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US Judge Say Kim Dotcom May Never Be Tried or Extradited
vik writes "As Megaupload's Kim Dotcom's megafarce trial continues, the New Zealand Herald reports that his alleged offense not only falls below the threshold for extradition, but also that the warrant may not be properly served. 'My understanding as to why they haven't done that is because they can't. We don't believe Megaupload can be served in a criminal matter because it is not located within the jurisdiction of the United States,' says Megaupload's lawyer Ira Rothken. Not surprisingly, Kim Dotcom has a few choice words to say about having his business trashed this way, with 220 jobs lost, and millions left without access to their legitimate data."
He was put out of business and lost tens of millions of dollars from the raid. His punishment has already been served, without trial, and without due process.
Nope, instead the MAFIAA would've sent goons from Pinkerton's in to wreck the hosting company's offices and server rooms.
This would have never gone down with a liberatarian administration.
You may be right: for example, the extremely wealthy backers of the MPAA and RIAA would simply pay top dollar to a platoon of mercenaries, who would level the data centers and murder everyone that provided the services. If there were still a DoJ and Court system, they would already have bought off all the prosecutors and judges. Case closed.
Or do you think this wouldn't happen under a Libertarian administration either? If so, what do you understand to be the Libertarian proposal for a system of justice?
if there were justice, he would be able to sue the .nz officials(who failed to do their duty), the fbi officials(who failed to do their duty) and the RIAA posse who misinformed those officials.
and all customers should be able to too.
in case someone is wondering, apparently the .nz officials failed to serve the company mega upload with a notice - a notice that would have probably allowed their lawyers to fight. furthermore it seems the intent of the american officials was to sue the individuals who had assets in megaupload for conspiracy instead of suing megaupload(it seems copyright violation is 4 years max in .nz, which wouldn't qualify for extradition - though even more likely is that the original real plan was just that dotcom would do a plea bargain.. ).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I don't feel sorry for him or his business
The US government very likely didn't follow procedure, as we see here. Do you not see how dangerous this is to allow them to do as they please? Whatever you think of Kim and Megaupload, think of yourself and others first. If they can do this to him, they can do this to anyone. They can ruin anyone's business. That's not good.
I don't feel sorry for anyone who uploaded their only copy of their files to Megaupload, either.
Sorry that everyone isn't as technologically minded as you are.
You know what's funny, though? While they may not have had an expectation that their data would stay there forever, I'm almost positive Megaupload would have informed them if they were going to legitimately shut down their website. That would give them time to get their files. But here, thanks to the US government, it was shut down instantly and without notice. Very nice.
This whole situation is just children, Brazilians and the mentally challenged just whining about not being able to get their warez
Uh... what about people with legitimate data hosted there? You even mentioned them in the above paragraph. I have a feeling they're "whining" about it, too. Probably whining that it's the US government's fault.
Nice generalizations, though.
While the legality of the move raises questions, I have to admit, there seems something poetic about someone who earned a fortune on ill-gotten, pirated material complaining about having his business trashed and jobs lost.
Yet who was it that claimed that Megaupload's principle use was copyright infringement? Megaupload had large numbers of law-abiding users, including people within the Justice department and even more ironically, within the entertainment industry. You might as well claim that ISPs are built on "ill-gotten, pirated material" -- after all, practically all downloading activity takes place on the Internet.
An indictment is not a conviction, it is a preliminary accusation backed up with some amount of evidence. If indictments were conclusive, we would never need trials.
Palm trees and 8
It may or may not. I don't know, and I can't tell because it hasn't gone to trial.
What has happened is that someone's had their business disrupted, and their customers have had their personal data stolen from them, all without due process of the law.
There has been a crime here, and even copyright infringers deserve a fair trial. Those trying to deny it to them need prosecuting.
I really doubt that millions of people were more than slightly inconvenienced. Smart people didn't put their only copy of any data they thought was important there. A service like that is for backups and exchange with other users. Unless either you were stupid or list your original due to a crash, you can just re-upload to another service.
You are really silly.
I had my whole photo album there (12GB or so of photos), uploaded over a very long period of time. Of course, it was not the only copy, but it was the copy which family/friends could always see.
It did not require me to give any 'identifiable' details when creating an account, it doesn't really know who I am, I haven't been getting spam to email address which I've used for registration, it was extremely fast for everyone, it was much faster than other services I've tried, blah, blah, blah. I still have backups of my photos, but do you realize how long I'll have to upload them, on 512Kbit uplink, to another service? That won't happen.
Can't you just accept that they were providing a good service? I'd rather pay them for premium account, than have it for free and have my data being sold to everyone who asks for it.
There is not such thing as a free lunch.
If you still don't understand what I am talking about, maybe this will help:
http://verydemotivational.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/demotivational-posters-facebook-you.jpg
And Steve Jobs used to build telephone hacking equipment. The government should seize apple and give everyone free iPads!
How would libertarianism not degrade into what the parent poster said (hint: he used a historical reference for a reason)?
And this should make me feel better how?
I should consider it a GOOD thing that justice *isn't* blind, and that if you're wealthy and well connected, the government will leave you alone - but if you're not, then evidence or not, you're screwed?
Man, funny me, I thought this was one of the prime cases for revolution in 1776 - that the King and his well connected friends got preferential treatment while his enemies got whacked by the huge power of the government.
I guess, you'd claim we shouldn't have bothered with that "revolution" thing - the system was working like it should all along.
Sheesh
-Greg