This probably goes against popular HN opinion, but good. I'm glad. He's a scumbag who profited TWO HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS off content that he knew to be copyright infringing. He deserves prison time.
New Zealand is a sovereign nation. One that has laws which established residency for Kim Dotcom. And one that has signed international treaties with other sovereign nations. New Zealand has used their own judicial system to reach this decision. They are behaving in accordance to their own laws and agreements they were willing participants to.
In short, there's nothing wrong here. Not in the slightest.
It is my opinion that Kim Dotcom's actions are both unlawful and wrong. They could have been unlawful but not wrong. Or lawful but wrong. Or even lawful and not wrong. However it is my opinion that they are simultaneously unlawful and wrong. Both the unlawfulness and wrongness are arguable on their own terms and merits without reference to the other.
You're free to disagree with me. You may hold a different opinion. That's perfectly fine. However a dissenting opinion does not mean I conflated the situation. It does not mean that I'm acting irrationally. It's simple a different opinion.
I don't mind downvotes for disagreeing with the HN HiveMind.
Your opinions by themselves are irrelevant. I care why I should agree with you. Convince me. Give it a try. That's the point of HN. If I just wanted to hear what strangers think without any discussion of the larger issues, I'd be on reddit.
So NZ has laws and treaties. Great. Should they? What's the tradeoff? Is the prosecution of someone who is clearly guilty allowing a greater evil to occur? Is the copyright system and corporate influence of governments a problem?
I would have loved to hear the answers to any of these questions, but what I got was essentially "he is a criminal" and "laws shouldn't be broken". Sure.
Most people would agree that profiting off somebody else's labor without their permission and without remuneration is wrong, and hence it is correct that it is unlawful. I see no incoherence in this particular case.
Unfortunately, to many on HN, when people freely take the information created by content creators it's "disruption of outdated business models", but when the NSA freely takes their own information it's an "invasion of privacy". They simply don't realize that everybody would like to control the spread of information that is significant to themselves. This is why certain laws exist, yet they denounce some laws (such as copyright) as "wrong". The cognitive dissonance is astounding.
As a kiwi. This entire case makes me sick. This should have been thrown out of court a long time ago. This is a political move and nothing else. It's NZ on its knees sucking off the United States. From day 1 it's been illegal. Hidden process, and laws changed to make the process more legal. I hate my country now.
It's not just this case obviously. I used to be proud to be a New Zealander, but the last 5-10 years have made it dreadfully obvious we're actually being operated by foreign and commercial interests, and local/national leaders have no interest in changing that.
Sure, it's probably not as bad as certain other places, but it no longer fills me with pride. I'm tired of this country :(
I went to NZ in January, and I was a bit sad how much traction the LotR films had gained as 'proxy for kiwiness'. From the airline to the airport to posters and promotional material everywhere; on city streets, in supermarkets... it almost felt like LotR had become part of the national psyche, that LotR was NZ, rather than something cool that NZ had done.
As another kiwi I couldn't agree more. It has been sickening to watch NZ bend over backwards to serve the USA. This has nothing to do with copyright infringement, and everything to do with bending over for the USA to maintain its benefits.
He is a NZ PR. He can be tried and convicted in New Zealand under NZ law. What I don't like is American influence on NZ politics.
I have no doubt that he knew the system was being used for illegal file sharing. And no doubt he probably turned a blind eye to a lot of it because it generated money.
But he should have been tried and convicted in NZ without the influence of America.
People commit crimes in every country. They should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. No one is arguing that.
The issue is that you're suggesting that everyone should obey american law, which has been shown to be corrupt and driven entirely by campaign donations; while the locals are arguing that, perhaps, their own government should say...
...use its own laws, to prosecute its own citizens, rather than the laws from another country.
Do you think women should be punished in America for not wearing a hijab in public? That the tenants of Sharia law should be upheld in your country, because they are the laws of another country?
The US is already a safe haven for ill-gotten funds from Africa and China, parked in California, Texas, and New York City real estate. I'm supposed to be upset about Kim Dot Com? Hardly.
This guy was directly undermining Hollywood's business, which meant it could also undermine New Zealand's movie industry, implying it was also in New Zealand's interests to bring him to justice.
Yes. Bring him to justice under NZ law. Trial and conviction in NZ. Without influence of America. We are not an independent nation if we are kissing the feet of other nations. That's what I don't like. Our country is not our own any more.
Kim Dotcom was running a bunch of servers in the US, which means he was running his business at least partially in the US. Secondly, arguably the majority of the infringing content was produced in the US. The US undeniably has significant interest in this case. Does someone become immune to the laws of another nation just because they cross a border? Tomorrow if a US citizen defrauds you, would you not want them brought to justice regardless of where they reside? International treaties exist for a reason.
