711–720 of 1001 posts
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Human understanding of humans and human social structures (which one needs to make just rulings) isn't objective. To claim otherwise is not just subjective, but incoherent. It's an infinite regress. Many people throughout history possessing ideas that we now consider to be stupid were convinced of their objectivity.
FWIW, I think this vendetta against Kim Dotcom is way out of line, and wouldn't have happened if he were more important.
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> 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. The USA can, and does, tax non-citizens. Many countries tax non-citizens. Go out and buy a foreign stock-they will tax you on…
What he meant was that the USA can't levy income tax on non-citizens living in other countries.
It's quite easy to argue that handing over such power to a single government is in fact a large tax on every non-US citizen.
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See reply to antai below. MEGA, not Megaupload. Re: source. Hopefully I'm consistent, you can go back through my comment history. I was raided by the police a bit over two years ago. When I got my stuff back (8 months later, no charges) the lead detective said that there was evidence I'd downloaded things from Mega, and that this was "suspicious", amongst a couple of other things. I got the feeling she thought I was…
Seems like a terrible experience, especially the "use of virtual machines" being flagged as suspicious considering what a benign and widespread tool that is. Are you based in the US or?
Probably Kim Dotcom has done wrong, but I don't think he deserves to go to court and or prison in a country he has never resided in.
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I find this mentality is always directed at rich people, but never applied consistently in anyone's life, so I have a hard time taking this opinion seriously. Hopefully, you can convince me otherwise, but I've never heard anyone suggest the best sports teams should stop competing when they've won enough, or that the best inventors should stop, or the best artists, and so on. Money isn't zero sum. We're constantly cre…
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If online gaming is any indication, what you are describing is largely not the way the most vocal people feel. It's more generally, "let's actively hunt down little kids to ruthlessly defeat and record it while mocking them so we can make ourselves internet celebrities!" and "if I can't do it myself, at least I can watch this other guy mow down kids with no chance of competing and cheer him on!"
There are exceptions of real skill of course, but those exceptions are what the others are desperately trying to emulate by seeking out weaker opponents. Introspection is going to be a hard sell for those others.
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not really, his website was based on hong kong, this is a fight against america playing world police, which i'm on board with they have no business going after just a single man so fervently, he's a foreign national and the websites weren't based in the US
Mega stored files in the US, Carpathia and Cogent were the providers specifically. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload_legal_case
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> 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. The USA can, and does, tax non-citizens. Many countries tax non-citizens. Go out and buy a foreign stock-they will tax you on…
What he meant was that the USA can't levy income tax on non-citizens living in other countries.
Sure smells a lot like levying tax on non-citizens living in other countries.
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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.
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> 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.
Only if copyright holders voluntarily upload their content in a complete crazy manor. Otherwise the argument doesn't work since uh the copyright holder can easily identify which uploads were infringing.
> 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.
Lawsuit is public record, feel free to link to those emails.
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Also from reading the lawsuit, Google removed the content in question.
To quote the case.
> [1] This case concerns the alleged infringement of a closed universe of videos posted on YouTube at various times between 2005 and 2008. As this Court explained, “only the current clips-in-suit are at issue in this litigation.” SPA54. All those clips were removed from YouTube years ago. SPA45 n.7. Viacom originally claimed that hundreds of thousands of YouTube videos infringed its copyrights, but ultimately identified approximately 63,000 clips-in-suit. JAXIII:3135(¶¶6-7). It turned out, however, that Viacom’s own employees and agents had actually uploaded many of those clips. JAIX:2213-14(¶¶150-152); JAXIII:3135-36(¶¶8-11); JAXXII:5745-46(¶¶1.63); JAXXIII:5973-75. Even when it realized that fact (after years of litigation), Viacom and its lawyers still were unable to identify all the clips-in-suit that Viacom was responsible for posting. JAXXII:5717-20(¶127), 5544-46(¶11). Many clips-in-suit, moreover, are identical to or indistinguishable from promotional clips that Viacom now acknowledges uploading.
The non-court filings are way more accusatory but should really stick the court filings for matters of fact.
> [2] It deliberately "roughed up" the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko's to upload clips from computers that couldn't be traced to Viacom.
> [2] Viacom's efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.
[1]: pg 15 https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4135344/143/viacom-inte...
[2]: https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/broadcast-yourself/