Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy • Hacker News Board

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#331

Post by kahawe » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 1:12 PM UTC

AlexMuir wrote: post #39

At the risk of megadownvoting here... Megaupload never complied with DMCA requests - I made several as part of some research and never received any response. The site charged for access to, and provided advertising around, pirated content. The site paid people (users/staff - it's a fine line) to provide popular content. It went to extraordinary lengths to hide the identity of its operators. Now if people believe that…

> Kim Schmitz has made a lot of money over a five to seven year period doing this.

Probably more famous amongst German hackers but this is also the Kim "kimble" Schmitz of insider-trading letsbuyit.com fame who pulled PR stunts like launching "Young Intelligent Hackers Against Terrorism" (Yihat) to track down Bin Laden and before letsbuyit.com was trolling German coder newsgroups. After all that he tried attracting only "very high wealth individuals" to a company he founded in HongKong that allegedly specialized in automated artificial intelligence trading and that was about the last I remember hearing of him...

On a personal level, this is very, very satisfying to see they got him again on charging people per month for illegal downloads! He gives actual European hackers an extremely bad name.

> I cannot believe that Megaupload is being touted as an anti-SOPA posterchild.

This right here, people. This is not linux torrents we are talking about - this is "I want your money and I take it any way I can and will then post pictures of my extra-ordinary live style online" kim schmitz, a convicted criminal who prides himself on being successful "outside of rules and legislations".

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#332

Post by adestefan » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 2:14 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #329

adestefan wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Berne Convention stipulates that the laws of where the copyright is registered takes precedent.

Can you quote me Berne on that one - it seems strange because copyright is an unregistered right. USA as one of the last countries to accede to Berne retains some registration systems as a way for rights holders to get access to greater fines in court. But this is not a widespread system. Do you mean the country of origination of the copied work?

Yes it is origination. Your are correct that registering is an outdated concept and Berne actually insist on automatic copyright in the origin country.

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#333

Post by adestefan » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 2:27 PM UTC

etherealG wrote: post #321

adestefan wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has sat on a Federal jury that is definitely not true. As a matter of fact there were people that were outright convinced against the government and were only swayed when it was shown to be a pretty solid open and shut case.

thanks for this post, it helps to know from someone who's actually been in the situation. out of interest, are you at all involved in the law profession? how did they handle explaining complicated law language etc. to you as a juror?

I've been around enough lawyers to get the gist of what they're doing, but am not involved in the profession. A really good friend is a corporate lawyer and my mom was a courthouse clerk when I was a kid.

The case was pretty clear cut; you can't carry a weapon as a convicted felon and once you cross state lines you fall under Federal jurisdiction. The guy was caught going from MD to DC and back to MD with two pistols during a police chase. He tossed one out the window while in DC and had the other one was on him when he finally wrecked his car just inside MD. The judge explained the law before we deliberated and also explained that his prior conviction had no bearing on him being guilty of this crime. Two people on the jury were convinced that he was just being made an example by the Feds. At the time there was pretty bad gun running between MD and DC and the local MD district attorney had a hard time getting gun convictions.

BTW. Federal jury duty sucks. It's not a one day deal like it is for most county juries. Instead you're listed for an entire month. I had to go in 4 times before I was on a jury.

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#334

Post by infinity » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 2:44 PM UTC

kahawe wrote: post #331

AlexMuir wrote: post #39

At the risk of megadownvoting here... Megaupload never complied with DMCA requests - I made several as part of some research and never received any response. The site charged for access to, and provided advertising around, pirated content. The site paid people (users/staff - it's a fine line) to provide popular content. It went to extraordinary lengths to hide the identity of its operators. Now if people believe that…

> Kim Schmitz has made a lot of money over a five to seven year period doing this. Probably more famous amongst German hackers but this is also the Kim "kimble" Schmitz of insider-trading letsbuyit.com fame who pulled PR stunts like launching "Young Intelligent Hackers Against Terrorism" (Yihat) to track down Bin Laden and before letsbuyit.com was trolling German coder newsgroups. After all that he tried attracting o…

Yes, Kim "Kimble" Schmitz is a name I remember from 90's. He was quite often on TV in Germany, showing off his luxurious life-style, girls and cocktails at a pool, that sort of thing. And then he was jailed. He is indeed a convicted criminal.

The german Wikipedia has a nice overview over his former activities: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Schmitz

This guy has never been a modern Robin Hood.

