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Kim Dotcom wins battle in ongoing fight against U.S. extradition

reuters.com

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Re: Kim Dotcom wins battle in ongoing fight against U.S. extradition

#101

Post by ballenf »

ponderatul wrote: post #9

I always wanted to know how is the damage done determined ? "U.S. authorities say Dotcom and three co-accused Megaupload executives cost film studios and record companies more than $500 million and generated more than $175 million by encouraging paying users to store and share copyrighted material." Distributing copyrighted stuff is illegal, period. But the way those calculations are made worries me. Do they start fr…

There's one other aspect to the damage calculation. It's admittedly even more subjective than the others in use, but in my opinion even more important.

It's the subjective devaluation in the market of the content. If goods with zero marginal costs tend towards being priced at zero content creators need to raise the marginal cost of their goods to be above zero. With digital goods, the only ways to do that is to attach risk to the act of copying or distributing and increasing the difficulty of finding the content.

Getting back to unauthorized copying of digital media, the cost could be calculated as the net reduction in perceived value of the good as a result of its easy availability.

In hard terms, rampant copying might mean that pricing sweet spot for DVDs or legal streaming is depressed and that reduction then becomes the "cost" of the piracy to creators.

Re: Kim Dotcom wins battle in ongoing fight against U.S. extradition

#102

Post by vkou »

btilly wrote: post #86
nitrogen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought mail-order catalogs were fairly common. How did they handle tax?

The exact same way that internet companies do. :-) As much as states don't want you to think about it, the Constitutional issues were settled back in the 1800s. If you do business with a company from another state, that is interstate commerce and only the Federal government can make laws about it. So, very importantly, your state government can't. However if the company and customer exist in the state, then state law…

> As much as states don't want you to think about it, the Constitutional issues were settled back in the 1800s. If you do business with a company from another state, that is interstate commerce and only the Federal government can make laws about it. So, very importantly, your state government can't.

That's because this leads to incredibly absurd conclusions, such as Amazon 'not doing business' in a state, despite selling billions of dollars worth of merchandise to it. I don't understand how people can claim this to be the case, with a straight face.

In fact, I would daresay say that Amazon.com selling things to residents of Montana means that it has a presence in the state, for the purposes of that transaction, moreso then it does for having an Montana office that employs 8 people who code for AWS.

Re: Kim Dotcom wins battle in ongoing fight against U.S. extradition

#103

Post by briandear »

chrischen wrote: post #41
franciscop wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the country! In Spain for instance it's totally legal as long as there is no commercial intention. Both "distributing" and "copyrighted" are terms that some times have not such clear boundaries. Is giving your sibling a used DVD illegal? Is selling it to a 2nd hand store illegal? A book is clearly legal to resell, right? Then why wouldn't some digital material be? There is a whole industry interested in…

People paid for their service too. So they are making money directly off of users’ illegal actions like how 1) airbnb users illegally converting rooms into short term rentals 2) amazon helping people avoid sales tax 3) uber lyft allowing drivers to drive taxis without a taxi license

“Illegally converting rooms..”

You mean two consenting adults agreeing for a price to exchange a service such as a room or a ride in a car?

Completely different than stealing the production of a movie company and giving it to others for free. Hotels don’t own Airbnb rooms and taxi companies don’t own Uber cars which means they only derive their right to a oligopoly via regulation— regulation that historically is as the result of mobsters or other similarly situated constituencies attempting to create artificial barriers to entry.

Why do people like you seem to love the nanny state? Why do taxis need “regulating?” Why can’t grown ups decide who they want to ride with? Why can’t owners of properties rent to people? How is renting to someone any different than having non-paid houseguests? On a practical level, it isn’t. If the concern is increased traffic in residential areas, then why aren’t houseguests regulated? If the concern is security, then why aren’t residents and owners required to undergo background screenings as a condition of buying property?

America is supposed to be about freedom, but it more closely resembles some totalitarian regulatory wet dream.

