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

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

#611

Post by singlow »

csallen wrote: post #481
tim333 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was predominantly stealing US intellectual property, films, TV shows and music and the like. And unlike say normal use of bittorrent, making a lot of money off it. And being the largest player doing that. I'm not sure about the morals but you can certainly understand financially why they've gone after him.

Minor nitpick, but he was not stealing, he was infringing copyrights. To "steal" is to take another's rivalrous property without permission, such that you now possess it, but they no longer have it. To "infringe a copyright" is to make and distribute a copy of another person's work without their permission. Both illegal, but very different things. What targets of copyright infringement are losing is not their propert…

The word for stealing has been applied more broadly than your definition for millenia.

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

#612

Post by xp84 »

billy99k wrote: post #294
sandworm101 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> probably because a bunch of people dealing with their cases also start disliking them personally. More likely because those people remain naïve about the real world. In a past career I had some interaction with IP enforcement lawyers. They were stuck in the past then and have not really evolved. Their understanding of "the internet" extends only to those things discoverable via google search. Megaupload was knocke…

A decade ago, I had a successful book business online, which included used college textbooks. I had IP lawyers (the same that represented the music and movie industries) send me threatening cease and desist letters on at least 2 occasions accusing me of selling counterfeit books. At that point, I had gotten really good at spotting counterfeits, so I really doubt we were selling any counterfeits, especially when they…

Wow. And I'm assuming the publishers are now sprinting into the arms of rented, time-limited e-textbooks with DRM, and either eliminating or discouraging the sales of physical books that they can't fully kill resale of.

My wife asked me last week to help her get a textbook in a format that could be viewed on a reMarkable tablet, which can read PDFs but won't work with arbitrary DRM schemes. I checked my options and found the publisher selling some DRM crap, and some clearly illegal sites selling DRM-free PDFs. Since I found plenty of people vouching that they'd received what they bought, I chose to (using a Privacy card number) willingly buy from the criminals, since they were the only ones willing to provide me what I needed: an unencrypted PDF that we can actually use on the device we want.

I know publishers are afraid someone will email the PDF to the whole class, so that's why college textbooks probably ought to be folded into tuition, that way (1) publishers can get paid for the correct number of copies and (2) someone who actually has to pay the money (the school) is somewhat in the loop on textbook selection. It's broken now since those actually paying (students) have no say in book selection.

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

#614

Post by bredren »

ProofHouse wrote: post #451
slashtab wrote: post #445

Meanwhile nothing for mega corporation pirating data to train AI.

It’s not pirating. It’s transformative and fair use. Derivative even in some cases. Each piece of content is but a grain of sand on an island. It’s called the open internet.

Key here would be transformation rather than reproduction?

Youtube is mentioned in the 2013 brief:

>b. According to the YouTube “Terms of Service,” users who upload content to YouTube retain all of their ownership rights in their content. By uploading their content to YouTube, however, such users grant YouTube a license to use, reproduce, and distribute such content. >

>c. In general, the further reproduction and distribution of videos that are taken from the Youtube.com platform violates the copyright of the individual who uploaded that video to Youtube.com.

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

#615

Post by sigmoid10 »

lesuorac wrote: post #603
sigmoid10 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you should say that, because there are literally such emails all the way up to Google's C-suite. They leaked a few years ago when Viacom sued them for mass copyright infringement on Youtube. In that case Google even tried to argue that it was ok because it's the content creator's and not the service's fault. When are they getting prosecuted? >Revealing e-mails and other internal communications unsealed Thursday…

> In that case Google even tried to argue that it was ok because it's the content creator's and not the service's fault. When are they getting prosecuted? I mean it's actually a pretty good argument. If Viacom can't figure out which of the videos it's own employees/contractors uploaded to YouTube how can Google be expected to police it? > [1] in some cases employees of the entertainment firms had uploaded their compa…

It's actually a hideous argument. You could make tons of money with any service platform by bypassing all copyright that way. The only interesting thing here is that Google - all the way up to Sergei Brin - knew they were in the wrong. They knew it was piracy and yet chose to roll with it, because money. And the emails prove it. If held to the same standard, they would have to face the same repercussions.

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

#616

Post by kube-system »

meiraleal wrote: post #559
kube-system wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube is way more successful than Megaupload or Napster. The difference is that YouTube went above and beyond to comply with the law and Megaupload and Napster didn't.

Did it? If I go to youtube right now, I will get tons of ads selling illegal stuff which Youtube profit from. This is against the law but it seems that they don't get bothered by the law enforcers.

The context of what I was referring to above was DMCA, not other things.

But regardless, that isn't true. Adsense has been a target of legal action for their illegal content:

https://money.cnn.com/2011/08/24/technology/google_settlemen...

And on top of that, their ads were ruled this month to be an illegal monopoly:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/05/technology/google-antitru...

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

#617

Post by heraldgeezer »

preaching5271 wrote: post #24

I appreciate Kim Dotcom for running MegaUpload and later Mega, in a time when the internet was younger and wilder. Also for his pirate spirit and "stick it to the man" attitude. But everything has a limit, specifically his resistance against the law, even if he hid it behind virtues. I think it's clear for everybody that one cannot get away with this kind of stuff, once governments get involved. Isn't it wiser to sto…

>I appreciate Kim Dotcom for running MegaUpload and later Mega, in a time when the internet was younger and wilder.

I like this. Us internet boomers got to learn and get everything for free. The new kids coming in are paywalled to hell :)

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

#618

Post by pokstad »

throwup238 wrote: post #493
gliiics wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not always black and white; let's be honest, yes, Kim Dotcom was probably more about piracy than freedom of whatever simply because that's where his money was. But: > Isn't it wiser to stop at some point, and find other stuff to do, even if all your nerves say otherwise? Do you think this should apply to, say, Snowden, Assange, and whistleblowers in general?

> Do you think this should apply to, say, Snowden, Assange, and whistleblowers in general? Comparing Kim Dotcom to Snowden or even Assange feels gross. He was a commercial opportunist, not a real activist or whistleblower.

That’s a subjective opinion. You shouldn’t have a legal system built on opinions.

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

#619

Post by big-green-man »

bdcravens wrote: post #580
preaching5271 wrote: post #24

I appreciate Kim Dotcom for running MegaUpload and later Mega, in a time when the internet was younger and wilder. Also for his pirate spirit and "stick it to the man" attitude. But everything has a limit, specifically his resistance against the law, even if he hid it behind virtues. I think it's clear for everybody that one cannot get away with this kind of stuff, once governments get involved. Isn't it wiser to sto…

Was he trying to stick it to the man, or find a way to enrich himself off of content that people were already sharing? There's a lot of retcon-ing those like him, Ross Ulbricht, etc as freedom fighters, when the truth is they were simply capitalists.

You can fight for freedom while being a capitalist. In fact, you can fight for freedom with capitalism.

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

#620

Post by fluoridation »

rtsil wrote: post #585
fluoridation wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a mockery of jurisdiction. It's a joke that NZ would sell out its own citizens like that.

> It's a joke that NZ would sell out its own citizens like that. DotCom is not a NZ citizen, he's a resident.

I mean, fine, but replace one word for the other in my sentence and it makes no difference, really.
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