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I really dislike the extra-territorial aspect of it. From what I understand the Netherlands copyright law is more lenient than the US law. For instance downloa

I really dislike the extra-territorial aspect of it. From what I understand the Netherlands copyright law is more lenient than the US law. For instance downloading copyrighted material was legal until very recently. So downloading something from Megaupload was hardly a crime there... http://www.zdnet.com/article/downloading-pirate-material-finally-becomes-illegal-in-the-netherlands/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/downloading-pirate-material-fin... So you could do something which is legal, or illegal but not criminal offense (civil) in the country where you live, but if it displeases the US, then suddenly they can throw you in jail in a foreign country (the US) where you have no ties. I break Chinese laws on a daily basis (Tank Man!). Why should I care about US law, since I do not live there, nor am I a citizen? It's not like I can vote for these laws...

gambiting 12y ago
Imagine if it worked the other way around.....if one day a US court got a request from Saudi Arabia asking to jail one of US citizens because they broke Saudi law on the internet(even though they have never been to Saudi Arabia). US would politely tell them to fuck off. Yet, when US does this to another country,they comply? It's disgusting.
- geon 12y ago
  I wish more countries had the balls to tell the US to fuck off. I wish MY country did; then we wouldn't have had the Pirate Bay Gate, where Swedish constitution was stepped all over.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - hellbanner 12y ago
    the US spends the most resources on military every year. "I wish my neighbors would tell the bully to fuck off when he demands their lunch money" Here's what happens to countries who tell the USA to fuck off (spoilers: they get economically and militarily invaded): http://www.amazon.com/Game-As-Old-Empire-Corruption/dp/1576753956 http://www.amazon.com/Game-As-Old-Empire-Corruption/dp/15767... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit...
  - pluma 12y ago
    Frankly, I was pretty appalled how the European countries reacted during the Snowden affair. Not just interfering with the travel of a diplomatic plane he was suspected to be on (just imagine someone did that with the Air Force One), but also keeping mum and looking the other way when he was requesting asylum after telling everyone what the US had done to their citizens (and governments). That was the saddest display of spinelessness I've ever seen, to be honest. I never felt that ashamed of my country and the EU. The excuses about him having to be on German soil to request asylum were especially infuriating. Considering the government's reaction thus far, it is painfully obvious Germany would receive and grant an extradition request faster than you can see "Volkssouveränität".
Cthulhu_ 12y ago
Selling and using weed is also illegal in the Netherlands, but if someone from the Netherlands does that activity in the US (either by going there or by for example sending it via the mail), that person is still breaking the law in the US. The US and the Netherlands have an extradition policy for those cases. The other way around though, the US has already indicated that if ever an American citizen (like IDK, Bush or Cheney or whoever) is going to be tried for war crimes in The Hague, they'd send in their military to extract them. WW3 material right there. As for the copyright laws, it depends. It was never allowed to upload music and the like - i.e. seeding if you talk about torrent clients. IIRC some leaked Megaupload emails / internal communications indicated that some of the staff was uploading material themselves (but I could mis-remember that)
jepper 12y ago
The United States can request an extradition for crimes committed by an individual(as argued under the US law). However this does not mean that the Netherlands has to comply. If a Dutch person committed a crime in the Netherlands according to the US, but its legal here, he/she will NOT be extradited. The same is true if the punishment is unreasonably severe according to Dutch law (death penalty.). For the latter there is a clause in our Dutch-US extradition agreements however you can still argue against this in court. (trias politica). It also stated in the treaty that the Dutch convicted can serve their jail time in the Netherlands. The punishment is then even converted to Dutch punishment standards. There have been cases where it was argued that US electronic law (hacking and piracy cases) is not fair to the accused. This however does not always help. This will however not help if you refuse a hearing on this. The article states: "Nomm agreed to waive his extradition hearing in the Netherlands"
- chii 12y ago
  why would anyone waive the hearing (presumably, where you would argue that you shouldn't be extradited)?
  - draugadrotten 12y ago
    Plea bargains. A promise of 1 year in low sec prison vs the risk of getting a life sentence in solitary. It's similar to what was done to witches in medieval times: "Confess, and we will kill you gently, or be sentenced and be burned alive."
    - maaaats 12y ago
      Plea bargains is such an odd and dangerous concept. It can be misused heavily. "This petty crime has a max sentence of 10 years, if you confess we will give you 2" may trick even innocent people into confessing.
      - higherpurpose 12y ago
        That's what I don't get. If you threaten someone with 10 or 20 or 50 years in prison, then why the hell would you allow that person to only serve 2 years? If you thought about giving him that much, then clearly he must be a very dangerous person to society. I probably wouldn't want such a person to get out after only 2 years. If the prosecutors are charging such a person with 10x less than what he should be getting then maybe those prosecutors should be investigated for corruption. For instance, like how it happens when the prosecutors are always somehow much more lenient against cops. But of course it has nothing to do with how dangerous he is in most cases. They're just selectively enforcing vague laws just to pile them up and force him to accept at least some prison time, even if he considers himself innocent. That should be illegal and considered against human rights, especially since usually I believe the judges have no say in it, as the charges happen before the accused is brought in front of a judge. Without a judge you can't have "justice" either. You just have government bullies using the government's might to put someone - anyone - in prison, even if he's innocent or only guilty of minor offences. This is exactly why such abuses of power should be illegal.
easytiger 12y ago
Also imprisoning people who are not a danger to society in any way shape or form is very modern American. And socially destructive.
- blowski 12y ago
  I could argue (though don't really agree) that Andrus Nomm was a threat in the same way as Bernie Madoff. Neither was running around shooting people or starting fires. The same could be said for elderly war criminals. There are situations in which it is right to send people to prison without them posing an active and dangerous threat. Whether this in one of those situations is more arguable.
  - tomp 12y ago
    It would be really hard to argue that. Bernie Madoff was more like someone who robs banks, or e.g. ATMs (i.e. no danger to human lives, but money stolen). Megaupload didn't steal anyone's money, and while people did get content without paying for it, it's not very clear that they would pay for it if it wasn't available for free. One undermined the public's confidence in the strength, fairness and security of financial institutions, the other made some rich people not any richer.
    - rtpg 12y ago
      Megaupload was not your plausible deniability-sort of file upload service. There is loads of evidence of the Megaupload team getting a bunch of copyrighted content and putting it up there. The team themselves. Can't really hide behind safe harbor with that. If I were handing out burned DVDs of movies to people, I'd probably get arrested too (even if selling DVD burning equipment would be fine).
      - blowski 12y ago
        I agree. There really is no question that the folks working on MegaUpload knew that it would be used predominantly for illegally sharing copyrighted material. The questions are whether that should be illegal, what it means to do something in one country that's accessible but illegal in another, and how it should be punishable. As I see it, employees of Megaupload must have known the risks they were running, so we can't say it's unfair to punish them. We should be actively pushing for legal framework regarding the sharing of copyrighted material, instead of just whining about the punishment meted out to those who took advantage of the current chaos.
tedunangst 12y ago
> So downloading something from Megaupload was hardly a crime there... The programmer in question wasn't arrested for downloading something from Megaupload, were they?
tptacek 12y ago
The Netherlands has a criminal copyright infringement statute, and it appears to include --- in the criminal law part --- vicarious infringement.