What he did should not be legal here. But he may have been clever enough to be at least in the grey area of the law. At least the law in NZ. From a strictly moral standpoint, he was ripping off the copyright holders no doubt and should not have been able to get away with it.
The problem is he is getting extradited on these parts of the treaty:
Receiving and transporting any money, valuable securities, or other property knowing the same to have been unlawfully obtained.
…
Obtaining property, money, or valuable securities by false pretenses or by conspiracy to defraud the public or any person by deceit or falsehood or other fraudulent means, whether such deceit or falsehood or any fraudulent means would or would not amount to a false pretense.
I'm not sure you can argue that he did that, and if that is the case, you have to ask what is going on here?
Of course, there is much to this that I don't know, but still it's a bit fishy.
The name for the concern about infringement upon sovereignty by arresting a citizen, in this case, in another state is "extraterritoriality".
There is a presumption against extraterritoriality. In other words, it is presumed that in a sovereign state the laws of other sovereigns do not apply.
The exception to the presumption against extraterritoriality is agreement among states or a reciprocal judicial respect. The agreement is usually a treaty. The reciprocal respect is called "comity".
There are other exceptions to the presumption against extraterritoriality, but I do not think they apply here.
I have not looked at the details, but New Zealand and the U.S.A. must have an extradition treaty or otherwise the judge determining extradition believes that the judicial system in the U.S.A. is "comparable" (i.e. comity applies).
The case looks appealable. So long as the independence of the judiciary is not impugned, neither is the sovereignty of New Zealand, and they may extradite as they feel fit.
Considering there isn't a way to calculate the amount of money lost due to piracy in any accurate way it's essentially a made up number. Are the people who downloaded their content from mega likely to purchase the content if it isn't available from mega or is it more likely they'd use yet another piracy service?
How does the prison term benefit those who were the victim of his crime? imho Seems more of a civil rather than criminal issue. I guess the threat of prison could be seen as a deterrent to others.
I must admit I'm surprised at this verdict. I agree he probably has broken US copyright law, but the crown also broke several laws while conducting the case - data from his servers was sent to the US without legal authorisation, for instance.
From a non-legal perspective, many Kiwis are uneasy at the level of force that the police used in the raid, and also at just how far NZ police bent over backwards at the behest of an overseas commercial entity.
Yeah, that is the thing, as a Kiwi, I'm very uneasy about the influence of US law in NZ.
I've got no problem with dot com going to Jail, but under the laws of the countries he does business in. They are stretching the extradition treaty pretty far on this one.
No one is saying Kim is a saint, but I'd like to think as a New Zeland citizen my country would not give me up the US for breaking US laws, while on NZ soil.
I think people here do not really remember or weren't around when Kim Dotcom was not internet hero of piracy, but he was "Kimble" with a website showing him in jets and with women. He has basically lived his whole life with schemes of dubious legality all to profit himself. He stole credit card information, and ran pump and dump schemes.
I don't really like how the arm of US law is so long, but I also do not like Kimble very much either. He was too blatant and when you run a piracy scheme where everyone and their grandmothers can easily access it, it is going to be a matter of international diplomacy. The entertainment industry is a large export for the USA, so when it gets to a certain scale there will be diplomatic pressure. He was greedy and is now paying the price.
Edit: In before the extolling the legitimate use of Megaupload... Let's face it, a vast majority of the business, traffic, and links there were for pirated content. If it were not for the proliferation of pirated content on there, he would have made a fraction of the money he made.
Google (youtube) profits from "piracy", and yet they still are there.
In fact, you could "pirate" anything and use cloud services to store illegal content. But no one is blaming the companies that provide "cloud" services for this piracy...
Kim Dotcom, in contrast, basically tried to thumb his nose at several hundred years of intellectual property law shared among the former members of the British Empire. That's not going to win you any friends among those who enforce those laws.
> Kim Dotcom, in contrast, basically tried to thumb his nose at several hundred years of intellectual property law shared among the former members of the British Empire. That's not going to win you any friends among those who enforce those laws.
You would think not existing in the jurisdiction would be enough. Apparently not.
>He's a scumbag who profited TWO HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS off content that he knew to be copyright infringing. He deserves prison time.
i'm sure that scumbag violated a lot of Saudi Arabia and Russian laws too (until of course he has all these years been a model Muslim as well as Russian patriot simultaneously). Why do you think infringement of US copyright takes precedence over violation of the Saudi Arabia or Russian laws?