Taxi regulation is just a money grab. Health and safety is a ridiculous argument. Me driving my neighbor to the doctor is zero different than me driving a stranger to the post office.

“Hacker News..” LOL. Seems instead more like a bunch of old spinsters lamenting the failure of the temperance movement whilst clutching pearls over those youngsters playing jazz records and dancing the Lindy Hop without appropriate chaperones.

Dammit, we should be encouraging the pushing of limits, of testing boundaries and kicking dents in the status quo. We damned sure ought not be actually defending the status quo. Disrupt!

Re: Kim Dotcom wins battle in ongoing fight against U.S. extradition

#104

Post by megous »

briandear wrote: post #103
chrischen wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People paid for their service too. So they are making money directly off of users’ illegal actions like how 1) airbnb users illegally converting rooms into short term rentals 2) amazon helping people avoid sales tax 3) uber lyft allowing drivers to drive taxis without a taxi license

“Illegally converting rooms..” You mean two consenting adults agreeing for a price to exchange a service such as a room or a ride in a car? Completely different than stealing the production of a movie company and giving it to others for free. Hotels don’t own Airbnb rooms and taxi companies don’t own Uber cars which means they only derive their right to a oligopoly via regulation— regulation that historically is as t…

> Completely different than stealing the production of a movie company and giving it to others for free.

Do you mean two consenting adults copying some files?

If you don't mind ignoring laws around taxis, etc. why a special case for copyright?

Re: Kim Dotcom wins battle in ongoing fight against U.S. extradition

#105

Post by ben_w »

Retric wrote: post #73
derekp7 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "copyright" implies the right to make copies. Copyright laws (in various jurisdictions) also include language regarding performance of a copyrighted work, but that is a separate issue. Digital media is interesting, as when you receive a copy of it on a physical medium, it is basically unusable unless you make a copy of it (i.e., putting the disk in a computer and copying the contents to computer memory). So…

That's a rather tenuous connection. EX: "Transitory storage" does not count as a copy. You need to make a copy of a book on the back of your Retna to read it, however nobody calls that copying. It's easy to argue that playing a DVD is not actually copping the DVD as at no point does a DVD player copy the full DVD. Without a durable copy it's no more copping than the back of your Retna.

I recall there was a court case about that. A copy of a program in system memory was deemed non-infringement because it was necessary for use of the software, however (certain classes of) modified copies were unlawful. I believe this is the precedent used to take down cheating apps for (e.g.) World of Warcraft.

Re: Kim Dotcom wins battle in ongoing fight against U.S. extradition

#106

Post by 8ytecoder »

btilly wrote: post #86
nitrogen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought mail-order catalogs were fairly common. How did they handle tax?

The exact same way that internet companies do. :-) As much as states don't want you to think about it, the Constitutional issues were settled back in the 1800s. If you do business with a company from another state, that is interstate commerce and only the Federal government can make laws about it. So, very importantly, your state government can't. However if the company and customer exist in the state, then state law…

>> After that it is all down to what it means for a company to exist in a state. For example if Amazon owns a subsidiary named A2Z Development which is doing software development in California for Amazon, does Amazon have a presence in California?

It's called having a nexus - even a single employee counts as having nexus. I'm not sure about subsidiaries though.

Re: Kim Dotcom wins battle in ongoing fight against U.S. extradition

#107

Post by logfromblammo »

raattgift wrote: post #100
logfromblammo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In any case, the " lost sale " doctrine is always inherently flawed, because it presumes that those downloading have unlimited entertainment budgets. No one can spend more on copies of information property than they have in discretionary income, and thus the purchase of one copy precludes the purchase of another. It would be easy enough to presume that everyone is always spending their entire entertainment budget, an…

While I agree with your first few paragraphs, and think that some of what you say could in principle be used in a skeleton argument mitigating against a large damages claim, it is unlikely that a downloader would be pursued as far as a formal claim for making a single copy, since the claimant is unlikely to recover all its costs even if it prevails in court. (Default judgments can be abused however; on the other hand…

I was just trying to imagine a situation where the damage claims would have to be evaluated even if the defendant won, or a settlement was reached, or the case got dropped. If the courts only ever examined the proven-liable claims for accuracy in the amount of liability, wouldn't that tend to introduce biases?

