Kim Dotcom Offers the DoJ a Deal

Master Moose sends this quote from Stuff.co.nz: "Kim Dotcom claims the United States criminal case against him is collapsing but he is offering to go there without extradition provided federal authorities unfreeze his millions of dollars. In a now hallmark style, he made the offer on Twitter. 'Hey DOJ, we will go to the US,' he tweeted, 'No need for extradition. We want bail, funds unfrozen for lawyers & living expenses.' In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter Dotcom says the department knows it does not have a case. 'If they are forced to provide discovery, then there will be no extradition. That's why they don't want to provide discovery. If they had a case, they would not need to hide what they have.'"

Comments

This case is a joke.

[Wakko Warner]

The US should cut its losses, give the dude his servers and money back, and go after some actual criminals. This is just pathetic.

Re:This case is a joke.

[linatux]

I think they should also repay what this has cost the NZ taxpayers.

Re:This case is a joke.

[iluvcapra]

The service was shut down in January when authorities in New Zealand raided Dotcom's $24 million compound in Coatesville, a small town not far from Auckland.

So basically, this guy bought a $24 million house by selling ad space and premium accounts to media that he neither made, nor owned, nor invested in, nor had a legal right (as dubious as those may be) to distribute? I get that you can't stop people from sharing, but anyone can see the negative repercussions of people making millions of dollars off of the transaction, when he is neither the sharer, the viewer, nor the author. He's a middleman and this money was ill-gotten; he's happy to play the victim to you guys but it's not about your right to copy, not remotely. It's about his right to make money off copying.

It's really no different than someone pulling code from the Linux kernel and using it in a closed-source commercial product: the author has rights, and the distributor violated those rights because it was profitable.

(And yes I know Megaupload had legitimate uses, if you think that's why it managed to cleared over $100 million in ad and subscription fees in its lifetime from legitimate, author-sourced file distro, you're hopelessly naive.)

Re:This case is a joke.

[Anonymous Coward]

Next up, youtube...

Re:This case is a joke.

[ColaMan]

when he is neither the sharer, the viewer, nor the author.

He's the "fixer". He gets you what you want, because he knows someone who has it and can arrange delivery without fuss and bother on your part.This is a perfectly legit role to have in the scheme of things.

Re:This case is a joke.

[steelfood]

I think they should pay the host for the expenses of keeping the data for the period that they've frozen Kim Dotcom's accounts.

As such, I believe they're just stalling for time so that the host and/or Kim himself (and any other of his associates) goes bankrupt.

Re:This case is a joke.

[ThatsMyNick]

The service was shut down in January when authorities in New Zealand raided Dotcom's $24 million compound in Coatesville, a small town not far from Auckland.

So basically, this guy bought a $24 million house by selling ad space and premium accounts to media that he neither made, nor owned, nor invested in, nor had a legal right (as dubious as those may be) to distribute? I get that you can't stop people from sharing, but anyone can see the negative repercussions of people making millions of dollars off of the transaction, when he is neither the sharer, the viewer, nor the author. He's a middleman and this money was ill-gotten; he's happy to play the victim to you guys but it's not about your right to copy, not remotely. It's about his right to make money off copying.

Yeah this has to be stopped. Not be prosecuting and harassing Kim Dotcom (which would do nothing other than turn him into a hero), but by providing legal means of getting media when needed. This is about MAFIAA getting its revenge, not about justice, or about preventing file sharing.

It's really no different than someone pulling code from the Linux kernel and using it in a closed-source commercial product: the author has rights, and the distributor violated those rights because it was profitable.

How often does that happen? And does the linux community use a scorch earth policy to prevent linux code from being used elsewhere? I doubt that.

(And yes I know Megaupload had legitimate uses, if you think that's why it managed to cleared over $100 million in ad and subscription fees in its lifetime from legitimate, author-sourced file distro, you're hopelessly naive.)

Er, he made money from legitimate filesharing. There is a difference if you think about it.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Darkness404]

So? What about people selling CD burners? VHS recorders?