"He's scumbag who laughed at a caricature about prophet Mohammad. He deserves prison time." - does it sound ok to you?
There is no legitimate rule of law, only a tool of violenence to destroy those who oppose the state. You see the same narrative play out over and over again, strange how so view refuse to see the truth.
A bunch of guys in the US brought the economy to its knees, and walked away (do you need to extridate from New York City? Or can't you just drive down the street? I'll even hail the Uber for you).
A guy in New Zealand who infringed copyright, and whom the US has zero jurisdiction over, has had more legal work put into his case.
That's my argument. Complicated? I don't think so.
I'm not fond of the gentleman, but the US justice department is clearly overreaching and should be punished accordingly.
Sure, the US Justice Dept lacked the balls to go after Wall Street. Prosecute the 0.1% wealthiest and most powerful people in the country who own more than the rest of the country put together! What do you think this is, a world where all people are equal? But that does not mean they should not go after anyone who is plainly a crook. The world is unfair, but I'll prefer taking whatever little justice we can get out of it.
Only for the crimes they've attached/stretched in order to extradite, because what sane country is going to let you extradite over copyright infringement?
You're going to need more citations to make a claim like that. Which specific part of the ruling do you disagree with on legal grounds, and cite the relevant laws/treaties/precedent etc.
TL;DW: A lap of the infamous Nurburgring Nordschleife in Kim Dotcom's fleet of three Mercedes Benz CLK DTMs. The drivers are Kim Dotcom, his CMO from Megaupload, and Formula 1 World Champion Kimi Raikkonen.
From the video description: "The production involved 30 cameras, 100+ crew, 2 helicopters, 2 camera cars and one fixed wing aircraft."
Edit: The pic you linked is probably not a still from the video, technically speaking, but a promo shot done on site the same day.
If U.S. citizen who does not reside in New Zealand who is not a New Zealand citizen broke an New Zealand law while living in the U.S. operating a U.K. operation, I don't think he will be extradited to New Zealand.
If I wanted to be subject to U.S.'s laws I'd go to the U.S.
The content owners should be forced to file lawsuits in Hong Kong or New Zealand.
Otherwise it'd be as if New Zealand and Hong Kong are mere U.S. satellite states, like East Germany to the Soviet Union.
Technically he's being extradited for copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering. I doubt they could have extradited him for copyright alone. Whether he is actually guilty of the last two is debatable.
I've got to say that this looks like it was fixed to me. The judgement was predetermined at the behest of the US government and the MPAA, a commercial entity.
I confess that I'm not well traveled, and that I've never been to the Southern Hemisphere, but how independent is the NZ judiciary?
We are completely independent. But that doesn't stop our political leaders from bending over to make a good impression with the United States. I wouldn't be surprised if the United States threatened trade agreements to have things bent in its favour.
Normally they are pretty good here, but there have been a growing number of law changes that seem to favour the MPAA. It seems like there are a few strings being pulled.
Yes. Most people from the United Kingdom and the US will recognize this vernacular. I'm saying this in response to your question, I don't expect all English speakers to understand it.
I'm an American, and I think most Americans would recognize it as meaning "bullshit"; I certainly did. it's not commonly used but it is commonly understood.
I'm an American; it strikes me as an overloaded expression, used to imply both "bullshit" and "testicles", plus whatever the Sex Pistols were on about in their album title...
... yet in C. S. Forester naval stories, it clearly refers to steers or bulls.
So, I can only conclude that it is a random operator used to confuse colonials.
Consider the possibility that people would downvote you even if they agree with you, just because your comment contributed nothing to the conversation. Comments like the parent just lower the signal to noise ratio of this thread. Have you ever known HN users to be government sycophants?
I do say such things in person, when did mods become the politeness police? And who am I insulting, corrupt government officials, those with the dubious morals required to work for the government?
The precedent here being that you may be extradited to a country you have never even visited on the basis of something on the internet.
If your country is friendly with Uganda, try not discussing your nontraditional sexual orientation online.
There's a bigger picture here. We desperately need to rethink what laws and in particular which jurisdiction applies. The previous approach ("all of them, all of the time") has produced any number of nonsensical results and tremendous damage in the form of forum shopping.
It's also not worth mentioning online you drink alcohol unless you want to be extradited to certain middle eastern countries.
Females might not want to mention online they've had sex before marriage unless they want to extradited to certain countries.
Americans might not want to mention online they have semi and fully automatic weapons unless they want to extradited to Canada/Australia/UK/Etc.
etc. etc. etc. The list is endless when a country a person has never been to can have anyone in the world extradited for something they did online which breaches local laws.
