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New Zealand court rules Kim Dotcom can be extradited to US

bbc.co.uk

31–40 of 115 posts

Re: New Zealand court rules Kim Dotcom can be extradited to US

#32
post #29

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?

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.

Wikileaks found some evidence of this, if I recall correctly?

Re: New Zealand court rules Kim Dotcom can be extradited to US

#33

The New Zealand government spent $5.8M NZD prosecuting a man for a law that holds a maximum fine of $150,000 in the country he's being prosecuted in. Bollocks.

I'm not sure I'm reading this right, but criminal copyright infringement has much worse penalties than that in the U.S.

Re: New Zealand court rules Kim Dotcom can be extradited to US

#35

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.

Why did it take 4 years, then?

Re: New Zealand court rules Kim Dotcom can be extradited to US

#38

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.

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.

Re: New Zealand court rules Kim Dotcom can be extradited to US

#40

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.

What was the method for determining the value of the loss?

I believe they were referring to the profit by Megaupload, not the loss by infringed-upon rights-holders.
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