Kim Dotcom simply provided a service that could be used both "legally" and "illegally" and being a good provider of a service made money. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, the people suing him (US department of "justice") obtained their vast wealth through theft of property, and fraud.

Re:This case is a joke.

[MrEricSir]

So basically, this guy bought a $24 million house by selling ad space and premium accounts to media that he neither made, nor owned, nor invested in, nor had a legal right (as dubious as those may be) to distribute? I get that you can't stop people from sharing, but anyone can see the negative repercussions of people making millions of dollars off of the transaction, when he is neither the sharer, the viewer, nor the author. He's a middleman and this money was ill-gotten; he's happy to play the victim to you guys but it's not about your right to copy, not remotely. It's about his right to make money off copying.

ISPs act as a "middleman" and profit off of IP theft all the time, making "millions of dollars off of the transaction, when [they are] neither the sharer, the viewer, nor the author."

Yet I don't see the government putting the CEO of AT&T or Comcast on trial. Why is Megaupload any different?

Re:This case is a joke.

[sneakyimp]

Not when it's deemed by a court to violate some law somewhere.

Re:This case is a joke.

[AK Marc]

He didn't buy it, he's renting it.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically, this guy bought a $24 million house by selling ad space and premium accounts to media that he neither made, nor owned, nor invested in, nor had a legal right (as dubious as those may be) to distribute?

And yet we're more willing to support him than the companies currently "creating" said media What does that say about them?

Re:This case is a joke.

[sneakyimp]

Read the indictment. The gov't claims to have evidence that he did in fact know about infringing works and actively worked to keep these works available. Thatis against the law -- even the DMCA.

Re:This case is a joke.

[sneakyimp]

Read the indictment. It claims he did know and that his emails prove he know and that he actively worked to make copyrighted works available.

Re:This case is a joke.

[iluvcapra]

I won't get into the legalities, but I don't think a "fixer" is entitled to 100% of the profit.

Re:This case is a joke.

[sneakyimp]

Because AT&T and Comcast actually pay money to companies when they host their copyrighted content. The cable companies and the content companies have a licensing arrangement. Megaupload has no such agreement and, according to the indictment, its employees actively worked to make copyrighted works freely available to people knowing full well they neither uploaded the file themself and knowing full well that the content creators did not want the content up there. You need to inform yourself about the case before spouting off.

Just out of curiosity, do support Matt Inman who writes the Oatmeal or funnyfunk.com which freeloaded off his comic strip and then tried to sue him for calling them out for it?

Re:This case is a joke.

[ThatsMyNick]

No, what is claimed is that he did not take down files that have the hashcheck as the reported file. The reported file was taken down, or else the shitstorm would have started much earlier. The govt also has some some evidence of emails where the employees mentioned some specific file and movie names in the email, and the govt claims the employees knew that this violated copyright. I seriously doubt they can prove this claim, as the employees couldnt have known if the uploader really did get the permission of the copyright holder.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aiding and abetting theft is not a legit role.

No, but that's not what he did either, so what's your point?

Re:This case is a joke.

[pipedwho]

So true. Especially all those laws in random countries around the world that taken together would forbid pretty anything you'd ever want to do. Quick, we must declare worldwide martial law.

Oh, wait. Maybe the role of a disinterested courier actually is legitimate.

Re:This case is a joke.

[yodleboy]

i'm guessing you missed his point, he's not talking about the media/tv services of ATT or Comcast, but the internet service. ISP's are fully aware that the service they provide is used by many customers to obtain copyrighted content illegally. They choose to look the other way and make their profit. If they are the gateway between me and the file I want they are effectively a middleman. At least until the feds decide that files that don't come from an approved source is illegal and try to force ISP's to turn the internet into a walled garden ala Apple.

Re:This case is a joke.

[sneakyimp]

You also have to read the indictment (and some decent legal analysis). The case hinges around private correspondence from the Megaupload guys in which they incriminate themselves by specifically organizing to make copyrighted works available. They are hardly disinterested couriers.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Angeret]

Psst. Guess what? I know of a certain Lensman who would take offense to that statement. And Rudyard Kipling isn't amused with you either :)

Re:This case is a joke.

