6 ms·

Independently of whether he's a savoury character or not (and I'm pretty firmly in the not camp), what's your opinion of him being extradited to the US despite:

by lemming 11y ago

Independently of whether he's a savoury character or not (and I'm pretty firmly in the not camp), what's your opinion of him being extradited to the US despite: not being a US citizen, never having visited the US, not having had the offending servers or the company in question in the US and generally the whole case seeming to have nothing at all to do with the US at all? Except that Hollywood is based there, of course. I'm really struggling to see how the US has any jurisdiction here.

refurb 11y ago
not having had the offending servers...in the US Not accurate. Read the indictment at the link on this page. - Bottom of page 11: thirty-nine infringing copies of copyright motion pictures were present on their leased servers at Carpathia Hosting... in the Eastern District of Virginia - Page 18:The Mega Conspiracy leases approximately 25 petabytes of data storage from Carpathia to store content associated with The Mega Site. - It also looks like they leased servers in the US from Cogent, Leaseweb. They paid Carpathia $13M US to host Mega files in the US. - They also used a US-based Paypal account to receive funds and pay the different hosts in the US. - They made "reward" payments to US residents who provided copyrighted material. Mega was running an illegal business in the US.
- GauntletWizard 11y ago
  Yes, if I am running a scam on US users, using US services to do so, and hiring US employees to run the scam, then I am operating in the US, even if I never set foot there. You can argue any kind of racketeering is immune to foreign prosecution if you argue against Dotcom's extradition, and those arguments are no more valid.
  - michaelmrose 11y ago
    You shouldn't be subject to US law as a non us citizen regardless or would you like US citizens hauled off to saudi arabia to answer decency charges?
    - VanillaLime 11y ago
      Indecency isn't a crime in the US, so you couldn't get extradited for it. If you had committed a crime in Saudi Arabia that is also illegal in the US and the US courts have ruled that the extradition is legal, I don't see what's wrong with being extradited.
      - dsfyu404ed 11y ago
        Copyright infringement isn't a crime in NZ...
        chrisbennet 11y ago
        Except that it is (someone posted a link to the law above).
        DanBC 11y ago
        It is if you do it as part of a business. Downloading a movie isn't a crime (but is illegal), but burning it to dvd and selling it turns it into a crime.
        deftnerd 11y ago
        OK, let's shift to another scenario then. It's illegal in the US to make and distribute adult films without the proper permits and paperwork and health checks. Let's say someone made a website that had Saudi girls, now living in the US, make adult films (without the proper permitting and everything so they were violating a US law as well) and advertised those films in Saudi Arabia. And let's say there are Saudi customers. To speed things up, maybe they had a CDN server in Saudi Arabia. When the authorities in Saudi Arabia discover this and charge the film makers, would the US grant extradition? * The film makers / business operators in this scenario would be 100% American. * The product of their creation and the service itself wouldn't be illegal in the US. What was illegal was some business decisions they made. * Their CDN helped facilitate optimal data transmission but was not required for business operations * The Saudi court in this scenario wishes to charge them for the service itself and the product created Similarly, * Kim is not an american citizen and his company wasn't American * His business was legal in the country it was incorporated in, although he arguably made some business decisions that were not entirely above board * He had leased equipment in the US to help serve people in that geographic region * The US wishes to jail him for the actual operation of the service Would the US extradite the US citizen to Saudi Arabia for punishment? If not, why should NZ extradite Kim to the US? *edit - Somehow didn't see that michaelmrose made this argument too in this exact same thread
- tajen 11y ago
  We also need to prevent double trials. If an individual were judged and sentenced for a crime in one country, he should not be judged on the same grounds in another.
  - pc86 11y ago
    Is there any concept of international double jeopardy? I understand why we want to avoid this within the same country, but if someone commits a crime against both Country A and Country B simultaneously (one act) and they are sentenced to N months in prison or a $Y fine in Country A, I don't immediately see any reason why Country B shouldn't be allowed to pursue a case against them as well.
    - Retric 11y ago
      If Jaywalking is a crime in country 200 countries you don't want someone to be liable 200 times for a single case. Note, we are charging people for crimes committed in other countries so the president is independent of crime type.
      - blktiger 11y ago
        This is a poor example since a single case of Jaywalking can only be commited in a single country. If you were to Jaywalk across a country border on the other hand, you'd could be charged with 2 instances of Jaywalking. Once in the first country covering only the distance you Jaywalked while in that country and once in the second country to cover the distance you Jaywalked in that country. Even in that case you might only be tried in a single country since the other country would have to extradite you and they may not want to. That's the whole point of the extradition process, it allows one country to deny or allow another country the ability to prosecute someone.
        Retric 11y ago
        Ahh, but we are charging people for crimes they commit outside of a given country. If twenty country's all make blasphemy illegal, then a single speech in a single country would be breaking the law in each of them. As to jaywalking, that might not be the root cause. Selective enforcement means people often get charge for reasons other than the direct action.

