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Kim Dotcom Will Go to the US in Exchange for Legal Funds

torrentfreak.com

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Re: Kim Dotcom Will Go to the US in Exchange for Legal Funds

#41

Post by powertower »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #12

Look at his options: 1. Get bled until nobody will offer legal services to him because they know he can't pay. Get extradited with a public defendant (if he's lucky). Have a trial with a lawyer being provided by the DoJ (who happens to be the ones putting him on trial). 2. Get extradited with a team of really good lawyers who truly represent him. There really aren't any options that don't end with him extradited. Why…

> As a US citizen, this case makes me sick to my stomach.

MU was the hub of piracy on the net. And from the figures posted, netted 400 million dollars from it.

It's not something that was going to be ignored, even with a legitimate upload service being offered, because the primary monetary driver for that company was tricking and/or getting people to sign-up when visiting a page to d/l pirated content.

All the US gov will have to show is a statistical sample of 10,000 random accounts, and correlate their signup to first entry ... a page hosting pirated content... More or less.

And when that comes back to show that 99% of paid-users d/l pirated content, it's over.

Anyone with access to the Apache or nginx access logs and the hosted files could do half of that in their sleep.

What I'm sick of is there are people who choose to ignore the facts, and idolize this man who's entire history for the last two decades revolves around criminal activities and lawsuits.

But hey, this is America and you're entitled to your opinion.

Perhaps you know of a better country... http://www.vice.com/the-vice-guide-to-travel/the-vice-guide-...

Re: Kim Dotcom Will Go to the US in Exchange for Legal Funds

#42

Post by kiba »

powertower wrote: post #41
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #12

Look at his options: 1. Get bled until nobody will offer legal services to him because they know he can't pay. Get extradited with a public defendant (if he's lucky). Have a trial with a lawyer being provided by the DoJ (who happens to be the ones putting him on trial). 2. Get extradited with a team of really good lawyers who truly represent him. There really aren't any options that don't end with him extradited. Why…

> As a US citizen, this case makes me sick to my stomach. MU was the hub of piracy on the net. And from the figures posted, netted 400 million dollars from it. It's not something that was going to be ignored, even with a legitimate upload service being offered, because the primary monetary driver for that company was tricking and/or getting people to sign-up when visiting a page to d/l pirated content. All the US gov…

What I'm sick of is there are people who choose to ignore the facts, and idolize this man who's entire history for the last two decades revolves around criminal activities and lawsuits.

Providing paid access to pirated content is bad? Maybe hollywood should have taken that business model to heart.

Re: Kim Dotcom Will Go to the US in Exchange for Legal Funds

#43

Post by ktizo »

cjensen wrote: post #39
dangrossman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's asking for access to his money in his bank accounts that the US had frozen so that he can pay his lawyers.

And? Lots of people get their assets frozen. They don't get to make demands as a precondition of submitting to justice. Asking for special conditions that are never granted can only mean one of two things: either he is utterly ignorant of how law works or he is just trolling for more attention. I choose to view him as non-ignorant, but since my view is not fawning, apparently I get a massive karma downgrade. I'll liv…

Well, actually he has precedent in his favour.

CFTC v. Walsh: District Court Releases Funds Frozen in Civil Case to Pay for Attorney in Parallel Criminal Case: http://www.columbialawreview.org/articles/comment-cftc-v-wal...

Also, how else do you get to have funds released other than through petition? And he has already submitted to the justice system, otherwise he wouldn't be turning up in court.

Re: Kim Dotcom Will Go to the US in Exchange for Legal Funds

#44

Post by trotsky »

If the funds are subject to asset seizure the DOJ would never release them in a situation like this. If they got a conviction there'd be nothing left - all paid to his surprisingly expensive legal team based in the caymans. Even the dumbest feds ever would see that coming a mile away.

Re: Kim Dotcom Will Go to the US in Exchange for Legal Funds

#45

Post by marquis »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #26
grecy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There really aren't any options that don't end with him extradited. The high court of NZ has ruled the search warrants used were illegal[1]. IANAL, but I would think that's grounds enough for the case to be thrown out and for NZ to never extradite him. [1] http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-search-warrants-ruled-ill...

True, there may be another option: left in New Zealand broke with all of his assets frozen and unable to ever interact with the United States.

He's not an idiot. Maybe he has to give up his multi-million dollar house but him and his group of highly-technical colleagues have not a lot holding them back this minute from starting over, aside perhaps initial funding for hosting.