[sneakyimp]

I think you missed my point. AT&T and Comcast pay appropriate fees to content providers when they host files for consumer download. These other companies that host the copyrighted material do not. When some guy owns a warehouse that is selling stolen goods, you don't arrest the person who built the road. Likewise, if I own a storage warehouse, you don't arrest me when my customer with locker number #12345 has stolen goods in his locker.

The megaupload case hinges on the incriminating private correspondence of megaupload employees scheming to make copyrighted works available. Read the indictment.

Re:This case is a joke.

[bjourne]

In my days those "fixers" were known as Fairlight and Razor 1911 among others. They were seen as living gods and provided thousands of "fixed" games. None of them got rich on it but did it for fun and fame. The readme files even encouraged you to buy the games they ripped if you liked them.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, YouTube was the Napster protection scam except with video. "Psst. Pay us money and we'll stop our users from ripping you off."

Of course, the key difference is that YouTube was financed by top silicon valley VC and purchased by blue-chip "Do No Evil" Google, so they got away with it. If Youtube was run by 'Kim Dotcom' and the 'Mega-Conspiracy', it's kneecaps would have been taken-out just like Napster's were.

Re:This case is a joke.

[strikethree]

He's a middleman and this money was ill-gotten

My gut feeling is the same as yours... but PROVE that is what he did.

For myself, I have NEVER used his services or any similar services for copyright infringement. How did people find the copyrighted material there? All the URLs that I saw were encoded and showed no interesting information. No megaupload results were ever returned in ANY of my searches... at least not on any the pages of results that I viewed.

So seriously, is this man to be convicted on gut feelings? Where is the justice in that? Let's see proof.

Re:This case is a joke.

[bill_mcgonigle]

and go after some actual criminals

Hey, now, threatening the corporate profits of campaign donors is a crime these days.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Copyright infringement is not theft.

2. He facilitates criminal activity the same way as power companies and isp facilitate criminal activity. It's just easier to pin on him.

Re:This case is a joke.

[ThatsMyNick]

Sorry for the self response. But I wish I could take that post back. It seems there is a lot more references in the emails to copyrighted content. I still am not convinced it is sufficient to convict them, but they really are as stupid as some posts make them to be.

Re:This case is a joke.

[10101001 10101001]

Yes, let's see some of the damning evidence (fromArstechnica

For example, in 2007, one of the Megaupload employees sent an e-mail to his peers about users who had received payments. He described one of the uploaders, who got a $100 payment, as "Our old famous number one on MU, still some illegal files but I think he deserves a payment." Another user who got a $300 check was described as having "30849 files, mainly Mp3z, some copyrighted but most of them have a very small number of downloads per file." In another 2007 e-mail, a Megaupload employee wrote that some of the uploaders receiving payments "had very obvious copyrighted files in their account portfolio, but I was rather flexible."

Hmm.. Sounds to me like the employees are saying that most the content is legitimate and hence their (admittedly pitiful compared to what Megaupload itself raked in) payment should still be given. Now, the fact that they were not preemptively taking down content? Well, that seems to only really be an issue because they were stupid enough to look in the first place. I mean, consider Google's relationship with Youtube users. I don't doubt that Google is aware that their users are uploading content and the people with the most views are more likely to have such content. But, they presumably have policy to not actually check, to remain in the legal clear--and this seems rather stupid to me, given it's just another form of willful ignorance to counter the absurd fruit-of-the-poison-tree-like expectations against found pirates/piracy. Having said that, it doesn't sound like actively working up to this point. Until...

In a 2008 incident, a user e-mailed Megaupload and wrote "I've been trying to watch Dexter episodes, but... the sound doesn't match up with the visual." Dotcom forwarded this e-mail to a subordinate, adding "...on many forums people complain that our video / sound are not in sync... We need to solve this asap!" Dexter, of course, is a popular, copyrighted television show.