gambiting 12y ago

Imagine if it worked the other way around.....if one day a US court got a request from Saudi Arabia asking to jail one of US citizens because they broke Saudi law on the internet(even though they have never been to Saudi Arabia). US would politely tell them to fuck off. Yet, when US does this to another country,they comply? It's disgusting.

geon 12y ago
I wish more countries had the balls to tell the US to fuck off. I wish MY country did; then we wouldn't have had the Pirate Bay Gate, where Swedish constitution was stepped all over.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- hellbanner 12y ago
  the US spends the most resources on military every year. "I wish my neighbors would tell the bully to fuck off when he demands their lunch money" Here's what happens to countries who tell the USA to fuck off (spoilers: they get economically and militarily invaded): http://www.amazon.com/Game-As-Old-Empire-Corruption/dp/1576753956 http://www.amazon.com/Game-As-Old-Empire-Corruption/dp/15767... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit...
- pluma 12y ago
  Frankly, I was pretty appalled how the European countries reacted during the Snowden affair. Not just interfering with the travel of a diplomatic plane he was suspected to be on (just imagine someone did that with the Air Force One), but also keeping mum and looking the other way when he was requesting asylum after telling everyone what the US had done to their citizens (and governments). That was the saddest display of spinelessness I've ever seen, to be honest. I never felt that ashamed of my country and the EU. The excuses about him having to be on German soil to request asylum were especially infuriating. Considering the government's reaction thus far, it is painfully obvious Germany would receive and grant an extradition request faster than you can see "Volkssouveränität".

