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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

#631

Post by beepbooptheory »

jrflowers wrote: post #555
gliiics wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, and in fact I did not compare them. I asked an entirely different question. You can re-read the first line of my comment if you think I'm putting those two things on the same level, and you will see that I agree with: > He was a commercial opportunist, not a real activist or whistleblower.

What is the point of asking that question if you strictly intended no comparison between the subject of the post you’re replying to and the people you mentioned? It is like posting “You have interesting thoughts about Kim Dotcom. What is better, paragliding or parasailing?”

The comparison is between the proposed heuristic of "stopping at some point", not between the people.

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

#632

Post by devnullbrain »

umvi wrote: post #578
pembrook wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really matter because, as the dominant world power and arbiter of the world's currency, the US can invent legal grounds to do pretty much anything to anyone. The US government is so powerful, they are the only country that enforces a draconian global taxation scheme on any citizen or person who has ever held a US green card, even after they permanently leave the country. The US treasury will withhold the a…

USA can't tax non-citizens. Revoke citizenship if you really don't want to pay. That comes with a lot of downsides though (no more US passport, no getting rescued by the US if you wander into North Korea, etc), which implies the taxes aren't for nothing just because you live out-of-country.

> Revoke citizenship if you really don't want to pay.

N.B.: you have to pay to revoke citizenship.

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

#633

Post by malux85 »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #625
sizzle wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is running mega.co.nz? It looks like a superior offering compared to mega upload with sophisticated encryption and decoding.

Kim runs it. Isn't it the defacto successor to the now defunct mega upload?

No he no longer runs it, and no longer is involved with it, and does not own any shares in it anymore.

He started it as an improved successor to megaupload, but something shady happened about 2015ish with a Chinese investment firm doing some kind of hostile takeover.

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

#634

Post by rcbdev »

umvi wrote: post #578
pembrook wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really matter because, as the dominant world power and arbiter of the world's currency, the US can invent legal grounds to do pretty much anything to anyone. The US government is so powerful, they are the only country that enforces a draconian global taxation scheme on any citizen or person who has ever held a US green card, even after they permanently leave the country. The US treasury will withhold the a…

USA can't tax non-citizens. Revoke citizenship if you really don't want to pay. That comes with a lot of downsides though (no more US passport, no getting rescued by the US if you wander into North Korea, etc), which implies the taxes aren't for nothing just because you live out-of-country.

Dodging taxes is not a valid reason to renounce citizenship in the US of A and having renounced citizenship for of "tax reasons" is a question on the standard ESTA form. If you check "yes", you can't enter the US.

So, legally speaking, you not only lose citizenship but also the right to ever step foot on American soil again, no matter which other citizenship you gain.

Of course, you can just lie about your reasons on the forms.

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

#635

Post by shadowgovt »

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…

If anything, it's a cautionary tale that tech is only one dimension of the question of creating a process, service, or system that will be a net benefit to people (or even allowed).

A road paver is a great thing to have, but if I rip a three-lane highway through my neighbor's back yard, you can be damn sure someone's going to try and stop me.

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

#636

Post by Bluestein »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #560
csallen wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This. The phrase "intellectual property" is an attempt to confuse a censorship strategy that's a few hundred years old with an entirely separate tradition that's been with us for millennia. They're very different, whatever words you use for them.

Reminds of a recent discussion seen here about 'identity theft'. Another blame-shifting concept ...

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

#637

Post by nova22033 »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #460
adrr wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure if youtube execs had emails showing that they were actively encouraging and participating in the posting of copyrighted material on the site they would have been prosecuted as well. Thats the evidence against Kim Dotcom, emails.

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 its filings in U.S. District Court in New York, YouTube said that Viacom, which owns Paramount Pictures, Comedy Central and other entertainment properties, secretly tried to use YouTube’s popularity to promote its content, posting “roughed up” videos to make them look stolen or leaked, and even sending employees to Kinko’s to upload clips that couldn’t be traced back to Viacom.

Interesting...hadn't heard of this before

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

#638

Post by fngjdflmdflg »

kmeisthax wrote: post #550
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #193

It is unconscionable that governments in both countries are spending time on this or chasing Assange or Snowden instead of the criminality of things like government warrantless surveillance, megacorp anti competitive actions, civil forfeiture, etc. Or the cartel of organizations behind this extradition that abuse copyright laws to keep things out of public domain. Or companies all exchanging our private information w…

It's complicated. Most career politicians like all those things you hate because it lets them outsource the state's dirty work. The state made constitutional commitments it can't quite keep and has worked around them. On the other hand, those workarounds are themselves becoming threats to the state in ways that have made some politicians willing to rebalance power. On the other hand, I do not want to name specific na…

>Those abusive copyright laws that keep shit out of the public domain? Those were payments made to Hollywood in exchange for positive propaganda.

Seems unfair to not mention that the US here was aligning with the Bernie convention[0] (life + 50 years, Copyright Act of 1976[1]) and then latter aligning with European countries[2] (+70 years "Mickey Mouse Protection Act"[3]). Seems like something that might happen without any payments for propaganda. Also, I don't want to watch a 2 hour YouTube video, so maybe you can leave a link for the specific point about the US exchanging copyright extension for propaganda. Not even sure what propaganda would even be needed in 1998 - there were no wars, no China or USSR, no 9/11. Somehow I doubt the YouTube video will mention these points either.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1976

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Duration_Directive

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act

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

#639

Post by rtsil »

fluoridation wrote: post #620
rtsil wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It does, inasmuch as your sentenced described the NZ jurisdiction as a mockery on the basis that it "sells out" its citizens.

Considering the number of countries that extradite their own citizens, the bar for "selling out" and "mockery" must be quite low.

And most extradited people don't have the luxury of being able to delay their trial by 12 years.

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