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#335

Post by kittxkat » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 2:54 PM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #174

AlexMuir wrote: post #39

At the risk of megadownvoting here... Megaupload never complied with DMCA requests - I made several as part of some research and never received any response. The site charged for access to, and provided advertising around, pirated content. The site paid people (users/staff - it's a fine line) to provide popular content. It went to extraordinary lengths to hide the identity of its operators. Now if people believe that…

I don't understand this. Megaupload is based in Hong Kong. How does the DMCA apply to them? The site operators were arrested in New Zealand. Most aren't even U.S. citizens: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/megaupload-indicted... Now they're being charged by the FBI. How did it happen that the entire world is supposed to comply with U.S. law?

I don't quite get this either. They weren't that stupid to have their servers in the US where everything is illegal, were they? And what about similar sites like Rapidshare? How do they get to be still up and running, yet doing quite the same thing for decades?

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#336

Post by DennisP » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 3:20 PM UTC

adestefan wrote: post #209

DennisP wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your link says the state of Virginia is claiming jurisdiction because some of the servers were there. The lesson I guess is if you're going to run a site like this, don't host it in America. There's no indication that any laws of New Zealand were broken. The NZ cops simply cooperated in enforcing U.S. law.

The Berne Convention stipulates that the laws of where the copyright is registered takes precedent.

So you're saying if 100 countries each have their own DMCA-like requirements for notification and takedown, each a little different, then if I have any kind of site where users post content, under Berne I have to implement 100 different systems?

And then somehow I have to figure out where each item was originally created (not posted from), and apply the appropriate system for that file?

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#337

Post by jrockway » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 5:44 PM UTC

dedward wrote: post #305

jrockway wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying makes no sense. Can Iran extradite me for writing software to upload pornography to the Internet? (It's a capital offense there.) Of course not, because that's not how laws work. They can try to extradite me, of course, but no reasonable country would ever assist them. Similarly, it makes very little sense to extradite programmers at Megaupload. Sure, Megaupload is probably illegal in the US. But w…

generally extradition treaties, out of common sense, require something to be illegal in both jurisictions. World powers are pretty much on the same page when it comes to money laundering. Following the money, as they say. Your dutch coffeeshop owner hasnt committed a crime in the us by any stretch of the imagination, and is operating according to the wishes of his government (even if the weed is technicLly still ille…

The issue I have is with the money laundering charges. When you do something legal and put the money in your bank account, that's not money laundering. So while running Megaupload in the US might lead to money laundering charges, running it out of Hong Kong doesn't. They aren't hiding the source of their money: it comes from people paying to download pirated content. It's China, they don't really care about piracy there.

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#338

Post by nknight » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 6:19 PM UTC

ethank wrote: post #137

nknight wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The RIAA and major labels are one and the same. It is disingenuous at best to try and distinguish one from the other, when the board of directors consists entirely of label representatives. Meanwhile, precious few artists whine about piracy like the RIAA does, you hear a lot more whining about the labels, because they're the ones screwing artists.

The RIAA represents WMG, UMG and Sony Music. Each of those has a bunch labels. They themselves are not labels. For instance, WMG corporate has no A&R staff. The business of music is different than the practice of it, and lumping it all into the "label" itself is disingenuous. The politics within those companies usually means the labels at the very edge (where marketing and A&R are) are often at odds with corporate/RI…

Division, brand, subsidiary, however you want to spin it. Common ownership, common responsibility. An entity cannot be "at odds" with a parent entity, such an assertion would be laughed out of court. Internal politics don't matter to the outside world.

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#339

Post by Florin_Andrei » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 6:29 PM UTC

TruthElixirX wrote: post #316

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how people are raging against the "government" who shut down Megaupload, when really the feds were merely the instrument. The real decision was made in some corporate office somewhere - the real owners of the weak little puppet called "government".

The state consists of two parts, the corporation and the government. The government are not some dumb fools who are just "get used" by some old shadowy men in some corporate office. Its a symbiotic relationship.

In time, thou', the balance may tilt one way or the other.

In China nowadays, it's heavily tilted government-side. In the US, it's just as heavily tilted corporate.

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#340

Post by joeycfan » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 6:44 PM UTC

Look, MegaUpload was a total criminal site. I remember stumbling over it and being amazed - it was like the BBS days of The Pirate Cove and others - blatant 'We are crims' culture.

When I saw that Kimble was involved in it, I laughed out loud! He's such a pathological narcissist, he will leave a BIG crater when he goes down!

In closing, they waved their dicks at the cops, that's why they got busted so bad.