Are any of the people who were arrested for RIAA/MPAA violations still imprisoned? That was such a weird time to be a kid. Scared if I downloaded a Greenday mp3 my parents would get arrested for piracy and I'd never be able to work in computers.
Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand
241–250 of 1001 posts
Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand
#242Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand
#243Kim DC is not a likeable or admirable person, but this vindictive pursuit seems even worse. It appears very similar to the treatment of Ross Ulbricht, Assange, maybe even Snowden? These are the equivalent of white collar crimes (typical massive frauds from the finance sector, etc) but they are getting a blue collar punishment of decades in jail that a successful and persistent street drug dealer could receive, NOT th…
White collar crimes should be punished with the same vigor as blue collar ones. White collar crimes mostly steal money, at scale. Insufficient money is a huge cause of suffering—people don’t get to retire at early, they and their kids don’t get the opportunities they would have had otherwise. You can be a drug dealer that doesn’t hurt anybody.
Many of them should be treated to non-violent home theft, adjusted for the value of the fraud.
Defrauded people out of 10M? That's about as much or more than 1000 home thefts, which would probably land you in prison for life.
Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand
#244[dead]
Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kim is not a political opponent, he is a convicted criminal who now very deep in fake news, conspiracy myths and other lies. This is not someone who has just a different opinion on some things, but one with a long history of seriously harmful behavior.
how is it different than what youtube, chatgpt, fb or even google drive did? the only difference is his political stance
Those are services, not people. And what illegal stuff are they actually doing? Yes, people abuse them for illegal content, but it's not their normal modus operandi. The companies are removing content on proper request and do not actively aid in spreading it.
And BTW since when has Kim any legit political stance? It has always been about money and fame for Kim. Political topics were never a serious part of him.
Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
White collar crimes should be punished with the same vigor as blue collar ones. White collar crimes mostly steal money, at scale. Insufficient money is a huge cause of suffering—people don’t get to retire at early, they and their kids don’t get the opportunities they would have had otherwise. You can be a drug dealer that doesn’t hurt anybody.
No. Drug dealers always hurt people - we have the word Pharmacist for good drug dispensers.
There is a huge difference between a regulated and controlled system and your neighborhood methhead mixing up something in his kitchen to sell to the kids a couple of blocks over
Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
> without cutting in the existing rights holders properly. That's the killer, right there. "existing rights holders" is a big deal, and one that has been ignored by tech bros for a long time. As a [former] artist, and [former] musician, I can say that the tech industry has been cooking the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs. The opportunity for individual financial and ego success is a huge driver for modern popular art…
No we just realized people who pirate likely aren’t going to buy it anyway, you can’t claim lost profits for ~$0.
I wouldn't say that, myself.
In the case of software (a creative product that many, here, have a vested interest in), pirating can actually lead to future sales.
I think one of the most pirated programs out there, used to be Adobe Photoshop.
This resulted in a huge number of folks that became expert Photoshop users, and that drove sales of the app, in their careers.
The same probably cannot be said for games. I suspect a pirated game, is a lost sale.
Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand
#248[flagged]
Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Tweet about opposing war in ukraine arguing that NATO is outdated and not in the interest of Ukrainians? Oh pay no attention to him -- he is on the communist payroll. Hailing from a country that joined NATO in the 90s I wouldn't brand a person arguing this as being on communist payroll - just ignorant beyond measure. Russia has been a consistently bad neighbour for decades now and I for one am happy that in my coun…
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What good could come out of saying "Oh, you are playing the nuke card. Well, take whatever you want then, I'm so sorry." ?
What's to say Russia won't wave the nuke card again, and again, if it worked the first time?
Also, do you ascribe any agency to the people of Ukraine? If they want to resist Russia, let them, I say.
And of course it's not out of altruism. (Well, some of the icing on the cake may be.)
It's because Russia is changing the status quo. That's a threat to the US. (And many other countries!)
Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand
#250A fair amount of “this is fine, governments enforce IP laws and that’s a public good” vibes in here, which is all a very reasonable perspective. I’d argue Kim was too successful and too unlikeable at the end of the day, and that was probably his downfall. Toward the end, MEGA had transitioned to actually partnering with hip hop artists for distribution. The US has a long history of IP rights holders criminalizing new…
Pedantically: MEGA runs today as a Dropbox-alike, and has very little to do with Kim Dotcom beyond his being involved at the very beginning and then departing quickly. You're referring to Megaupload, which is entirely different despite the name similarity.
Megaupload Song anybody? https://youtu.be/o0Wvn-9BXVc