The issue is, I guess, kind of a grey area. Users had to pay to get fast speed, and Mega was paying users for content they uploaded, that was really popular. Copyright files were taken down per the request based on the current laws. He knew how he was making money, it was legal, but the paying of users to post popular content was the tipping point.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Kim Dotcom extradition to US can go ahead, New Zealand high court rules
- Thread starter Geist-
- Start date
- Status
They didn't remove the content. They'd disable a link and share a new one to the same file.
lol thats hilarious
The whole case seems crazy.
This is the music and movie industry grasping at what is left of their dying empire and buying politicians and the courts to do their bidding.
Look at YouTube, you can find any song on any CD. There are random TV Shows, documentaries and even movies...yet it is pretty much ignored while Kim Dot Com gets extradited and his assets seized.
What he was doing wasn't even illegal in new zealand? How does America get to have their laws apply to the rest of the world?
This is the music and movie industry grasping at what is left of their dying empire and buying politicians and the courts to do their bidding.
Look at YouTube, you can find any song on any CD. There are random TV Shows, documentaries and even movies...yet it is pretty much ignored while Kim Dot Com gets extradited and his assets seized.
What he was doing wasn't even illegal in new zealand? How does America get to have their laws apply to the rest of the world?
Appropriate parties get paid for copyrighted material when its identified and youtube does actually respond in good faith to takedown notices, unlike megaupload. Comparing the two is ridiculous.
I'd agree if he stopped at just stealing docs based on domestic surveillance. He didn't and he did lots of damage to our intelligence capabilities as a result. Read "How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft" by Edward Jay Epstein while dives into all the questions surrounding him motivations and actions that people like Glenn Greenwald ignore in their awe and praise of him.
Tal Shiar Agent
Member
If it means he can't use Twitter again I'm all for it.
Conciliator
Banned
They should let him battle for his freedom by facing a champion sponsored by the US government in Call of Duty
IceBringer
Banned
Is this dudes last name really Dotcom?
FunkyMunkey
Banned
as much as i am an advocate of piracy=/=theft, him making a shit ton of money off of what he did changes the situation compared to "here's some books that are priced beyond measure" and the like where money isn't exchanged. but i'm sure the punishment will still be ridiculously over the top though
Kim is not a fan of Hillary's because she signed his extradition request as a US secretary of state? Yeah that isn't earth shattering. It is somewhat amusing how back in the middle of 2015 he was able to predict some of the issues her campaign ran into. Shame they weren't properly prepared to combat that even with all that time.
Edit: Actually, Kim's ramblings on that matter are irrelevant anyway to the public at large. I still can't believe how the political communication of the DNC was so poor. I'll never figure that one out.
Edit: Actually, Kim's ramblings on that matter are irrelevant anyway to the public at large. I still can't believe how the political communication of the DNC was so poor. I'll never figure that one out.
How the hell is piracy not theft? I guess all the people involved in the creation of books, movies, TV shows, and video games don't deserve to get paid for their work? Gross.
Perfect Blue
Banned
Please explain this. I don't think we have ever had the "freedom" to pirate and share content.
I'm torn between whether jail time is needed, or just strip him of his wealth. I mean, the wealth he amassed by helping to freely spread the hard work and IP of others is pretty staggering.
I mean, we're not talking about something noble like making scientific studies commissioned with tax payer dollars free (like Aaron Swartz).
I mean, we're not talking about something noble like making scientific studies commissioned with tax payer dollars free (like Aaron Swartz).
I'm not an expert on international law, but I'm not very comfortable with a NZ resident working in NZ being extradited for breaking US laws.
I know that if I broke some internet law from another country that I sure as fuck wouldn't want to and never would be extradited out of the US.
Maybe he's being offered less protection not being a NZ citizen? Regardless, I feel like he should face justice in his own country's courts if he's broken laws.
I know that if I broke some internet law from another country that I sure as fuck wouldn't want to and never would be extradited out of the US.
Maybe he's being offered less protection not being a NZ citizen? Regardless, I feel like he should face justice in his own country's courts if he's broken laws.
I see. Still don't think DCMA law applies to this situation, considering it's not based in the USA.
FrenchMovieTheme
Member
wasn't this the dickbag that was trying to get people to get hillarys "Deleted emails" off some server?
Servers were in Virginia.
Lol. Dude didn't seem all that smart.
It's interesting that while everything the NZ government did was all illegal, and he did get away with it, it's surprising it's still coming back to haunt him.
FunkyMunkey
Banned
the first definition of theft states "the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it"
also, i didn't say that no one deserves to get paid for their work. but for instance, if you're going to call a bunch of poor college students 'thieves' for downloading copes of textbooks that cost multiple-hundred-dollars where each new edition is usually merely a cash-grab by a multi-million dollar company, then that is what's actually gross imo
and one download =/= one lost sale etc etc
.
Tell your country to stop bending over for the US.
Coriolanus
Banned
Because it isn't.
Your appeal to emotion is irrelevant to the discussion, btw.
Evidently, otherwise he wouldn't have gone to a country that has an extradiction treaty with the US.
lastplayed
Member
Ha, telling that to NZ of all places.
Fine, "copyright infringement" is still equally as bad as calling it theft. It doesn't change the fact that it's wrong and robs all the people who created they work from getting paid for their work. Piracy is gross and justifying it is gross.
