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FBI Used FedEx To Sneak Dotcom's Hard Drives Out of NZ
First time accepted submitter bpkiwi writes "FBI agents, working with New Zealand police on the Megaupload case, took a copy of Kim Dotcom's hard drives and then immediately sneaked out of the police facility and FedEx'ed them back to the USA. Despite the fact that removal of evidence in this manner without official approval (and a chance for the defendant to challenge it) appears to be illegal, the New Zealand government is now left arguing on a technicality — that the law only covers 'physical' items." Things got slightly better for Megaupload users trying to get their files back today. In a court filing the MPAA said users can have their files back as long as access to copyrighted files is blocked. “The MPAA Members are sympathetic to legitimate users who may have relied on Megaupload to store their legitimately acquired or created data, although the Megaupload terms of use clearly disclaimed any guarantee of continued access to uploaded materials,” MPAA lawyers write.
Wait, the MPAA is claiming the Megaupload EULA/TOS as a reason why people shouldn't get their data back? That's kinda a dick move.
Also, if I was the NZ government, I would be asking FedEx some pretty hard questions. Like: "Considering that you helped a foreign power conspire to break NZ law, why should we allow you to continue to work in our country?"
it would be tortious interference of contract, but because they've bought themselves criminalization of copyright violations, we now have the FBI chasing halfway around the world for stuff like this. Great going, FBI!
Dog is my co-pilot.
Oh, it's funnier than that.
From TFA:
"FBI agents who copied data from Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom's computers and took it overseas were not acting illegally because information isn't "physical material", the Crown says."
Copying information is theft when MPAA says it is, but copying information is not theft when the NZ Feds, acting on FBI's behalf, who themselves were acting on MPAA's behalf, say it isn't!
When the revolution comes, MPAA's CEO and the managers under him should be in the line for beheading. (Or we could just pass a constitutional amendment that corporations don't have human rights and are not a fictional "person" under the law.)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Ah, so making a copy isn't stealing? :P
I remember when the prosecution was opposing Kim's bail application, the reasoning for their opposition being that Kim would flee the country, being the dishonest rich person he is.
He never did.
And now the prosecution were caught doing unethical and illegal behavior.
Who are the dishonest ones here? Who are the criminals blatantly breaking the law?
Unsurprisingly, the majority of the NZ population side with Kim Dotcom throughout this entire farce.
We poke fun at rich people for hypocrisy like this. And yet....they get away with it...
What MPAA wants to disallow is in bold...
"If the Court is willing to consider allowing access for users such as Mr. Goodwin to allow retrieval of files, it is essential that the mechanism include a procedure that ensures that any materials the users access and copy or download are not files that have been illegally uploaded to their accounts."
To that, I'll add "allegedly illegally uploaded." The court as a finder of law can't determine that the files were illegally uploaded; a finder of fact (jury) needs to do that.
If the content on the hard-drive was original work in any way, it's copyright is automatically legally owned by, and remains with, the creators (As laid out in the Berne Convention), unless they somehow disown or reassign copyright on those items (though a recording or publishing contract, or any other kind of license, for example). Uploading works (files) to a locker site is not disowning copyright, it is merely granting an exclusive license for the locker site to hold (and potentially "transform") them, not a right to distribute those works to third parties (unless said third parties are explicitly granted access). Thus, the New Zealand Police and FBI (And potentially the MPAA/RIAA as well) are guilty of illegally copying copyrighted works without a license, thus infringing on the copyrights of all the users of MegaUpload.
Therefore, in one fell swoop, the FBI are immediately guilty of 1+ Billion cases of Copyright Infringement, assuming every registered user of MegaUpload uploaded only one original work. If, for some reason, they are not, then neither are the users of MegaUpload guilty, for exactly the same reasons.
Should be interesting to see the US Government wiggle their way out of that one, to be sure.