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Piracy The Courts United States

Foreign Torrent Site Operator Can Be Sued in the US, Court Says 61

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: The Pakistani operator of popular torrent site MKVCage can be held personally liable for contributory copyright infringement in the US. The case in question was filed by the makers of the film Hellboy. US District Court Judge Seabright concludes that the use of US-based services invokes jurisdiction, even though a magistrate judge concluded otherwise.
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Foreign Torrent Site Operator Can Be Sued in the US, Court Says More

Foreign Torrent Site Operator Can Be Sued in the US, Court Says

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  • But can you collect a judgment? Can you send him to prison? Methinks not.

  • Good thing (Score:4, Funny)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Friday May 20, 2022 @09:05PM (#62553776)

    Bin Laden wasn't hosting any pirated movies. The MPAA would have tracked him down years before.

  • Not Really News (Score:4)

    by lsllll ( 830002 ) on Friday May 20, 2022 @09:35PM (#62553826)
    You could always sue someone as long as you proved damages. And I'm sure Pakistan has an extradition agreement with the U.S., but this case is most likely a civil case, and from what I could find about extradition, it's only for criminal cases. Even then, Pakistan would have to agree with the extradition request. Case in point, look at Roman Polanski, who's been in France forever, even though the U.S. has an extradition request for him. The French don't think he'll receive a fair trials, and that's why they're not complying with the extradition. So, I doubt anything will come out of this.

    • Re:Not Really News (Score:5, Informative)

      by suutar ( 1860506 ) on Friday May 20, 2022 @10:59PM (#62553920)

      As I understand it, the US and UK signed an extradition treaty in 1932, and it applied to Britain-controlled India. Pakistan was split off from the rest of India in 1947, as the British were leaving, and their Supreme Court doesn't think that treaty applies to them. (Or at least, they didn't in 2020 [hindustantimes.com]...)

      • Yes, but since it's a civil case it's not really relevant to this situation.

        But, as far as extradition goes, as long as Pakistan doesn't believe they have an extradition treaty there isn't one (maybe we'd extradite people to them but that's pure upside for Pakistan).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        As I understand it, the US and UK signed an extradition treaty in 1932, and it applied to Britain-controlled India. Pakistan was split off from the rest of India in 1947, as the British were leaving, and their Supreme Court doesn't think that treaty applies to them. (Or at least, they didn't in 2020 [hindustantimes.com]...)

        Beyond this, they are basically just words on a page. A treaty is only as good as the most recalcitrant signee.

        I doubt the Pakistani court would extradite someone over copyright infringement unless the government of Pakistan is given a sweet deal by the US govt. Without any horse trading, the Pakistanis will happily look the other way.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Would they bother with extradition for a civil case? More likely they would just get a default judgement and seize his assets in the US. Question is, does he have any US based assets? Any servers are most likely rented.

    • The French don't think he'll receive a fair trials, and that's why they're not complying with the extradition.

      The age of consent in France is 15. They are NOT refusing to extradite him because they don't think he'll have a fair trial under the law. They are refusing because they think everyone should be able to have a barely-teenage mistress... where "they" is defined as the old white men in charge of deciding whether Polaniski should be extradited. They not only want to be in charge of permitting old white men to fuck teenagers in France, they want their heroes to be able to fuck teenagers in countries where it's

      • Polanski is a sleazy fucker and should certainly stand trial.

        Also you're mistaken about something because the charges are about a 13 year old and involve drugging the kid in question. I presume at least one of those is illegal in France.

        Either way though most countries won't extradite people for something which isn't a crime in the country and this is entirely reasonable. A notable exception is the UK where you can do things which are legal in the UK, never visit America and still get deported where you won

        • Dual criminality is required by the treaty. Now if you want to argue they're violating their own treaty, fine, it's not like both governments don't routinely ignore their own laws, but the US-UK Extradition Treaty of 2003 (currently in force), Article 2 Section 1:

          An offense shall be an extraditable offense if the conduct on which the offense is based is punishable under the laws in both States by deprivation of liberty for a period of one year or more or by a more severe penalty.

          The difference you claim as to 'cement a special relationship' has to do with the US only needing a warrant based on probable cause, while the UK has a higher standard.