And this is the damning part of it. Up until this, it could be claimed to be negligence or willful ignorance (as it sounds like employees were merely making educated guesses, not legal deductions, about content) which at least possibly could be legally excused. This just makes it sound like Megaupload was specifically working with pirates to pirate a show. And as much as Dotcom might have wanted it (as much as I presume Youtube's founders did until enough user content was added to usurp it) to attract enough users to form a community (as piracy/porn could be said to be the seeds of many nascent technologies/systems), this seems to go well beyond that into the realm of trying to make Megaupload *the* pirate system.

Of course, in the end, it'll probably take a bit more context to be actually sure that this isn't just twisting of an email. I mean, perhaps the complaint is merely that Megaupload was having fidelity issues with any video being copied to its service? That doesn't seem likely (AFAIK, there was no reencoding like Youtube), but perhaps there's another interpretation/explanation? I seriously don't see it, though.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Anrego]

Actively prevent, no.. but the allegations seem to be that he outright encouraged ..

Whether thats true is not something I can even make a guess at. If it is true than I agree a wrong has been done. How that wrong is defined legally (or whether it is) is again, way over my head..

Re:This case is a joke.

[sneakyimp]

What *might* happen if it goes to trial is that the prosecution might only be able to prove his complicity in a handful of situations -- and, given his wealth, he could certainly afford any associated fines. That is a distinct possibility.

Re:This case is a joke.

[SteveFoerster]

The dude's name is "Kim Dotcom" and you're focused on the "Kim" part?

Re:This case is a joke.

[ageedoy]

If I'm not mistaken, Kimble had a lot of money even before MegaUpload. I remember visiting his site back in the early 200s (bigkimble.com) and he had tons of pictures of his expensive cars and yachts with supermodels.

Re:This case is a joke.

[ThatsMyNick]

It is only 1.5 times more common for Kim to female than male, according to gpeters. So if you take hundred Kims, 40 of them are male.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Yoda222]

Where do we stop ? Intel (or an other microprocessor designer) facilitated Kim Dotcom activity, which facilitated criminal activity. Do we takes also everything from Intel ?

Re:This case is a joke.

[sentientbeing]

The US seized his TLD. Now hes just Kim

Re:This case is a joke.

[lightknight]

But Kim ain't a girl! (Firefly)

Re:This case is a joke.

[f3rret]

In my days those "fixers" were known as Fairlight and Razor 1911 among others. They were seen as living gods and provided thousands of "fixed" games. None of them got rich on it but did it for fun and fame. The readme files even encouraged you to buy the games they ripped if you liked them.

Razor1911 are still around and they are still awesome, they still probably aren't rich either.
Fairlight pretty much WERE razor as I understand it.

Re:This case is a joke.

[amiga3D]

Idiot. It's not theft. Cary Sherman? Is that you hiding as an AC?

Re:This case is a joke.

[InspectorGadget1964]

No. Intel is an US company. Chances are everyone in Skull and Bones has shares on it, so the US government wouldn't act against it.

Re:This case is a joke.

[wmbetts]

I was on one of their hubs in my local scene before it was shutdown. It was a really nice BBS. I miss those days.

Re:This case is a joke.

[ganjadude]

In your point concerning Dexter, One could simply argue that it was the title that brought the issue to light, but other, legal videos were having a similar issue, and therefore the issue still needed to be resolved.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Dahamma]

If the New Zealand government didn't want to pay for their part in it they shouldn't have TAKEN part in it...

Re:This case is a joke.

[Wakko Warner]

Huh?

I missed the part where Kim Dotcom was uploading his own personal BluRay rips to MU.

I *remember* the part where his users did.

I don't give a shit how he made his money or whether or not you consider it "ill-gotten" simply because MU hosted some copyrighted material uploaded by users. It's an absurd contortion of logic and reason to say that he deserves none of his money because some of his users misbehaved.

$100m is the equivalent of one mid-tier movie budget. If you think Hollywood actually felt that tiny financial "hit", you're the one who's hopelessly naive.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Zemran]

"Aiding and abetting theft is not a legit role. Kim Dotdouche facilitated criminal activity, and he got what he deserved."