Re: Kim Dotcom Will Go to the US in Exchange for Legal Funds

#46

Post by TheEskimo »

powertower wrote: post #41
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #12

Look at his options: 1. Get bled until nobody will offer legal services to him because they know he can't pay. Get extradited with a public defendant (if he's lucky). Have a trial with a lawyer being provided by the DoJ (who happens to be the ones putting him on trial). 2. Get extradited with a team of really good lawyers who truly represent him. There really aren't any options that don't end with him extradited. Why…

> As a US citizen, this case makes me sick to my stomach. MU was the hub of piracy on the net. And from the figures posted, netted 400 million dollars from it. It's not something that was going to be ignored, even with a legitimate upload service being offered, because the primary monetary driver for that company was tricking and/or getting people to sign-up when visiting a page to d/l pirated content. All the US gov…

>MU was the hub of piracy on the net

I'd like a source for that. I believe TPB is and was in that position. I also believe that rapidshare and all those other sites had a similar amount of pirated content. In general you'd have a mirror of a given file across 3 or so sites which would indicate MU wasn't that far different from those commonly used as mirrors.

>statistical sample of 10,000 random accounts, and correlate ... pirated content

Why? That shows that people downloaded pirated content (which makes the downloaders guilty, not MU). I don't see how that makes MU guilty.

>Anyone with access to the Apache or nginx access logs and the hosted files could do that in their sleep.

uhhhhhh no. Not at all. How the heck to you figure out if a file is actually legal or not? How do you tell if a downloader of a file legitimately owned that file or not? An artist once distributed his album to me via MU after I paid (I wanted it in a different format than was avaliable via automatic download). I was a legal downloader, but if I gave the link to my friend he/she would have downloaded it illegally. To do such a thing they would have to first catagorize all the content, determine the copyright holder, ask the holder if it was a legal download, wait on the copyright holder to look through his/her probably nonexistant logs, and so on. This is not easy.

> idolize this man who's entire history for the last two decades revolves around criminal activities and lawsuits.

His past doesn't matter in this regard. I don't actually see how any of what you posted matters. Sure, there's piracy on MU. That doesn't mean it was illegal since they apparently obeyed the DMCA.

>It's not something that was going to be ignored

Indeed, it looks like the US government isn't ignoring it even though it was likely legal and are using underhanded methods in order to destroy the business, probably due to the lobbying money from the entertainment industry. If the government not following the law to persecute someone who's not breaking the law, and isn't even a citizan of the united states, doesn't make you sick to your stomach then I'm not sure what our government could do to do such a thing.

Re: Kim Dotcom Will Go to the US in Exchange for Legal Funds

#47

Post by sp332 »

J3L2404 wrote: post #22

"Prosecutors and Dotcom’s lawyers agreed to the delay" - Washington Post Looks like his lawyers sold him out.

An earlier story quoted his lawyers saying that a delay was pretty much inevitable, they totally saw it coming and expected it. Kim then went whining to twitter about how the US is using "delay tactics".

Re: Kim Dotcom Will Go to the US in Exchange for Legal Funds

#48

Post by mixmax »

There's something I don't quite understand. If you're accused of a crime in the US how can all your assets be frozen by the government and your website taken offline? Aren't you innocent until proved guilty?

If the answer is that it's suspected that all the money comes from illegal activity and therefore frozen until a judge rules on whether this is the case or not what would stop the US government from prosecuting, for example, Larry Page, take all his money and shut down Google until he has been to court? Which he can't pay for because he doesn't have any money.

Can you really just indite someone and convince a judge to freeze all his accounts before there has even been a trial?

Re: Kim Dotcom Will Go to the US in Exchange for Legal Funds

#49

Post by sp332 »

cjensen wrote: post #17

He is willing to face trial if they give him money first? That's not how Justice works in any modern country. His lawyers presumably told him as much, so this is just another bizarre plea for attention.

The FBI wanted him extradited. He didn't want to be extradited. So there was going to be a hearing about whether the FBI got what they wanted, or Dotcom got what he wanted (or some court-mediated compromise, but that seems unlikely in this case). Kim negotiated with the FBI so they no longer disagree about whether he will be extradited, so the hearing is no longer required.

Re: Kim Dotcom Will Go to the US in Exchange for Legal Funds

#50

Post by J3L2404 »

mixmax wrote: post #48

There's something I don't quite understand. If you're accused of a crime in the US how can all your assets be frozen by the government and your website taken offline? Aren't you innocent until proved guilty? If the answer is that it's suspected that all the money comes from illegal activity and therefore frozen until a judge rules on whether this is the case or not what would stop the US government from prosecuting,…

If the country you are in agrees.
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