Firstly, presupposing that the plaintiff's claims establish liability on the defendant, I think most people would tend to give more credence to their more subjective and speculative claims of magnitude. There would be a significant incentive to unreasonably overstate those claims, knowing that they will not be examined if you lose, and they will be more believable if you've already won part of the case. Furthermore, they anchor the settlement negotiations and the judgment amount arguments, so you'd want them as high as possible anyway. If there is no meaningful penalty for grossly overstating damages, everyone claims they lost a grillion dollars in lost wages, auto detailing, and quantum torment, then hopes the judge won't reduce it to less than a zillion dollars if the case gets that far. The plaintiff eats the defendant whole, and writes the remainder off as a loss, for their tax filings over the next 30 years.

Surely, there must be some penalty for putting a blatant and notorious ass-pull in your civil filing?

If your intent is to never go to trial no matter what, and a claim would only be examined if you were to win at trial, you could put whatever ridiculous crap you wanted in your initial filing, make careful press releases based upon the accusations, then settle, or continue indefinitely, or dismiss without prejudice. Then the damage would already be done. Certainly the courts don't act on claims that haven't been admitted or established at trial, but everyone else can. Most cases never get that far. What could we be missing if we never examine those claims?

Re: Kim Dotcom wins battle in ongoing fight against U.S. extradition

#108

Post by jashmatthews »

jhayward wrote: post #82
jashmatthews wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A police raid is no laughing matter. People die all the time, so it's fortunate nobody got hurt. Not in New Zealand, they don't. Although Hollywood did put pressure on the NZ government to do a full tactical raid on this guys house.

How many full tactical anti-terror assaults, including 9 operators deploying from helicopters in assault landings, has NZ done? Besides the raid on Dotcom, that is.

About 1000 per year, and on average they have to kill less than one person per year, despite 1 million guns for 4 million people.

They make heavy use of helicopters as there’s only one squad covering the entire South Island, and only two covering the North Island.

Re: Kim Dotcom wins battle in ongoing fight against U.S. extradition

#109

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

vkou wrote: post #102
btilly wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exact same way that internet companies do. :-) As much as states don't want you to think about it, the Constitutional issues were settled back in the 1800s. If you do business with a company from another state, that is interstate commerce and only the Federal government can make laws about it. So, very importantly, your state government can't. However if the company and customer exist in the state, then state law…

> As much as states don't want you to think about it, the Constitutional issues were settled back in the 1800s. If you do business with a company from another state, that is interstate commerce and only the Federal government can make laws about it. So, very importantly, your state government can't. That's because this leads to incredibly absurd conclusions, such as Amazon 'not doing business' in a state, despite sel…

Sears Roebuck did the exact same thing when they were shipping everything by rail out of Chicago. Nobody out of state paid sales tax then either.

Re: Kim Dotcom wins battle in ongoing fight against U.S. extradition

#110

Post by thaumasiotes »

ballenf wrote: post #101
ponderatul wrote: post #9

I always wanted to know how is the damage done determined ? "U.S. authorities say Dotcom and three co-accused Megaupload executives cost film studios and record companies more than $500 million and generated more than $175 million by encouraging paying users to store and share copyrighted material." Distributing copyrighted stuff is illegal, period. But the way those calculations are made worries me. Do they start fr…

There's one other aspect to the damage calculation. It's admittedly even more subjective than the others in use, but in my opinion even more important. It's the subjective devaluation in the market of the content. If goods with zero marginal costs tend towards being priced at zero content creators need to raise the marginal cost of their goods to be above zero. With digital goods, the only ways to do that is to attac…

This is true, but none of that reduction is attributable to a suable party, even one the size of megaupload.
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