Errr, there was no theft!!! I assume that you are American, so I assume that you understand English... Theft means to take something from someone with the intention of permanently depriving them of that thing. He did not deprive or take anything. Get over the pathetic drama. We are talking about he allowed people to copy other peoples stuff, just like looking at pictures in a shop window or watching a TV in the shop. Just because the *IAA want to add a lot of drama like a prom queen does not mean that the rest of use have to get drawn into it.

Re:This case is a joke.

[kiwimate]

when he is neither the sharer, the viewer, nor the author.

He's the "fixer". He gets you what you want, because he knows someone who has it and can arrange delivery without fuss and bother on your part.This is a perfectly legit role to have in the scheme of things.

One - this "fixer" role is not "perfectly legit" when his fixing breaks the law.

Two - that also describes a pimp. And the RIAA. And someone who steals rare and exotic Lamborghinis and Ferraris to order. And a drug dealer. I don't think you've made a particularly compelling point, frankly.

Re:This case is a joke.

[wmbetts]

I used it for legal files. Several people I know did the same. I'm pretty sure my small group of people weren't the only ones either.

Re:This case is a joke.

[ukemike]

Yeah this has to be stopped. Not be prosecuting and harassing Kim Dotcom (which would do nothing other than turn him into a hero), but by providing legal means of getting media when needed.

Legal means for getting media when needed? Like iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, AmazonMp3, Amazon, paid Pandora, and any other of a plethora of easy to use and economical means of legally "getting media"?

Re:This case is a joke.

[__aaltlg1547]

Not so much. YouTube was established and still deals mostly in uploads shared by their creators. Their defense against charges of copyright infringement has been to remove infringing material as it is pointed out to them. Megaupload's response has been open defiance and taunting.

Re:This case is a joke.

[fredprado]

The proof that these allegations are not true is that the DoJ doesn't have a case even though they blatantly violated due process and ignored any law that inconvenienced them to get the "evidences".

Re:This case is a joke.

[kiddygrinder]

if it's not illegal then all the arguments don't matter. either make it illegal to have anonymous file sharing or leave him alone.

Re:This case is a joke.

[quenda]

It is only 1.5 times more common for Kim to female than male, according to gpeters. So if you take hundred Kims, 40 of them are male.

But most of them are Korean, so it can be hard to tell.

Re:This case is a joke.

[kiddygrinder]

pimps wouldn't exist if prostitution wasn't illegal, maybe we should nuke the copyright laws and he wouldn't have a business model?

Re:This case is a joke.

[ThatsMyNick]

I am a film buff. I easily watch 3 movies a week (if I have good company it can be more). I have a Neflix account and a hulu+ account, apart from premium cable. Guess what? I still have to resort to not so legal means to get content. Netflix and hulu online collection suck. I am not even taking about new releases (which I would gladly watch at a movie theater), but movies that were released 20-30 years ago. I sometimes look it up at the local library, sometimes queue it up on Netflix-dvd, and about 60% of the time download the damn thing, get some beer from the fridge and start watching the movie. And my film buff friends abroad, easily get 90% of their content from not so legal means.
 
Just open it up, already, I would gladly pay for content. But I guess MAFIAA, does not want my money.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Sloppy]

if you think that's why it managed to cleared over $100 million in ad and subscription fees in its lifetime from legitimate, author-sourced file distro, you're hopelessly naive

Obama. Romney.

I'll call your $100 million of blatant corruption and raise you an Imperial Fuckload which which makes your miserable $100M look like children's lemonaide stand money.

Seriously, you're using revenue figures as evidence of a crime? I'd laugh, but I guess that number itself, is more substantial evidence than anything the FBI or NZ government had. So far, your case is better than theirs.

They searched and seized. They apparently found nothing. I can't believe Megaupload was legit either, but the government is signalling that they're shocked to have discovered it actually was. Let's think a minute here: on one side, we have 100 million persuasive arguments that Megaupload is a criminal enterprise. On the other side, we have 1) people are stupid and spend money on stupid shit 2) the government's lack of evidence after searching and siezing.

