New Zealand court rules Kim Dotcom can be extradited to US • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by throwawaykf05 » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 5:35 AM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #14

forrestthewoods wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

If New Zealand is kowtowing to the US, ask yourself why. In politics generally people don't do favors for others for free.

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.

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

#102

Post by 88e282102ae2e5b » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 5:47 AM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #43

eliudnir wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- 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. Riiiiight.... Not conflating at all....

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.…

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.

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

#103

Post by philliphaydon » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 5:53 AM UTC

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #101

philliphaydon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If New Zealand is kowtowing to the US, ask yourself why. In politics generally people don't do favors for others for free. 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…

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.

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

#104

Post by 88e282102ae2e5b » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 5:53 AM UTC

csseinpoont wrote: post #52

csseinpoont wrote: post #42

Lol, the evil empire strikes again. These corrupt people who control the government understand nothing but power and violence.

Lol, reflexive down votes from those who defend state power and corruption, way to go HN.

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?

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

#105

Post by throwawaykf05 » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 5:57 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #97

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument is, a bunch of guys got away because of a shortcomings in the law, so we should let this guy get away too?

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…

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.

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

#106

Post by codezero » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 6:09 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #99

xupybd wrote: post #39

Unrelated, but does `Bollocks` mean anything to people outside of NZ?

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10781843 and marked it off-topic.

Thanks dang.

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

#107

Post by throwawaykf05 » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 6:25 AM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #103

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If New Zealand is kowtowing to the US, ask yourself why. In politics generally people don't do favors for others for free. 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…

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.

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

#108

Post by throwawaykf05 » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 6:40 AM UTC

zorpner wrote: post #5

forrestthewoods wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Don't conflate lawful/unlawful with right/wrong -- it always leads to incoherent positions.

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.

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

#109

Post by DrScump » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 8:17 AM UTC

pheroden wrote: post #50

xupybd wrote: post #39

Unrelated, but does `Bollocks` mean anything to people outside of NZ?

Literally, it means testicles, but more colloclially it means bullshit in every English speaking country I know of. edit: Apparently not. Just messaged my American buddy, and he thought it might be a wig for cows... So, maybe not Americans.

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.

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

#110

Post by trhway » Wed, Dec 23, 2015, 9:22 AM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #2

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.

>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?