31–40 of 43 posts
It very much looks like the seizure process is being used as a directed punitive measure and not merely as an evidence gathering process. We need better laws in the US to protect against seizure being used as non-judiciary, extra-legal punishment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely the prosecutors loose their case if the data goes. Doesn't the defense shift from 'we moderated content, majority was legal' to 'prove that we hosted illegal content'. With the data deleted isn't it like trying to commit someone of murder after the murder weapon mysteriously vanished?
Yeah, that's sort of what I thought. This "On the flip side, Kim Dotcom will lose the ability to use the data to defend himself after pleading not guilty to piracy," seems very strange to me. Obviously, if the data were to be deleted, it would be because the FBI stopped Megaupload from paying for those data-center services. Thus, we would get a situation where the feds are at least indirectly responsible for destroyi…
The reversal by the Supreme Court a few years later was cold comfort to the shell of the company that was left, the 85,000 people it once employed, the partners who lost the value of their holdings in the company, etc.
(And this hysteria lead to Sar-Box, which just happened to be the final nail in the coffin of the traditional IPO startup exit except for a very few massive successes.)
I would have thought it would be evidence tampering if they did delete the data.
Their hosting bill had to be staggeringly high. I'd hate to be an ISP with all this equipment sidelined, sitting idle, not generating revenue.
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I would guess that would depend where the hosting resides. If the host is non-US then it is out of the courts jurisdiction. You need to think about the cost to the hosting company. I assume they are holding a lot of data and a large number of servers are tied up doing nothing without payment. They have every right to clean the server and allocate it elsewhere. If anyone should be footing the bill it should be the pro…
That's the problem with the shoot-first-ask-later approach that they have pursued. I'm positive they did not think this through all possible ramifications and now they are left with a great big mess on their hands.
One reason this may be patently false is that I'm sure Hollywood would love to see people put in jail for copyright infringement.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their hosting bill had to be staggeringly high. I'd hate to be an ISP with all this equipment sidelined, sitting idle, not generating revenue.
It could be high, but if no-one's accessing it, then you have no bandwidth costs. Just turn off the machines, and take out the harddrives, and store them somewhere safe. You now don't have to pay for bandwidth, power or cooling. Could be much cheaper than when they were left on and used.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, that's sort of what I thought. This "On the flip side, Kim Dotcom will lose the ability to use the data to defend himself after pleading not guilty to piracy," seems very strange to me. Obviously, if the data were to be deleted, it would be because the FBI stopped Megaupload from paying for those data-center services. Thus, we would get a situation where the feds are at least indirectly responsible for destroyi…
It's happened many times before. Anderson Consulting ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen ), then one of the "Big 5" accounting companies, suffered a "sentence first, verdict afterwords" execution when they were prosecuted for their putative crimes in the Enron debacle. The reversal by the Supreme Court a few years later was cold comfort to the shell of the company that was left, the 85,000 people it once e…
If Megaupload were to win the case, get their domain/money/etc. back, would they be able to seek compensation? I don't know if they have any chance of winning, but if they did I can't imagine their being able to rescue the company - even if they did, they surely wouldn't have a hard time showing how much damage the downtime did to them financially. What options would they have?
Proving the lost costs would be a case of saying we made $Z per day and were off line for Y days, Z*Y= lost revenue. Add to that compensation for lost data for end users plus an arbitrarily large figure for lost "goodwill" in the business and punitive damages. Lawyers are good at this sort of sum as they usually get to stick a few 0's on the end of the figure they come up with.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their hosting bill had to be staggeringly high. I'd hate to be an ISP with all this equipment sidelined, sitting idle, not generating revenue.
It could be high, but if no-one's accessing it, then you have no bandwidth costs. Just turn off the machines, and take out the harddrives, and store them somewhere safe. You now don't have to pay for bandwidth, power or cooling. Could be much cheaper than when they were left on and used.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Proving the lost costs would be a case of saying we made $Z per day and were off line for Y days, Z*Y= lost revenue. Add to that compensation for lost data for end users plus an arbitrarily large figure for lost "goodwill" in the business and punitive damages. Lawyers are good at this sort of sum as they usually get to stick a few 0's on the end of the figure they come up with.
there is no need to compensate end users for lost data as the MU terms of service explicitly ruled out any such compensation...
That said, the users will likely never see a dime because the government's sovereign immunity prevents anyone from suing the federal government over damages relating to law enforcement seizing evidence of a crime.
This immunity is what enables the executive branch of the government to abuse this authority and treat seizure as a form of extra-judicial punishment without going through the courts.