Cthulhu_ 12y ago

Selling and using weed is also illegal in the Netherlands, but if someone from the Netherlands does that activity in the US (either by going there or by for example sending it via the mail), that person is still breaking the law in the US. The US and the Netherlands have an extradition policy for those cases. The other way around though, the US has already indicated that if ever an American citizen (like IDK, Bush or Cheney or whoever) is going to be tried for war crimes in The Hague, they'd send in their military to extract them. WW3 material right there. As for the copyright laws, it depends. It was never allowed to upload music and the like - i.e. seeding if you talk about torrent clients. IIRC some leaked Megaupload emails / internal communications indicated that some of the staff was uploading material themselves (but I could mis-remember that)

jepper 12y ago

The United States can request an extradition for crimes committed by an individual(as argued under the US law). However this does not mean that the Netherlands has to comply. If a Dutch person committed a crime in the Netherlands according to the US, but its legal here, he/she will NOT be extradited. The same is true if the punishment is unreasonably severe according to Dutch law (death penalty.). For the latter there is a clause in our Dutch-US extradition agreements however you can still argue against this in court. (trias politica). It also stated in the treaty that the Dutch convicted can serve their jail time in the Netherlands. The punishment is then even converted to Dutch punishment standards. There have been cases where it was argued that US electronic law (hacking and piracy cases) is not fair to the accused. This however does not always help. This will however not help if you refuse a hearing on this. The article states: "Nomm agreed to waive his extradition hearing in the Netherlands"

chii 12y ago
why would anyone waive the hearing (presumably, where you would argue that you shouldn't be extradited)?
- draugadrotten 12y ago
  Plea bargains. A promise of 1 year in low sec prison vs the risk of getting a life sentence in solitary. It's similar to what was done to witches in medieval times: "Confess, and we will kill you gently, or be sentenced and be burned alive."
  - maaaats 12y ago
    Plea bargains is such an odd and dangerous concept. It can be misused heavily. "This petty crime has a max sentence of 10 years, if you confess we will give you 2" may trick even innocent people into confessing.
    - higherpurpose 12y ago
      That's what I don't get. If you threaten someone with 10 or 20 or 50 years in prison, then why the hell would you allow that person to only serve 2 years? If you thought about giving him that much, then clearly he must be a very dangerous person to society. I probably wouldn't want such a person to get out after only 2 years. If the prosecutors are charging such a person with 10x less than what he should be getting then maybe those prosecutors should be investigated for corruption. For instance, like how it happens when the prosecutors are always somehow much more lenient against cops. But of course it has nothing to do with how dangerous he is in most cases. They're just selectively enforcing vague laws just to pile them up and force him to accept at least some prison time, even if he considers himself innocent. That should be illegal and considered against human rights, especially since usually I believe the judges have no say in it, as the charges happen before the accused is brought in front of a judge. Without a judge you can't have "justice" either. You just have government bullies using the government's might to put someone - anyone - in prison, even if he's innocent or only guilty of minor offences. This is exactly why such abuses of power should be illegal.

easytiger 12y ago

Also imprisoning people who are not a danger to society in any way shape or form is very modern American. And socially destructive.

blowski 12y ago
I could argue (though don't really agree) that Andrus Nomm was a threat in the same way as Bernie Madoff. Neither was running around shooting people or starting fires. The same could be said for elderly war criminals. There are situations in which it is right to send people to prison without them posing an active and dangerous threat. Whether this in one of those situations is more arguable.
- tomp 12y ago
  It would be really hard to argue that. Bernie Madoff was more like someone who robs banks, or e.g. ATMs (i.e. no danger to human lives, but money stolen). Megaupload didn't steal anyone's money, and while people did get content without paying for it, it's not very clear that they would pay for it if it wasn't available for free. One undermined the public's confidence in the strength, fairness and security of financial institutions, the other made some rich people not any richer.
  - rtpg 12y ago
    Megaupload was not your plausible deniability-sort of file upload service. There is loads of evidence of the Megaupload team getting a bunch of copyrighted content and putting it up there. The team themselves. Can't really hide behind safe harbor with that. If I were handing out burned DVDs of movies to people, I'd probably get arrested too (even if selling DVD burning equipment would be fine).
    - blowski 12y ago
      I agree. There really is no question that the folks working on MegaUpload knew that it would be used predominantly for illegally sharing copyrighted material. The questions are whether that should be illegal, what it means to do something in one country that's accessible but illegal in another, and how it should be punishable. As I see it, employees of Megaupload must have known the risks they were running, so we can't say it's unfair to punish them. We should be actively pushing for legal framework regarding the sharing of copyrighted material, instead of just whining about the punishment meted out to those who took advantage of the current chaos.

tedunangst 12y ago

> So downloading something from Megaupload was hardly a crime there... The programmer in question wasn't arrested for downloading something from Megaupload, were they?

tptacek 12y ago

The Netherlands has a criminal copyright infringement statute, and it appears to include --- in the criminal law part --- vicarious infringement.