extradited he's got pretty good odds of beating the Government in court. Hopefully he's used the delay in this extradition well.
The government case against him was always built on a quick extradition, seizure of his assets so he couldn't' retain good counsel and a quick plea deal. By delaying the extradition he put himself in position to beat this charge if he was smart and put those retainers in place ASAP. If he's got retainers in place when he's extradited I wouldn't be surprised to see the government drop the case because they know they can't beat him for offering services that hundreds of other companies offer.
This was a prosecution put forward by entertainment companies as a threat to others using federal prosecutors with connections to hollywood and the music industry, they destroyed a valid business with it and my hope is the delay in extradition allows him to stomp the prosecution then go after the return of assets the government seized, particularly the $100's of millions in dollars they siezed. Don't get me wrong, Dot-com is a dickhead grifter, but what he did didn't deserve what he got. This was a total railroading butffuck that they hoped would scare him into a plea deal by getting NZ to disregard it's own laws.
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Just because a legal use exists doesn't ignore how it is used illegally, or the proportionality of legal/illegal use.
There are plenty of legal reasons to have a hidden compartment in your car... you know, to store valuables when you are away from your vehicle... of course, if the police find out you build them or have one, you may be headed to jail for assisting the drug trade: https://www.wired.com/2 [wired.com]
Re: time for him to pick another country (Score:1)
Yeah... lotta badlaws in our country. Sad.
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Just because you didn't read the reporting about what charges he faces, doesn't mean that whatever your friends told you about it must be true.
They have websites on the internet where they link to news stories, it is probably possible to find out what he's charged with.
Extraditions are always pretty quick, because as the NZ court explained, they're not trials! The purpose is to check the paperwork, and compare it to the treaty. That's it. Fighting extradition is an expensive delay tactic with no chance of e
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"prosecute him for offering a legitimate service a-la Google Drive, DropBox, icloud, etc "
As I recall, Megaupload was actively subverting the DMCA takedown process by not actually deleting content from their servers, but rather changing the download URLs and having farms of sockpuppets post the new links. If it turned out that Dropbox does this, they would be in deep trouble as well.
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> The case against him is honestly a bit trumped up, they are basically trying to prosecute him for offering a legitimate service a-la Google Drive, DropBox, icloud, etc.
Yes, cases like this always felt like they were more about preventing competition by overseas companies against US tech giants if anything.
When a US tech giant allows or enables piracy, they're told at worst to sit down and work it out. When a foreign tech company does the exact same thing, they're treated as a criminal organisation and
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He's too big to smuggle onto a boat, though. It isn't like he's going to kayak out to a yacht and slip away, they'd have to load at some sort of dock.
A Hutt never flees, they always shelter in place.
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Sure, he could take a boat...
Are you unaware of who we're talking about here? It's this guy [guim.co.uk]. Even though they seized a lot of his assets, I think he's still outside of the "take a boat" class of wealthy. Yacht? Sure. Private sea plane? Yes.
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time for him
Time expired. He had to move earlier.
Hard to pick sides (Score:5, Funny)
I know I should side with Kim. But ... it's hard to side with Kim. Every time I do, I feel like recounting my fingers to see whether I still have all of them.
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I know I should side with Kim.
Just because you hear the echo, doesn't mean you're supposed to believe it. Golly.
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What echo?
My motivation to side with Kim is due to my hatred for his opponent, not my love for him. As far as I'm concerned, it's a bit like the most recent US election where I was unsure which of the two tossers I hate more.
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Because even the sleaziest people in the world are, sometimes, legally in the right.
Kim Dotcom's civil rights are the civil rights of anyone else in New Zealand. I don't live in New Zealand, but that's not relevant. As an Australian, I care that my New Zealand cousins are treated properly and ethically by their legal system.
Re:Hard to pick sides (Score:5, Informative)
He's not one of your New Zealand cousins. He's from Germany, and he also has a Finnish passport. He's very much abusing the hospitality of New Zealand, as a guest who brought a great deal of legal and political trouble with him.
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I am from NZ. Kim Dotcom has had a fair suck of the sav' and appealed everything to the Supreme Court, nothing wrong with that.
He is also appealing this decision to the Supreme Court as well, good luck there.
If that is unsuccessful then he will appeal to the Minister of Immigration and then he will be deported (Minister hardly ever changes the decision).
He has been well served by our Court system and will have to abide by the consequences, trumped up charges or not.
As far as the charges themselves go, yeah
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Kia ora, mate.
Your response checks out. It's easily the most New Zealand thing I've seen all day.
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He's not one of your New Zealand cousins.