No matter which side you pick, you're going to look like a moron. So get over it, and rush to judgment anyway. You will look like a moron but you still might be right. And "Dotcom is innocent" as improbable as it might be, is more believable at this point.

Re:This case is a joke.

[initialE]

More than that, his long term plan was to replace the content distribution channels with an alternative model using megaupload. He already had some celebrities lined up, and a promotional video and song done. That's significantly more than just being a fixer.

Re:This case is a joke.

[djnanite]

Legal means for getting media when needed? Like iTunes...

Has only a limited range of choice in New Zealand.

Netflix

Not available in New Zealand.

Hulu

Not available in New Zealand.

AmazonMp3

Not available in New Zealand.

Amazon

Will not ship DVDs or CDs to New Zealand.

paid Pandora

Not available in New Zealand.

and any other of a plethora of easy to use and economical means of legally "getting media"?

Tell me more about this 'plethora' of legally accessible media in New Zealand. Sounds like Kim Dotcom was providing a service where there is demand, but no supply.

Re:This case is a joke.

[tsotha]

Except for the "kicking your ass if you don't pay" part.

Re:This case is a joke.

[interkin3tic]

As an American, I think a case could be made for giving NZ control of our DOJ.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are too much obsessed with that country called "United States"...

Re:This case is a joke.

[interkin3tic]

So if you take hundred Kims, 40 of them are male.

Sounds like a party.

Re:This case is a joke.

[interkin3tic]

Sounds a little like wall street. Except his shady operations gives me free movies. Wall street scams give me a broken economy and threaten my job.

Re:This case is a joke.

[drkstr1]

I used it any time i had to send someone a file that was to big for an email attachment. I never once download a pirated file from them, or a similar site. For that there is BitTorrent , Usenet, or chanserv.

Re:This case is a joke.

[xs650]

That's not the long term solution, the Kiwis need to man up and install a government that puts NZ sovereignty first.

Re:This case is a joke.

[stephanruby]

...if you think that's why it managed to cleared over $100 million in ad and subscription fees in its lifetime from legitimate, author-sourced file distro, you're hopelessly naive.)

Is that the extent of your proof dear Federal Prosecutor?

Dropbox made 240 millions in just 2011 (compared to that, $100 million during its lifetime is small change). May be, you should have gone after them instead? After all, we know Dropbox has its legitimate uses, but we all know a big chunk of that change was also made from sharing pirated porn, blockbuster movies, and top charts music.

Re:This case is a joke.

[TheRealGrogan]

Not even... he provided a service that allowed people to allow other people to copy stuff that they posted, which may have been infringing on copyright. That's up to the people posting it.

That it's a crime is mostly a U.S. invention (with little Punch and Judy puppets acting it out in other countries within their hegemony as well)

I've seen it said multiple times in multiple discussions that they should "grow up". Indeed... it's pretty silly to think that they are going to stop people from sharing files. Get over your authority complexes and work around it.

What I mostly downloaded from MegaUpload were game maps and mods... nothing infringing about that. Now there are thousands of broken links all over the Internet.

Re:This case is a joke.

[93 Escort Wagon]

The dude's name is "Kim Dotcom" and you're focused on the "Kim" part?

Give the poor guy a break. He had to go with Kim Dotcom - Moxie Marlinspike was already taken.

Re:This case is a joke.

[ad0gg]

I am willing to bet most music on ipods is pirated. Most of the people i know have full ipods, thats 2000 songs on the lowest capacity ipod nano.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but you had to at least "know somebody" to get access to Fairlight and Razor 1911 releases. With sites like megaupload and mediafire any dumbass kid could go into a internet cafe, put "beatles rubber soul zip" in google and download the shit.

Which leads to another question: why was megaupload raided when mediafire which was a much worse infringer (until recently) but is based in Texas of all places was not raided....seems might strange to me.

Re:This case is a joke.

[SteveFoerster]

As was Kim Possible?

Re:This case is a joke.

[HairyNevus]

I bet you think Leslie is, too.