I doubt this has is particularly related to "Internet"...
It has a lot to do with american imperialism, the kind of imperialism that they will always deny. You see, even before Internet, the US extradited some people based on bullshit arguments, while conveniently ignoring the very same crimes committed by their own friends. It's rather obvious that they are showing off their power.
The people who break copyright laws are heros, not criminals. The whole reason the industry is moving forward is because of people like him, the pirate bay, and nabster.
If it weren't for rampant copyright infringement, the industry would still be stuck in the dark ages.
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 193 ms ] threadIn short, there's nothing wrong here. Not in the slightest.
Riiiiight.... Not conflating at all....
You're free to disagree with me. You may hold a different opinion. That's perfectly fine. However a dissenting opinion does not mean I conflated the situation. It does not mean that I'm acting irrationally. It's simple a different opinion.
I don't mind downvotes for disagreeing with the HN HiveMind.
When you have to hedge your comments like this, it's generally because your arguments are weak.
So NZ has laws and treaties. Great. Should they? What's the tradeoff? Is the prosecution of someone who is clearly guilty allowing a greater evil to occur? Is the copyright system and corporate influence of governments a problem?
I would have loved to hear the answers to any of these questions, but what I got was essentially "he is a criminal" and "laws shouldn't be broken". Sure.
Unfortunately, to many on HN, when people freely take the information created by content creators it's "disruption of outdated business models", but when the NSA freely takes their own information it's an "invasion of privacy". They simply don't realize that everybody would like to control the spread of information that is significant to themselves. This is why certain laws exist, yet they denounce some laws (such as copyright) as "wrong". The cognitive dissonance is astounding.
It's not just this case obviously. I used to be proud to be a New Zealander, but the last 5-10 years have made it dreadfully obvious we're actually being operated by foreign and commercial interests, and local/national leaders have no interest in changing that.
Sure, it's probably not as bad as certain other places, but it no longer fills me with pride. I'm tired of this country :(
I imagine it's waned a bit by now, though.
I have no doubt that he knew the system was being used for illegal file sharing. And no doubt he probably turned a blind eye to a lot of it because it generated money.
But he should have been tried and convicted in NZ without the influence of America.
That's not the issue here.
People commit crimes in every country. They should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. No one is arguing that.
The issue is that you're suggesting that everyone should obey american law, which has been shown to be corrupt and driven entirely by campaign donations; while the locals are arguing that, perhaps, their own government should say...
...use its own laws, to prosecute its own citizens, rather than the laws from another country.
Do you think women should be punished in America for not wearing a hijab in public? That the tenants of Sharia law should be upheld in your country, because they are the laws of another country?
No? Right then, like I said...
Here's another possible angle: Hollywood might actually be contributing favorably to New Zealand's economy, either directly or indirectly (e.g. through increasing tourism), when it films movies like Avatar, LOTR and The Hobbit. See, for instance http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2012/12/14/the-i.... In 2014, the screen industry revenue was NZ$3 billion (see http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/f...).
This guy was directly undermining Hollywood's business, which meant it could also undermine New Zealand's movie industry, implying it was also in New Zealand's interests to bring him to justice.
The problem is he is getting extradited on these parts of the treaty:
Receiving and transporting any money, valuable securities, or other property knowing the same to have been unlawfully obtained.
…
Obtaining property, money, or valuable securities by false pretenses or by conspiracy to defraud the public or any person by deceit or falsehood or other fraudulent means, whether such deceit or falsehood or any fraudulent means would or would not amount to a false pretense.
I'm not sure you can argue that he did that, and if that is the case, you have to ask what is going on here?
Of course, there is much to this that I don't know, but still it's a bit fishy.
There is a presumption against extraterritoriality. In other words, it is presumed that in a sovereign state the laws of other sovereigns do not apply.
The exception to the presumption against extraterritoriality is agreement among states or a reciprocal judicial respect. The agreement is usually a treaty. The reciprocal respect is called "comity".
There are other exceptions to the presumption against extraterritoriality, but I do not think they apply here.
I have not looked at the details, but New Zealand and the U.S.A. must have an extradition treaty or otherwise the judge determining extradition believes that the judicial system in the U.S.A. is "comparable" (i.e. comity applies).
The case looks appealable. So long as the independence of the judiciary is not impugned, neither is the sovereignty of New Zealand, and they may extradite as they feel fit.
Why haven't the US attorneys responsible for this been disbarred?
They're dependent upon the secondary copyright infringement charge, but racketeering and money laundering are quite serious.
Those charges seem serious because they're associated with organized crime, but that's not the case here.
