4 ms·

"NZ should offer the US to sue Doctcom in New Zealand or wherever his company resided in." The US already seized all his assets, and even denied him funds to d

by wbhart 10y ago

"NZ should offer the US to sue Doctcom in New Zealand or wherever his company resided in." The US already seized all his assets, and even denied him funds to defend himself, claiming he was a fugitive from justice (even though he hadn't gone anywhere). They also suggested that if funds were used to pay legal expenses, then those reimbursed (even US legal experts) could be considered part of the "criminal conspiracy". Moreover, they seized all the servers the business used to operate their business, not just infringing content, and then refused to maintain those servers, even for the purpose of preserving evidence Dotcom and co could use to defend themselves in the US. They don't want to sue him, because they already have everything. They want him, in a US prison, probably for the rest of his life.

charlesdm 10y ago
If the US government doesn't win this however, wouldn't they have to return most of his frozen assets?
- wbhart 10y ago
  I imagine Dotcom will actually sue for damages if he wins.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    He got extradited on bogus and far-fetched premises, I don't think he's going to win. The US wouldn't pull all these strings to get him extradited just so he could have a fair trial.
- al_chemist 10y ago
  After all they've done, you still think they can lose?
  - charlesdm 10y ago
    Given he didn't have the resources to properly defend himself because they intentionally froze his assets (which in itself, is an unacceptable practice I think), I don't think so. Maybe a group of 2-3 judges in an appellate court will decide that protecting democracy is more important than "whoring out" (excuse my language) to US interests. It's a slippery slope, and all you need is one precedent. I don't like the guy at all, but this is just unacceptable in every way. Pathetic performance by the US really, if you can't even take on someone in a correct and ethical way, on equal footing.
adekok 10y ago
> claiming he was a fugitive from justice (even though he hadn't gone anywhere) IIRC, he was a "fugitive from justice" because he refused to fly to the States to defend himself in court actions there. Which is a pretty weird definition of "fugitive", but it apparently meets the legal criteria.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
djsumdog 10y ago
> they seized all the servers the business used to operate their business, not just infringing content, and then refused to maintain those servers I had a friend who had a lot of his thesis research backed up to Megaupload. He ended up losing all of it. Sure there was a lot of copyrighted material, but there was some legitimate content owned by US customers that's now gone.
- dpark 10y ago
  >I had a friend who had a lot of his thesis research backed up to Megaupload. He ended up losing all of it. First, trusting a site that existed primarily to facilitate illegal content exchange to hold your critical data seems really naive. Second, if he lost his data because Megaupload went down, that's not a backup. That's the only copy. This isn't just naive anymore.

by wbhart 10y ago

charlesdm 10y ago

If the US government doesn't win this however, wouldn't they have to return most of his frozen assets?

wbhart 10y ago
I imagine Dotcom will actually sue for damages if he wins.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  He got extradited on bogus and far-fetched premises, I don't think he's going to win. The US wouldn't pull all these strings to get him extradited just so he could have a fair trial.
al_chemist 10y ago
After all they've done, you still think they can lose?
- charlesdm 10y ago
  Given he didn't have the resources to properly defend himself because they intentionally froze his assets (which in itself, is an unacceptable practice I think), I don't think so. Maybe a group of 2-3 judges in an appellate court will decide that protecting democracy is more important than "whoring out" (excuse my language) to US interests. It's a slippery slope, and all you need is one precedent. I don't like the guy at all, but this is just unacceptable in every way. Pathetic performance by the US really, if you can't even take on someone in a correct and ethical way, on equal footing.

adekok 10y ago

> claiming he was a fugitive from justice (even though he hadn't gone anywhere) IIRC, he was a "fugitive from justice" because he refused to fly to the States to defend himself in court actions there. Which is a pretty weird definition of "fugitive", but it apparently meets the legal criteria.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

djsumdog 10y ago

> they seized all the servers the business used to operate their business, not just infringing content, and then refused to maintain those servers I had a friend who had a lot of his thesis research backed up to Megaupload. He ended up losing all of it. Sure there was a lot of copyrighted material, but there was some legitimate content owned by US customers that's now gone.

dpark 10y ago
>I had a friend who had a lot of his thesis research backed up to Megaupload. He ended up losing all of it. First, trusting a site that existed primarily to facilitate illegal content exchange to hold your critical data seems really naive. Second, if he lost his data because Megaupload went down, that's not a backup. That's the only copy. This isn't just naive anymore.