Might be that thing where in exchange for working for them you get to keep your freedom.
>where in exchange for working for them you get to keep your freedom.
I'm not sure that's how freedom works.
Why Kim Dotcom hasn’t been extradited 3 years after the US smashed Megaupload
21–30 of 39 posts
Re: Why Kim Dotcom hasn’t been extradited 3 years after the US smashed Megaupload
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saying "making it illegal to use illegally-gained funds is something I suspect most US citizens would be OK with" , is making an argument that the law is good in the eyes of US society, even if it doesn't state your specific position.
Just because a majority of society agrees with something doesn't mean that someone stating so agrees, or that it is a benefit to society in general.
But we aren't starting from a position of knowing that a majority of society agrees, which is my point. If you state that you don't know much about x, so have no opinion, but believe that most reasonable people believe y about it, then you still are stating an opinion about x, even if you are doing it at one level removed by saying what you think other people might think.
Re: Why Kim Dotcom hasn’t been extradited 3 years after the US smashed Megaupload
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because a majority of society agrees with something doesn't mean that someone stating so agrees, or that it is a benefit to society in general.
But we aren't starting from a position of knowing that a majority of society agrees, which is my point. If you state that you don't know much about x , so have no opinion, but believe that most reasonable people believe y about it, then you still are stating an opinion about x , even if you are doing it at one level removed by saying what you think other people might think.
I think that a majority of society thinks about law and order through an entirely simplified lens, and would see such a law through said lens without considering the actual implications of it. The idea that "money came from bad people doing bad things, so we should punish them" being the only really "logic" here.
Much in the same way that you can skew poll results based on the way that you phrase a question. For example, years ago there was a poll about whether or not people wanted ala carte cable channels. The question they were asked was, "Do you want more choice or less choice in cable programming?" Obviously people want more choice, but this answer was associated (by the pollsters) as being against ala carte options for cable.
Re: Why Kim Dotcom hasn’t been extradited 3 years after the US smashed Megaupload
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious why think he's guilty of the charges against him. Now, he's obviously guilty of civil copyright violation and can probably be sued into bankruptcy. But criminal copyright infringement requires mens rea and internal company transcripts show that the people at MegaUpload thought that they were within the law on some technicalities. They weren't but a reasonable belief that they were means that this wasn't c…
Not only am I not a lawyer, I also don't know/remember many of the details of this case. And I said likely, not definitely, guilty in my opinion. Regarding mens rea, I imagine it's tougher to argue that you thought you were legal technically than to argue you had no idea you might be breaking the law? E.g. Someone who has never heard of magic mushrooms but find then growing and sells them has a better chance of not b…
Thinking that something might happen is not the same as having an intent to cause it to happen. That would make every reader of Cardinal Richelieu to have mens rea to any crime. I also know that by visiting HN I might cause enough drain on their servers that a server breakdown happens, yet I have no intention to cause that.
What the prosecutor might argue however, is that mens rea is not needed for cases of assisting criminal copyright infringement. This is what happened in the pirate bay trial, as the prosecutor brought up precedent cases in which an friend of an accused held up a window during a burglary, and got sentenced even if he was not aware what his friend was up to.
Re: Why Kim Dotcom hasn’t been extradited 3 years after the US smashed Megaupload
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just, in case it's of interest, statements from Kim suggest that he was trying to comply with the DMCA. That all major studios has direct access to the platform to delete links. I personally find the issues unclear, as obviously to a degree as he suggests below, Youtube and other providers are in a similar position: "Well, of course everybody knows that the internet is being used for legitimate and illegitimate uses.…
An objection that I heard mentioned previously: removing the links didn't remove the actual content, which could be available through another link (or hundreds of links, some in private forums, etc.). So actually getting content off the platform was tough. Mentioned in: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/01/why-the-feds-smas... On the other hand, who can say whether content is illegal in all contexts. Perhaps yo…
Not only was it reachable by the other links to the file, the file ID which had been DMCA'd could regenerate links via the premium account API. So warez sites could automatically regenerate megaupload links everytime a file gets a DMCA. Surely this is incriminating?
Re: Why Kim Dotcom hasn’t been extradited 3 years after the US smashed Megaupload
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
An objection that I heard mentioned previously: removing the links didn't remove the actual content, which could be available through another link (or hundreds of links, some in private forums, etc.). So actually getting content off the platform was tough. Mentioned in: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/01/why-the-feds-smas... On the other hand, who can say whether content is illegal in all contexts. Perhaps yo…
Yes, I guess it could be argued that this is part of the way they managed their deduplication system, and that once all links had been removed the context would be removed. Certainly similar arguments could probably be used for copyrighted material on Dropbox, and I imagine there maybe a deduplication on Youtube, and similar issues also. If this really is the only issue it seems like quite a weak case to me, as with…
Well, it literally cost a user nothing to create a new link to the same data. Meanwhile the copyright holder would have to submit a DMCA take down for every single link before a new link could be created. Also, MegaUpload changed their policy to only allow one request at a time. So you couldn't, for example, submit a list of the thousand links to your movie. You'd have to submit 1,000 DMCA take downs. I think it's pretty obvious they were doing everything in their power to drag their feet and facilitate copyright infringement.
Re: Why Kim Dotcom hasn’t been extradited 3 years after the US smashed Megaupload
#27When will the US DoJ hire a decent PR firm? Again and again during these three years they've made cock-ups that push people (like myself) towards supporting Dotcom even if we don't particularly like the guy, and even if we think for the actual charges he's likely in the wrong. > In the forfeiture case, prosecutors will argue why Dotcom’s claim on the frozen assets should not be allowed—and therefore forfeited to the…
They don't need a PR firm. The US public as whole puts up with the lack of due process. They don't have a choice. There are different rules for different persons.
Uber and AirBnB are figuring out how to violate local laws. They are corporate persons and are not charged with conspiracy, racketeering or money laundering when spending the proceeds of illegal activities...even in the furtherance of such activity. Kim Dotcom is a natural person who has angered corporate persons. The full weight of the law must be used against him. That's how crowd control is maintained.
Re: Why Kim Dotcom hasn’t been extradited 3 years after the US smashed Megaupload
#28Tons of money to fight the extradition + him being good at exploiting the US gov hate of the people to make himself look like a freedom fighter instead of the greedy scumbag that he is via well done PR campaigns.
Re: Why Kim Dotcom hasn’t been extradited 3 years after the US smashed Megaupload
#29Might be that thing where in exchange for working for them you get to keep your freedom.
>where in exchange for working for them you get to keep your freedom. I'm not sure that's how freedom works.
That is how it works, see Federal Sentencing Guidelines Section 5K1.1:
http://www.ussc.gov/guidelines-manual/2011/2011-5k11
I don't think that is the case with Dotcom at this point.
Re: Why Kim Dotcom hasn’t been extradited 3 years after the US smashed Megaupload
#30Tons of money to fight the extradition + him being good at exploiting the US gov hate of the people to make himself look like a freedom fighter instead of the greedy scumbag that he is via well done PR campaigns.
[deleted]