From a non-legal perspective, many Kiwis are uneasy at the level of force that the police used in the raid, and also at just how far NZ police bent over backwards at the behest of an overseas commercial entity.
I don't really like how the arm of US law is so long, but I also do not like Kimble very much either. He was too blatant and when you run a piracy scheme where everyone and their grandmothers can easily access it, it is going to be a matter of international diplomacy. The entertainment industry is a large export for the USA, so when it gets to a certain scale there will be diplomatic pressure. He was greedy and is now paying the price.
Edit: In before the extolling the legitimate use of Megaupload... Let's face it, a vast majority of the business, traffic, and links there were for pirated content. If it were not for the proliferation of pirated content on there, he would have made a fraction of the money he made.
In fact, you could "pirate" anything and use cloud services to store illegal content. But no one is blaming the companies that provide "cloud" services for this piracy...
All of this is what people call "hypocrisy".
For starters, YouTube worked with the government to establish a framework for making copyright management even vaguely tractable online where it wasn't before. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2807622?hl=en
Kim Dotcom, in contrast, basically tried to thumb his nose at several hundred years of intellectual property law shared among the former members of the British Empire. That's not going to win you any friends among those who enforce those laws.
You would think not existing in the jurisdiction would be enough. Apparently not.
i'm sure that scumbag violated a lot of Saudi Arabia and Russian laws too (until of course he has all these years been a model Muslim as well as Russian patriot simultaneously). Why do you think infringement of US copyright takes precedence over violation of the Saudi Arabia or Russian laws?
"He's scumbag who laughed at a caricature about prophet Mohammad. He deserves prison time." - does it sound ok to you?
But a few hundred million from a guy in New Zealand? Nail him to the cross so the MPAA gets what they want.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/magazine/only-one-top-bank...
A guy in New Zealand who infringed copyright, and whom the US has zero jurisdiction over, has had more legal work put into his case.
That's my argument. Complicated? I don't think so.
I'm not fond of the gentleman, but the US justice department is clearly overreaching and should be punished accordingly.
Only for the crimes they've attached/stretched in order to extradite, because what sane country is going to let you extradite over copyright infringement?
It is over-the-top and ridiculous--just like Kim Dotcom.
TL;DW: A lap of the infamous Nurburgring Nordschleife in Kim Dotcom's fleet of three Mercedes Benz CLK DTMs. The drivers are Kim Dotcom, his CMO from Megaupload, and Formula 1 World Champion Kimi Raikkonen.
From the video description: "The production involved 30 cameras, 100+ crew, 2 helicopters, 2 camera cars and one fixed wing aircraft."
Edit: The pic you linked is probably not a still from the video, technically speaking, but a promo shot done on site the same day.
forget standing desks :-D
Bollocks.
If I wanted to be subject to U.S.'s laws I'd go to the U.S.
The content owners should be forced to file lawsuits in Hong Kong or New Zealand.
Otherwise it'd be as if New Zealand and Hong Kong are mere U.S. satellite states, like East Germany to the Soviet Union.
The only extraditable offense that seems remotely close is:
> Receiving and transporting any money, valuable securities or other property knowing the same to have been unlawfully obtained.
I confess that I'm not well traveled, and that I've never been to the Southern Hemisphere, but how independent is the NZ judiciary?
It's uncommon in the US.
edit: Apparently not. Just messaged my American buddy, and he thought it might be a wig for cows... So, maybe not Americans.
... yet in C. S. Forester naval stories, it clearly refers to steers or bulls.
So, I can only conclude that it is a random operator used to confuse colonials.
I'll happily delete my question, if this is detracting from the discussion?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity.
If your country is friendly with Uganda, try not discussing your nontraditional sexual orientation online.
There's a bigger picture here. We desperately need to rethink what laws and in particular which jurisdiction applies. The previous approach ("all of them, all of the time") has produced any number of nonsensical results and tremendous damage in the form of forum shopping.
It's also not worth mentioning online you drink alcohol unless you want to be extradited to certain middle eastern countries.
Females might not want to mention online they've had sex before marriage unless they want to extradited to certain countries.
Americans might not want to mention online they have semi and fully automatic weapons unless they want to extradited to Canada/Australia/UK/Etc.
etc. etc. etc. The list is endless when a country a person has never been to can have anyone in the world extradited for something they did online which breaches local laws.
It has a lot to do with american imperialism, the kind of imperialism that they will always deny. You see, even before Internet, the US extradited some people based on bullshit arguments, while conveniently ignoring the very same crimes committed by their own friends. It's rather obvious that they are showing off their power.
If it weren't for rampant copyright infringement, the industry would still be stuck in the dark ages.