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Kim Dotcom loses extradition case

stuff.co.nz

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Re: Kim Dotcom loses extradition case

#111

Post by neutronicus »

hilbertseries wrote: post #60
scrollaway wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, people do tend to forget that most media consumption startups essentially got bootstrapped with a huge amount of copyright infringement. YouTube, Spotify, ... The difference is of course that those startups end up making their content legal. But I don't see how what MU did is not okay, but what YouTube and Spotify did is fine.

MU was paying the people that upload illegal content, specifically because they were uploading illegal content.

I mean YouTube gives content creators a slice of ad revenue, so...

I don't know if this program was implemented before the copyright crackdown, though.

Re: Kim Dotcom loses extradition case

#112

Post by zaphar »

gcb0 wrote: post #89
djsumdog wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US is not so all-powerful that it can compel governments to act against their own best interest, only powerful enough to align interests, by hook or crook. What world do you live in? The United States often compels governments to act against their own interests. The 1973 US backed coup leading to the death of 11,000 civilians. The Iranian-Contras. The School of the Americas, which literally trained terrorists i…

for NZ, the USA based companies signed a deal to film several multi million dollars movies there on the same week the NZ feds agreed to press charges and arrest Kim Dotcom. including the hobbit, which also donated a renovated international airport to the country (hobbit themed no less) if you want to think the US industry most interested in the copyright law there moving all that money at the right time is just a coi…

To be fair the landscape of NZ was highly suitable to the filming of a Movie like the Hobbit. There were far better reasons for them to be filming there than the Dotcom case. Enough better reasons that it's reasonable to conclude the timing in the case was coincidental.

I suspect that it's also not unusual for Hollywood to sweeten the pot when they want to film somewhere with donations of various types.

The connection between the case and those films is extremely tenuous.

Re: Kim Dotcom loses extradition case

#113

Post by DanBC »

deftnerd wrote: post #81
DanBC wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is if you do it as part of a business. Downloading a movie isn't a crime (but is illegal), but burning it to dvd and selling it turns it into a crime.

OK, let's shift to another scenario then. It's illegal in the US to make and distribute adult films without the proper permits and paperwork and health checks. Let's say someone made a website that had Saudi girls, now living in the US, make adult films (without the proper permitting and everything so they were violating a US law as well) and advertised those films in Saudi Arabia. And let's say there are Saudi custo…

In general something has to be a crime in both countries for an extradition to happen.

This has meant that the US has introduced extra sex crime law so that Americans who travel overseas to take advantages of different age of consent laws can be tried as if they had committed the crime in the US.

Re: Kim Dotcom loses extradition case

#114

Post by takeda »

downandout wrote: post #22

He can still appeal the case to a higher court in New Zealand, and may have a chance there. Copyright infringement isn't extraditable from New Zealand, because it's not a crime there. To counteract this problem, the US also charged him with conspiracy to commit a crime and money laundering, which are extraditable offenses in New Zealand. However, those charges are wholly dependent upon the main copyright infringement…

I'm still puzzled how he can be extradited if he is not US citizen and did not commit any crime on US soil.

Re: Kim Dotcom loses extradition case

#115

Post by tajen »

blktiger wrote: post #102
Retric wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Jaywalking is a crime in country 200 countries you don't want someone to be liable 200 times for a single case. Note, we are charging people for crimes committed in other countries so the president is independent of crime type.

This is a poor example since a single case of Jaywalking can only be commited in a single country. If you were to Jaywalk across a country border on the other hand, you'd could be charged with 2 instances of Jaywalking. Once in the first country covering only the distance you Jaywalked while in that country and once in the second country to cover the distance you Jaywalked in that country. Even in that case you might…

An example of crime which can be punished twice: Use of prostitution in a foreign country is illegal for an Australian. However, the law was created with international compatibility in mind.

Re: Kim Dotcom loses extradition case

#116

Post by adrianmacneil »

forinti wrote: post #70
ptaipale wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if copyright infringement is not extraditable in New Zealand, it is still a crime, right? So how would it in any way invalidate the extraditability of money laundering "based" on some crime, if money laundering in itself is extraditable even without any other crime having committed by the accused? Money laundering would be extraditable even stand-alone, right? Yes, of course appeals will always be used to delay…

IANAL, but, as far as I know, there is no concept of stand-alone money laundering. You can only launder money that you came upon through crime. So, if there was no crime to begin with, it makes no sense to accuse him of money-laundering.

Unsure about NZ, but at least in the US, "structuring" your payments in a way that would avoid AML checks is a crime by itself, regardless of whether you obtained the money legally.

Re: Kim Dotcom loses extradition case

#117

Post by dsp1234 »

nikcub wrote: post #65
Sven7 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So just like YouTube.

I actually have an unpublished draft post on my blog titled "Is Megaupload as guilty as YouTube?". The idea of the post was to compare and contrast the internal YouTube emails[1] that came out as part of Viacom vs YouTube with the internal Megaupload emails[2] [2.5]. The reason why the post remained unpublished is because after reading the relevant indictments and court rulings I found that there were clear distincti…

When looking at the emails from both cases, have you taken into account that the adversarial nature of the Viacom vs YouTube vs non-adversarial nature of the emails from the MegaUpload case?

Specifically, emails from the YouTube case are available from both sides (emails that show YouTube in a good light presented by YouTube, and emails that show YouTube in a negative light presented by Viacom), but in the MegaUpload case the only emails are from the indictment (and thus are likely to be hand picked for the purposes of helping secure the indictment).

Re: Kim Dotcom loses extradition case

#118

Post by norswap »

golergka wrote: post #76
norswap wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one way too look at it. The other way is that he made content available when the producers wouldn't. How long do you have to wait to get TV shows in the EU while the US merrily fills the internet with spoiler? His motivation weren't noble; but as far as thieves go, I'll take Kim Dotcom over the MPAA or the RIAA.

> he made content available when the producers wouldn't Yeah, that's called theft. The "producers" are the guys (or organizations) that paid their money to have these TV shows shot, you know. If they wanted to, they could sell only one copy of their shows at all, like Wu Tang. Or just show us the trailers, make everyone want them, and never release them, just for the laughs.

That's certainly the legal doctrine. Personally, I don't happen to agree with it.

Re: Kim Dotcom loses extradition case

#119

Post by lettergram »

takeda wrote: post #114
downandout wrote: post #22

He can still appeal the case to a higher court in New Zealand, and may have a chance there. Copyright infringement isn't extraditable from New Zealand, because it's not a crime there. To counteract this problem, the US also charged him with conspiracy to commit a crime and money laundering, which are extraditable offenses in New Zealand. However, those charges are wholly dependent upon the main copyright infringement…

I'm still puzzled how he can be extradited if he is not US citizen and did not commit any crime on US soil.

I'm left scratching my head at this as well. I'm assuming (without reading into it) they are arguing that it was U.S. copy righted material that was taken, and distributed on U.S. soil (i.e. the internet).

Julian Assange faces similar offense[1], though in this case they are claiming national security as opposed to copy right infringement.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange

Re: Kim Dotcom loses extradition case

#120

Post by golergka »

norswap wrote: post #118
golergka wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he made content available when the producers wouldn't Yeah, that's called theft. The "producers" are the guys (or organizations) that paid their money to have these TV shows shot, you know. If they wanted to, they could sell only one copy of their shows at all, like Wu Tang. Or just show us the trailers, make everyone want them, and never release them, just for the laughs.

That's certainly the legal doctrine. Personally, I don't happen to agree with it.

How? I honestly don't understand how a person in the same ethical framework could disagree with this, if he fully understands the situation.
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