The AC respondent correctly interpreted my meaning. If the New Zealand legal system mistreats anyone, that's a problem for New Zealanders.
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New Zealand needs to decide if a legal resident in their country can be extradited to face copyright infringement charges abroad when he has (apparently) broken no New Zealand laws. Nothing more, nothing less. Ask yourself if the case would still be at trial if he were a NZ citizen with an upstanding civil record. If so
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And he has NZ citizenship.
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As best I can tell, he's been granted a permanent visa. He is not a New Zealand citizen.
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He's not one of your New Zealand cousins. He's from Germany
And currently under the purview of the New Zealand legal system. If he was only governed by all things German he would never be extradited to the USA for this since Germany constitutionally protects its citizens against this.
Abuse of hospitality is something someone does when they get a benefit from someone else. He's infinitely worse off for being in NZ.
By the way. I am currently in Germany. I fully expect that if I walk down the street making a Nazi salutes at everyone while denying the holocaust happened
Re: Hard to pick sides (Score:1)
He made millions by liberating cultural data. What you tut tut as "piracy", the masses consider virtuous.
Copyright and intellectual monopoly of all sorts make the whole world stupider, just so that a handful of rich capitalists can make bigger profits. Down with copyright!
cross NZ off my list (Score:1)
of potential expat countries for retirement.
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Assuming you are American we don't want you anyway. Are you able to point out NZ on a map?
I am ashamed to be a New Zealander (Score:4, Interesting)
Only sometimes, and this is one of those times.
The whole thing is a shakedown, pure and simple - the FBI-led raid had KDC's wife and children held at gunpoint because KDC "was a firearms enthusiast". Despicable that our US-Ass-Kissing Government we let ourselves get conned into this bullshit.
How can KDC and his associates are charged with "criminal copyright"... what even is that? Did anyone ever die from a movie being downloaded?
I sincerely hope our Supreme Court has the good sense to deny the extradition, then my shame might decrease.
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It wouldn't surprise me if New Zealand has their own version of the MAFIAA who have no love for Mr. Dotcom either. Either that or there's no political capital that can be gain
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Well, he did personally insult and piss off the prime minster at one point during this from what I recall, so its not like there is a a short line of people who would not mind seeing him go in NZ.
In this respect, the actual US case and such a trial if it does eventually occur would be like Larry Flynt all over again, where one has to hold their nose and stand up for what is right, rather than let it be about who is being wronged.
Thats Like Arresting Zuckerberg (Score:2, Interesting)
.. because someone uploaded an mp3/movie to their friends on facebook.
In New Zealand, copyright infringement is not illegal, its a trespass on someone's rights. So even if you believe the owner of Dropbox should be responsible for content uploaded by its users its still not a crime so no extradition should occur.
The real eye opener here was the New Zealand governments zeal to break its own laws, to facilitate the extradition. In other words the New Zealand government committed crimes in order to obtain evid
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The only difference between democrats and republicans is the set of rights they wish to strip from you. Neither are on your side.
Re: Thats Like Arresting Zuckerberg (Score:1)
I'm tired of people saying the Left are sore losers now just because they are more vocal about what they see as the deterioration of freedoms and the Rights disregard of the law under this administration. The trouble is there can no longer be a proper debate without it becoming a childish /name calling affair, which has been shown as the way to do things now by the president's example. It's the Right that for decades has shouted their hate for minorities and women and now that they are in control of all 3 b
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They BOTH want to take your freedoms. The right don't care about women, people of colour, or the anus-eaters wanting their "marriage rights", The left would happily divest everyone of their guns and implement sky-high taxes to pay for "free" everything. Both sides are ugly for the common man, no matter how you slice it.
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"Free" healthcare is a system that is in trouble in just about every jurisdiction where it is in existence.
50,000 Canadians a year travel to the U.S. to use our helathcare because they cannot get the equivalent treatment in Canada. 500,000 Australians travel to Asia for the same reason. Those that can afford it in Britain buy private insurance so they don't have to use NHS. Over a hundred thousand also go abroad for treatment rather than use NHS.
As the topper if you want to look at what government healthcar
Indonesia! (Score:2)
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Indonesia is increasingly hostile to western ideals. Bali is about the only place in the country where there is some semblance of western "civilisation". Don't break the law there as a westerner. Don't get caught doing anything more than being drunk in public. Islam is cracking down there fairly quickly. Bali is much like Hong Kong was before Blighty turned it back over to the Chinese. This will not last forever. The laws in Bali and the tolerance of western excess are slowing. Many Aussies now no longer go
When extradition treaties apply (Score:5, Informative)
The key to extradition between countries is that the accusation needs to be for a crime for which an extradition treaty exists. Between the US and NZ, here is a listing (which is typical of other country treaties with the US): https://internationalextraditi... [internatio...onblog.com] ... I did RTFA, but did not find a link to the NZ court ruling to confirm the extent to which this bilateral extradition treaty was the basis for the ruling.
