Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand • Hacker News Board

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#301

Post by EGreg » Thu, Aug 15, 2024, 2:55 PM UTC

vessenes wrote: post #103

A 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…

Do you think UK will sign an extradition order for JK Rowling to go to France over a olympic harrassment lawsuit? Or USA will sign an extradition order for Elon Musk if France asks in that same lawsuit, or if UK demands he be extradited for participating in incitement from abroad?

Something tells me the extradition orders only work one way — if the US Government wants it.

Who knows. To be fair it took years and seems to have been given due process. But how much of it is “leaning on” the countries? Recently on his X interview with Musk, Trump bragged about “how quickly” he was able to use US leverage to extradite people they wanted, from LATAM countries! And everyone was like “right on!”

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#302

Post by AmVess » Thu, Aug 15, 2024, 2:56 PM UTC

underlipton wrote: post #258

e40 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bernie Madoff got real prison time for his white collar crimes.

Bernie Madoff is notable because someone of his stature being pursued so vigorously is rare. If officials went after every financial industry criminal with the same energy, the financial industry would cease to exist. Likewise, executives who sign off on decisions that actually kill people (Boeing) rarely see jail time.

They only went after Madoff because he stole from the rich.

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#303

Post by nerdponx » Thu, Aug 15, 2024, 2:58 PM UTC

codetrotter wrote: post #177

i80and wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I might be misremembering things here but AFAICR, it went something like this: MegaUpload existed as a file hosting service. It was widely used by pirates, and MegaUpload earned a lot of money off of hosting pirated files because users would buy subscriptions to MegaUpload specifically because of the pirated content that they could download, without the limitations that are placed on the users of the free tier. With…

Meanwhile Mega is actually a really good Dropbox alternative. Stable, fast transfers, desktop sync works very well, lots of sharing options, decent pricing. I've been a happy customer for years instead of Dropbox and iCloud.

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#304

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 15, 2024, 2:58 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #280

t-3 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Piracy is more alive now than ever, but as it is no longer visible via Google, the likes of the MPAA and IRAA cannot see it. How so? Google is a major distributor of most pirated material through YouTube and their search engine still makes finding stuff easy. I'd argue that p2p is nearly irrelevant nowadays and server-oriented distribution is the main model.

Probably the largest source of piracy is the widespread normalization of VPNs. Once upon a time VPNs did not advertise so as to not attract IP enforcement attention. They constantly shifted host locations to stay ahead of blocklists. Now VPNs openly advertise on youtube, touting the ability to "access contend not available in your country". That's piracy 101 stuff, at least it used to be. I just watched a youtube by…

[deleted]

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#305

Post by aimazon » Thu, Aug 15, 2024, 2:59 PM UTC

vessenes wrote: post #103

A 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…

I’m not sure I understand the comparison. Megaupload was a file sharing platform that we used to download mostly pirated material and although they had a music platform at some point, that wasn’t the primary method that most people interacted with Megaupload. The illegal equivalent to Spotify was Grooveshark, not Megaupload. The majority of Kim Dotcoms products outside of file sharing came long after Megaupload was attracting scrutiny. He was not a trailblazer, even Megaupload itself was a clone of Rapidshare. I’m sure we all remember the terrible album he used to launch his music platform which came after he was arrested.

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#306

Post by nadermx » Thu, Aug 15, 2024, 2:59 PM UTC

slightwinder wrote: post #199

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

File sharing is not a crime. IP holder damages should take in consideration what the actual buying power of pirates is, not just multiply downloads by dvd costs, and copyright laws need a huge reform. He's a modern day robin hood, people would prefer him to win over eg. disney... and disney is not doing itself a favour these days :)

> File sharing is not a crime. Depending on the content, it is. > He's a modern day robin hood Robin Hood didn't enrich himself with the stolen goods.

What was stolen if the copyright owner still has their copy?

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#307

Post by bpmooch » Thu, Aug 15, 2024, 2:59 PM UTC

EasyMark wrote: post #246

ineedaj0b wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

your name is extremely ironic next to your post

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#308

Post by darby_nine » Thu, Aug 15, 2024, 3:00 PM UTC

vessenes wrote: post #103

A 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…

> It was too early, and too successful, without cutting in the existing rights holders properly.

In a way that makes it much easier to argue against the idea that IP protects creators and not their pimps.

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#309

Post by cevn » Thu, Aug 15, 2024, 3:01 PM UTC

fluoridation wrote: post #263

codetrotter wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be misremembering things here but AFAICR, it went something like this: MegaUpload existed as a file hosting service. It was widely used by pirates, and MegaUpload earned a lot of money off of hosting pirated files because users would buy subscriptions to MegaUpload specifically because of the pirated content that they could download, without the limitations that are placed on the users of the free tier. With…

Thanks, I had no idea that's how it worked. Embedding the key in a part of the URL that's not sent to the server is a stroke of genius. I still find it surprising that so many people use Mega (at least enough that it can stay in business) when BitTorrent can easily saturate a downlink and is free.

I dunno if this is unreasonable, but I fear dling Torrents with high number of seeders in case one of them is malicious. With Mega you only had to trust one server.

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#310

Post by mrfinn » Thu, Aug 15, 2024, 3:01 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #38

snapcaster wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other options does he have? I really wish people wouldn't cheer when smallfolk like us get crushed by the state. Not saying he's perfect, but what him and others have to suffer seems vastly out of proportion to what they did

I wish people wouldn't cheer when criminals evade accountability.

Well then I guess you won't have a thing for political parties