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NZ Court of Appeal Upholds Kim Dotcom Extradition Decision to the US
- enlightenedfool 8y agoThe other four minions in the five eyes don't need their own legal system
- Firerouge 8y agoI wonder if a time will come when the US will extradite the CEO of a hosting company for failing to filter content to the satisfaction of the proposed EU copyright law.
- tedunangst 8y agoGenerally the alleged activity must also be illegal in the country you are being extradited from.
- 6nf 8y agoI understand that Kim didn't actually break any NZ laws though?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ALittleLight 8y agoThe explanation I've heard is that he had servers in the US, he paid people in the US, he made money from customers in the US by breaking the law in the US and therefore the US government position is that he is a criminal in the US and should face penalities here. Whether he did anything illegal in NZ or whether he should be extradited is obviously a question for NZ legal authorities. I've always felt conflicted about his case myself. On the one hand I have natural sympathies for people using software to share information. I also think American prisons are terrible places and it would be awful to be imprisoned in one. On the other hand, MegaUpload did seem like it was brazenly profiting off of other people's intellectual property. Communications referenced in the original indictment made it seem like the Mega employees agreed that their business was based on copyright infringement. That would also match my common sense intuitions. Hopefully the NZ courts will reach a wise conclusion.
- thomastjeffery 8y ago> Hopefully the NZ courts will reach a wise conclusion. The only conclusion up to NZ courts is about extradition; which has already been made. It's up to US courts now.
- fiter 8y agoKim still has another appeal in New Zealand at their supreme court.
- thomastjeffery 8y ago> MegaUpload did seem like it was brazenly profiting off of other people's intellectual property. As much as US propaganda would like us to see it as a lame technicality, there is a very important distinction here: Megaupload was not directly profiting from copyright infringement, they were profiting by being a place for copyright infringement. The reason they were so successful is that there wasn't a competing service in that niche other than BitTorrent. Megaupload just hosted files. They are seen as some evil copyright-infringing business simply because they didn't actively filter those files. They considered the content of their users' data to be none of their business. I think it's ludicrous to prosecute them for such reasonable behavior.
- ALittleLight 8y agoI don't really see this as US propaganda. I think it's likely that MegaUpload was facilitating for profit copyright infringement. If copyright exists for any reason it should be to stop other people from selling your intellectual property for a profit. MegaUpload did not just host files but they also made it easy to share access to those files and paid people who hosted files that were shared a lot. MegaUpload knew about content that was infringing on copyright and did nothing about it (per the indictment). When MegaUpload was given take down notices they did not remove offending content but instead deactivated links to the content. If I torrented a movie, uploaded it on MegaUpload, then generated a hundred links to share on a hundred forum posts, I could share the movie, make money from Mega for doing so, and avoid take downs by generating new links. Do you believe that intellectual property should be defended by law?
- berti 8y agoI'm no lawyer but it appears to me that "exempted" countries don't need to prove NZ laws would have been broken [1]. The United States is an "exempted" country [2]. [1] 25(3)(b) http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1999/0055/latest/DLM26229.html http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1999/0055/latest/D... [2] http://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/1999/0370/latest/DLM301516.html http://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/1999/0370/l...
- gnadx 8y agoExtradited for copying movies. What a joke.
- gst 8y agoI'm surprised that he didn't try to relocate back to Germany years ago, as Germany doesn't extradite its own citizens. Did any of the court orders in New Zealand prevent him from (legally) leaving the country?
- toomanybeersies 8y agoYes, while extradition proceedings are going on he is barred from leaving the country, as one would expect.
- wavefunction 8y agoI would have sailed away upon the morning tide and let NZ's internal politics take care of themselves from a safe remove.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoEasier said than done. Where are you going to find a boat? How will you buy it? Where are you going to sail to? There are exceedingly few countries with no extradition to the USA. Who's going to sail the boat? It would be a foolish idea to try and sail across the ocean with no experience, especially if you have the physique of Kim Dotcom. How are you going to access your money, most of which has been frozen? How are you going to get into the country when you have no passport as it's been confiscated?
- AFNobody 8y agoIt wouldn't be the first time someone illegally entered a country or smuggled something via boat. And yes, someone like Kim Dotcom has the resources to try.
- guitarbill 8y ago“Running” doesn’t make you look great/innocent. As an onlooker, it is very hard to understand how exactly this is “justice”, given that he hasn’t been to the US and the US has not been able to prosecute him under other country’s laws - these are not lawless countries but countries with robust legal codes and systems. Every time this goes to court, the US just looks like a bully trying to throw their weight around. Either he still has faith in the legal system, or he’s trying to show how corrupt it is - none of those reflect well on the other parties involved.
- mindfulhack 8y agoI hope he wins.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mkhpalm 8y agoHow could he? He is being forced to play by rules that all of his opponents are not bound to.
- Nerdfest 8y agoHe could play by their rules, if he had far more money. Buying policy and laws ain't cheap.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoGoogle, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook - none of them have been successful by virtue of some kind of non-market, political influence. One could argue they avoid breakup by virtue of influence, but that's long after the fact of 'being successful'.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- nimbius 8y agonot surprising. We've the expert witness testimony of the RIAA and MPAA. Unless and until we extradite Kim to the US,we cannot properly dunk him to complete the tests for witchcraft.
- senectus1 8y agoIs mega.nz still considered somewhat trustworthy atm?
- stevespang 8y agoWouldn't it be amazing if he suddenly appeared in Russia with Edward Snowden ? The plan has been hatched.
- c3534l 8y agoThis seems like an awful lot of wasted resources for what is, at worst, a minor crime that existed in a legal grey area.
- sonnyblarney 8y agoThe crime was quite sizeable involving millions of dollars, a lot of employees etc.. It was not so much 'grey' as you can't facilitate the distribution of copyrighted stuff - and they were brazen about it. If it were some hacker or kid in a basement, then yes, it would be more nuanced. I respect the fact we still need ongoing discussion about the meaning of copyright beyond our era ... but this guy I think was breaking the law. I hope he doesn't get one of those 4000-year American style sentences, you know, where they give you '10 years' for each movie downloaded though ... that stuff the American prosecutors do is ridiculous.
- ojm 8y agoShould Dropbox and other cloud storage vendors also be shut down by the FBI?
- sonnyblarney 8y agoThe argument could be made for any web site. Dropbox does not specifically encourage, promote or support the sharing of licensed content, moreover, they work with authorities where there is a problem. And of course, their 'boxes' tend not to designed for widespread public use. They are not hiding out in a jurisdiction wherein they can evade legal issues. Obviously the definition for 'the line' that is crossed is going to be difficult, but it has to be somewhere. I don't have huge faith that the American legal system is going to do well on this issue for thus single case, however, it's going to have to work it out over time. As cases make it to the Supreme Court, hopefully there will be more clarity.
- tinus_hn 8y agoYou can’t really use Dropbox for that because they’ll disable access to files that cause too much bandwidth usage.