Dotcom is accused of racketeering and money laundering, which would seem to be covered in the treaty section on fraud: "16. Obtaining property, money or valuable securities by false pretenses or by conspiracy to defraud the public or any person by deceit or falsehood or other fraudulent means, whether such deceit or falsehood or any fraudulent means would or would not amount to a false pretense." The definition of racketeering is something like, "dishonest and fraudulent business dealings."
International extradition treaties are part of why plaintiffs and prosecutors seek such high crimes, in their charges. The article links to the US court filing, if you want to see the full list. Another reason is that, in the US, criminal charges are made at the highest possible level of seriousness, so that there will be a plea bargain for a lower charge, rather than bringing a case all the way to the end. Federal prosecutions in the US very rarely result in Not Guilty or in charges being dismissed (under 5%).
That EU law that got struck down yesterday was part of an industry effort to add copyright infringement to the set of laws that would let enforcement cross national boundaries. For copyright, there is no current international extradition (at least, not with the US -- the EU has been doing its own thing). The Berne Convention, and associated treaties under WIPO, are the applicable international treaties for copyright, and do not make provisions for extradition or international enforcement for copyright violation. The fact that international boundaries are usually very easy to cross via Internet traffic is a big concern for publishers, media companies, etc., and they have been trying for a long time to extend reach of copyright laws beyond national boundaries.
One of the earliest such cases was in 2000, and involved a US copyright law forbidding reverse engineering of encryption. The DeCSS case, https://www.technewsworld.com/... [technewsworld.com], was to bring charges against Jon Johansen in Norway for posting a decryption program. Nowadays, I would expect charges in US courts would also include crimes for which extradition treaties apply, like fraud and larceny. This is easily achieved by stipulating large $ damages (due to lost revenue, piracy, etc.).
More recently, we know that Julian Assange is concerned about being extradited to the US under a secret indictment in the US courts. The rape charges in Sweden were sufficient for extradition from the UK (https://www.government.se/government-of-sweden/ministry-of-justice/international-judicial-co-operation/extradition-for-criminal-offences/), but Ecuador has an approach that gives higher priority to avoiding torture than the bilateral treaties. The Guardian has a nice short cheeky piece about why Edward Snowden was also thought to be en route to Ecuador, before he ended up staying in Russia: https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
We are getting the picture, right? The US isn't the only country that seeks very high-level crimes in what are basically copyright cases, nor are they the only country where moneyed business interests are able to get the ear of criminal courts for issues that are, essentially, civil cases (a distinction that matters a lot in countries that follow common law... less so for countries with different legal heritage, like Ge
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Very informative, but you forgot one important detail. No extradition treaty mandates the extradition and countries sometimes decline otherwise valid extradition requests. For example, a Portuguese court declined in 2011 a valid extradition request for George Wright by the US for armed robbery and murder on the grounds that the person in question has built a new life, and the UK recently declined a valid extradition request by the US for Laurie Love's hacking of the Pentagon. Main concerns against these re
Lets see ... (Score:2)
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Snowden was pretty certain from the start that the feds would be after him just as soon as the leaks came out and they put 2 & 2 together to figure out it was him, so make haste to get out as quick as he could.
Should Kim have known from the start that eventually the feds were going to come from him? Or did he think his operation would be small enough/off the radar enough to avoid the risk of extradition?
Re: He should have borrowed from Snowden's playboo (Score:2, Troll)
Kim made millions by making the world happier and more cultured. He (perhaps foolishly) didn't anticipate being dragged to an authoritarian country where he didn't live and didn't do business, for persecution and torture.
When you start an online business, do you ask yourself if you're in compliance with the the laws of North Korea? What about Saudi Arabia? Venezuela?
Even if you love copywrong and intellectual monopoly; even if you hate the idea of the masses having access to culture; even if you think Mr
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NZ, a western country that's a vassal of the USA
Doens’t work like that. Some countries don’t extradite their own citizens like France and Germany, in this case he probably was safer in his own Germany. NZ: Kim is probably targetted by an international arrest warrant, and NZ just obeys international rules.
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They're a UK vassal. UK is merely friends with the US.
I don't care what your opinions are, but will you please upgrade your basic knowledge so that you can do better analysis?