Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If hosting is enough to be considered present in the US, then the US cloud providers better get ready for some unpleasantly stiff competition. That has been the case for a really long time, hasn't it?
I'm surprised no one here as mentioned Kim Doctcom, who is still trying to fight his extradition from New Zealand. He's a German, who has never set foot in America, was illegally spied on by NZ (which is now retroactively legal thanks to former PM John Key's GCSB law) and for a charge that isn't a crime in NZ.
Sweden only moved against TPB after the WTO threatened them with sanctions. It's likely that New Zealand caved in the belief that they'd face similar unpleasantness.
We must understand that underneath the fancy dressings and the formalities that we create to make ourselves feel important, humans are essentially the same; our psychologies are all dictated by the same biological processes. We must not kid ourselves about this. It is always dangerous to upset or frustrate powerful interests. If you taunt someone much more powerful than you, as TPB did, do not expect formalities like law to make a difference.
A lot of starry-eyed entrepreneurs go in thinking that everyone will be pleasant and sportsmanlike, and see their work as a friendly collaborative competition. This is not true! People will skirt and break every rule they can to win, because they see the competition as a matter of survival, not as a fun game.
The copyright cartel is out of control along every axis. Not only do they make use of an artificially-granted, market-destroying monopoly to stifle the creative speech of the public, but in multiple cases now, they've triggered an extralegal override of national sovereignty to persecute a little guy who was frustrating their oppressive business model in ways that were completely legal within his/her jurisdiction.
If our politicians want to get out under these peoples' thumbs, they need to seriously revise copyright law, and tell the fat cats that they're going to have to be productive to make money instead of milking royalties for 100+ years and sending the feds across the world to black bag entrepreneurs.