I don't think 1 download = 1 lost purchase but let's not deny that overall sales decrease when people can easily download an album, book, or movie vs paying for it. That doesn't change the fact that content creators and all the other people involved are getting screwed out of money they deserve.
I know, right?!
LiquidSolid
Member
If you were deemed to have committed a serious crime in that country, yes you will. US citizens can and have been extradited from the US, extradition treaties aren't one-way.
Yeah.
People are really getting sidetracked with the "is piracy theft/morally ok" debate when it isn't even about that at all. This is one man (or his company in this case) profiting heavily from pirated material. Regardless of how people feel about piracy, I doubt very many people find it morally ok to profit from someone else's work with zero compensation.
If people are looking for someone to pin up as a martyr for the Piracy cause, Kim Dotcom is NOT the guy to do it with. Although he's been very successful convincing people he's a victim in all of this.
Monocle
Member
Because words have meanings, and in the context of theft vs. copyright infringement, theft means the depriving the owner of saleable goods, while infringement is copying media without compensating its owner. These are obviously different things. A file doesn't disappear when it's copied.
Disapproving of people who enjoy artists' works without paying for it doesn't change the facts of the situation.
Man with Knife
Member
LOL that was so hilariously over-the-top. Made New Zealand look super corny. One of America's many lap dogs it seems.
his name is Kim Schmitz.
GoutPatrol
Forgotten in his cell
Wow, Megaupload has been gone for 5 years now.
Rest
All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
Polanski's crime was against a child and a female, this guy's crimes were against rich old white men. I think if you take a look at the two situations, you'll quickly realize which one of those groups our society values more, and which one of those groups has better legal advocates.
lastplayed
Member
All these people keep saying that. You need to look over the last 30 years of US-NZ relations.
We're more of a lapdog to movie studios if anything.
Don't think Kim is affiliated with MEGA anymore, they had some sort of falling out some time ago.
For crimes committed in the US by US citizens? I doubt there are many. My googlefu is actually failing me in my attempt to look up any.
If you can actually show me a case of an American being extradited to another country for a copyright offense I would be absolutely shocked.
Red Liquorice
Member
Is it?
It's sort of a loose way of complying with the DMCA requests.
When someone uploaded something that was already in their system, their system recognized it as something that didn't need to be reuploaded, and just pretended to upload it while it gave the user a fresh link.
If a copyright holder found a Megaupload link to some of their stuff on a piracy site, they could report it to Megaupload and the link would be terminated immediately. I'm not sure if it really matters if the file wasn't purged from Megaupload's system immediately. If the link to the file is dead, nobody can access it. I'm sure they had a system for purging files that have no links (IIRC, if the file wasn't accessed in x number of days, it would automatically delete). Megaupload could have done more to fight piracy, like discovering and deactivating any and all links associated with a heavily-pirated file, or purging the pirated file immediately once the link was reported, but from the perspectives of both the pirates and the copyright holders, Megaupload seemed to be complying with DMCA takedown requests.
And they weren't just "disabling links and then sharing new ones", as that implies that they were sending secret messages and willfully trying to undermine DMCA takedowns. They would share a new link only when a pirate made a fresh attempt to upload a taken-down file, and at that point, it really doesn't matter if Megaupload was lazy in taking down the original. If they had taken it down, it would be back up again.
Legally speaking, getting lazy and keeping the file uploaded and merely trading in active/inactive links while people were shouting "Put this up!" "Take this down!" "Put this up!" "Take this down!" is going to screw Kim Dotcom, but it doesn't seem like that bad of an idea. It just seems like they're screwing him on a technicality, since he's Kim Dotcom, founder of Megaupload, and they were desperate to find something to pin on him.
IIRC, he restarted the company and tried to make it lawsuit-proof, and then since he was facing these legal troubles he put it all in the name of his beautiful trophy wife.
Then his beautiful trophy wife said "Thanks hon, but I only ever loved you for your money, and now you have given it to me. Bye!"
Randy Monk
Member
dibs on Dotninja
From what I remember of the original FBI indictment, Mega staff were accused of basically using the entire site as a giant personal hard drive for pirated shit.
I really don't care very much about piracy, but Kim is a certified scumbag so this doesn't upset me too much.
At least we got the Megaupload song out of it! I still can't believe Yeezy signed off on this shit.
8-Bit Sunset
Banned
Agreed.
Megaupload was an international organized criminal enterprise; Kim Dotcom is a criminal.
The copyright-infringing material was not removed at all.
All others links to the copyright-infringing material were not removed/disabled despite megaupload storing them in a database.
In the database, when a file had one of its links removed due to copyright infringement, an attribute for the said file was set to true.
Megaupload had a tool to remove a file based on its MD5 hash.
Megaupload had a filter that automatically recognized and deleted child pornography material by relying on md5 hashes.
The copyright-infringing material was not removed at all.
All others links to the copyright-infringing material were not removed/disabled despite megaupload storing them in a database.
In the database, when a file had one of its links removed due to copyright infringement, an attribute for the said file was set to true.
Megaupload had a tool to remove a file based on its MD5 hash.
Megaupload had a filter that automatically recognized and deleted child pornography material by relying on md5 hashes.
Not hard to argue with that, but I will say that the overall handling of this whole situation by both governments is ridiculous and ultimately going to set bad precedents, specially when a lot of things done by both governments were considered illegal.
- Status