          • So you say, but I'll cite the case of Richard O'Dwyer. Legal opinion at the time was it wasn't even clear that he had broken a UK law, since there was no precedent.

            The problem was the US accused him of crime A which is illegal in the UK. The link But in the UK his actions didn't make him guilty of crime A (there was no precedent). The effect is as I claimed. What he did wasn't even obviously illegal under UK law and yet he faced extradition to the US.

  • Good luck collecting damages (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Chas ( 5144 ) on Friday May 20, 2022 @11:17PM (#62553948) Homepage Journal

    Okay, you get a court victory over someone in Spotsylvania.

    Now how does that company get money out of them?

    • You contact a local "collectagency" and give them a percentage.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Chas ( 5144 )

        In a foreign country.
        Maybe in places friendly to the US with some form of reciprocity.
        Eastern Europe? The Middle East? Africa? CHINA?

        NOT fucking happening.

      • You better try the local mob. Otherwise, not a chance. If they ask you to show evidence of your claim, and all you come up with is some foreign paperwork from random courts that have no jurisdiction, you're not going to get very far.

        Yes, I'm aware the USA claims jurisdiction over basically the entire world, based on mail messages passing through US servers (yes, they did that). Doesn't mean the rest of the world agrees.

    • What the movie company will likely do is argue that their domain name is an asset and try to seize it. They may even be able to seize assets in banks subject to US jurisdiction.

  • Odd (Score:2, Redundant)

    by cpt kangarooski ( 3773 )

    Why would anyone want to pirate the latest Hellboy movie? It was awful.

    • It wasn't THAT awful. Ok I'd rather had a real Hellboy 3, but the more gritty/gore approach of the last one made it very funny.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      This is the new hollywood drm. Instead of making new encryption methods and shit, they just make movies that are so bad nobody wants to pirate them.

  • This doesn't really mean much. Wait for an appellate ruling. I mean, the plaintiffs got to pick a case to bring and bring to bear a huge substantial legal resources against just some overseas guys and his regular attorney. If they'd lost in the district court that would have been a surprise. OTOH, once a case like this reaches an appellate court and has the potential to make precedent you'll get tons of big players weighing in based on the likely effects such a ruling will have on diplomacy and international legal cooperation.

    I suspect that you'll see quite a few amicus briefs by big players (media companies) on this issue since, if this ruling is allowed to stand, other countries will apply similar standards. US publishers don't want to be subject to jurisdiction in the UK or China because they hired a company with offices in those countries to do some work for them (sell ads, do moderation etc..) You might even have the federal government weighing in against this ruling since I doubt they want China or even the UK (with their libel laws) applying this standard.

    I mean, bad cases make bad law but I think once this gets to an appeals court interested parties and the court will take the implications in more sympathetic cases seriously.

    • Re: Wait for an appellate court ruling (Score:5, Insightful)

      by St.Creed ( 853824 ) on Saturday May 21, 2022 @05:24AM (#62554252)

      Indeed. The worst possible outcome for the USA at this point would be if the defendant did not appeal and let this ruling stand. Then used it in the reverse way to apply Sharia laws to US citizens.

      Apparently, they even have an extradition treaty according to the US. This could be fun for the seal team that killed Osama bin Laden on Pakistans soil.

      • Hmmm Switzerland and Germany extraditing Americans that exposed secret tax evasion bank accounts. Business people extradited for implant defects, or software defects. Misfeasance is also criminal.

  • Same (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gabest ( 852807 ) on Saturday May 21, 2022 @07:27AM (#62554370)

    Any US citizen who drinks alcohol can be sued in Pakistan.

  • So a US judge says an non-US citizen can be sued for something the non-US citizen does in its own country.. US really thinks they can bully the world. Well ok, this also means that if a US citizen is typing something that is illegal in Pakistan, Pakistan can sue the US-citizen.

  • Didn't the reboot of Hellboy flop? So, the producers of the film have decided to try to get some of their money back by suing some guy in US court who runs a website in *Pakistan* because he, allegedly, has a torrent file for a copy of their failed movie available for download...

    Yeah... Well... Good luck with that.

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