by lemming 11y ago

refurb 11y ago

not having had the offending servers...in the US Not accurate. Read the indictment at the link on this page. - Bottom of page 11: thirty-nine infringing copies of copyright motion pictures were present on their leased servers at Carpathia Hosting... in the Eastern District of Virginia - Page 18:The Mega Conspiracy leases approximately 25 petabytes of data storage from Carpathia to store content associated with The Mega Site. - It also looks like they leased servers in the US from Cogent, Leaseweb. They paid Carpathia $13M US to host Mega files in the US. - They also used a US-based Paypal account to receive funds and pay the different hosts in the US. - They made "reward" payments to US residents who provided copyrighted material. Mega was running an illegal business in the US.

GauntletWizard 11y ago
Yes, if I am running a scam on US users, using US services to do so, and hiring US employees to run the scam, then I am operating in the US, even if I never set foot there. You can argue any kind of racketeering is immune to foreign prosecution if you argue against Dotcom's extradition, and those arguments are no more valid.
- michaelmrose 11y ago
  You shouldn't be subject to US law as a non us citizen regardless or would you like US citizens hauled off to saudi arabia to answer decency charges?
  - VanillaLime 11y ago
    Indecency isn't a crime in the US, so you couldn't get extradited for it. If you had committed a crime in Saudi Arabia that is also illegal in the US and the US courts have ruled that the extradition is legal, I don't see what's wrong with being extradited.
    - dsfyu404ed 11y ago
      Copyright infringement isn't a crime in NZ...
      - chrisbennet 11y ago
        Except that it is (someone posted a link to the law above).
      - DanBC 11y ago
        It is if you do it as part of a business. Downloading a movie isn't a crime (but is illegal), but burning it to dvd and selling it turns it into a crime.
        deftnerd 11y ago
        OK, let's shift to another scenario then. It's illegal in the US to make and distribute adult films without the proper permits and paperwork and health checks. Let's say someone made a website that had Saudi girls, now living in the US, make adult films (without the proper permitting and everything so they were violating a US law as well) and advertised those films in Saudi Arabia. And let's say there are Saudi customers. To speed things up, maybe they had a CDN server in Saudi Arabia. When the authorities in Saudi Arabia discover this and charge the film makers, would the US grant extradition? * The film makers / business operators in this scenario would be 100% American. * The product of their creation and the service itself wouldn't be illegal in the US. What was illegal was some business decisions they made. * Their CDN helped facilitate optimal data transmission but was not required for business operations * The Saudi court in this scenario wishes to charge them for the service itself and the product created Similarly, * Kim is not an american citizen and his company wasn't American * His business was legal in the country it was incorporated in, although he arguably made some business decisions that were not entirely above board * He had leased equipment in the US to help serve people in that geographic region * The US wishes to jail him for the actual operation of the service Would the US extradite the US citizen to Saudi Arabia for punishment? If not, why should NZ extradite Kim to the US? *edit - Somehow didn't see that michaelmrose made this argument too in this exact same thread
tajen 11y ago
We also need to prevent double trials. If an individual were judged and sentenced for a crime in one country, he should not be judged on the same grounds in another.
- pc86 11y ago
  Is there any concept of international double jeopardy? I understand why we want to avoid this within the same country, but if someone commits a crime against both Country A and Country B simultaneously (one act) and they are sentenced to N months in prison or a $Y fine in Country A, I don't immediately see any reason why Country B shouldn't be allowed to pursue a case against them as well.
  - Retric 11y ago
    If Jaywalking is a crime in country 200 countries you don't want someone to be liable 200 times for a single case. Note, we are charging people for crimes committed in other countries so the president is independent of crime type.
    - blktiger 11y ago
      This is a poor example since a single case of Jaywalking can only be commited in a single country. If you were to Jaywalk across a country border on the other hand, you'd could be charged with 2 instances of Jaywalking. Once in the first country covering only the distance you Jaywalked while in that country and once in the second country to cover the distance you Jaywalked in that country. Even in that case you might only be tried in a single country since the other country would have to extradite you and they may not want to. That's the whole point of the extradition process, it allows one country to deny or allow another country the ability to prosecute someone.
      - Retric 11y ago
        Ahh, but we are charging people for crimes they commit outside of a given country. If twenty country's all make blasphemy illegal, then a single speech in a single country would be breaking the law in each of them. As to jaywalking, that might not be the root cause. Selective enforcement means people often get charge for reasons other than the direct action.