Re:This case is a joke.

[arth1]

It's amazing how long they have lasted considering what it is they do. They seem to be as old as the internet itself

Razor 1911 were around back when the only Internet access you were likely to have was bang path e-mail through a BBS gateway on a 2400 bps modem, while listening to Take On Me and watching Miami Vice.
The only other group from that era is, I believe, Fairlight.

Re:This case is a joke.

[ozmanjusri]

But most of them are Korean, so it can be hard to tell.

You could always ask the Excellent Horse-Like Lady if he's male.

Re:This case is a joke.

[ozmanjusri]

the Kiwis need to man up

No doubt. In fact, they're probably feeling a bit sheepish right now.

Re:This case is a joke.

[nbauman]

If you've ever studied the law, then you know there are lots of cases in which someone seemed clearly guilty -- according to the prosecutor's indictment -- and at the end turned out to be completely innocent. Sometimes they wind up in jail before the facts come out.

When prosecutors write memos to themselves, they give the strengths and weaknesses of their case. When they write indictments, and when they present their case to the grand jury, they leave out the weaknesses.

Happens all the time. That's why we have jury trials. That's why we have a Bill of Rights.

Oh, Kim Dotcom hasn't had a jury trial yet, hasn't had a chance to see the evidence against him, and hasn't had a chance to defend himself against it? Then how do you know he's guilty?

In fact, why is it right for them to confiscate all his assets, even the money that he needs to pay his lawyers to defend him against these charges?

Re:This case is a joke.

[93 Escort Wagon]

And Kim Chee.

Re:This case is a joke.

[nbauman]

It claims.

He hasn't had a chance to defend himself. He can't defend himself, because they confiscated the money he needs to pay his lawyers to defend him.

There are lots of cases where prosecutors claimed someone was guilty, and he turned out to be innocent. In fact, there are lots of cases in which prosecutors (illegally) withheld evidence that would have proved the defendant was guilty.

Re:This case is a joke.

[yoshi_mon]

Shhh, the machine is at work. All your facts and logic will only mess it up.

Re:This case is a joke.

[cheater512]

He got his money from legitimate ads. His money is only ill gotten if the ad impressions were fraudulent and he did not provide the service promised to advertisers.

Re:This case is a joke.

[hjf]

Your point is stupid.

Simply because it assumes you can get something elsewhere. Point is: you can't, just because MAFIAA doesn't want you to. Why isn't there a service where you can get just everything? Why does it have to be so complicated, "licensing", "distribution rights", and a lot of other BULLSHIT, like "region coding" on DVDs. Why do I, down here in Argentina, have to wait several months for a DVD release, while someone in the US got it long before? What's the point? Money talks, and the price of the DVD here is pretty much the same down here than over there. So the "people will order from other countries to pay less" argument doesn't apply either.

Here's the thing: I want to watch that movie now. I know it's out in the US. I have the money. Where's my movie? "You have to wait". Fuck that shit, I'll get it elsewhere.

Really, you are just playing Hollywood's game, and in that game, you'll always be their bitch.

Re:This case is a joke.

[GodGell]

Legal means for getting media when needed? Like iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, AmazonMp3, Amazon, paid Pandora, and any other of a plethora of easy to use and economical means of legally "getting media"?

None of the services you mentioned actually work. Unless you're in that one country. Which most people on planet Earth aren't.

Re:This case is a joke.

[BanHammor]

I believe that you are looking for Jayne. Also, I can kill you with my brain.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Wakko Warner]

Wow... are you being deliberately retarded or can you not help it?

Re:This case is a joke.

[hawguy]

Here's the thing: I want to watch that movie now. I know it's out in the US. I have the money. Where's my movie? "You have to wait". Fuck that shit, I'll get it elsewhere.

Really, you are just playing Hollywood's game, and in that game, you'll always be their bitch.

Well, there's always the other answer: "Where's my movie?" "You have to wait". "Fuck that shit, I'm not going to watch it." Why do you feel that you have to watch a movie created by someone that apparently doesn't want you to watch it? Is there really nothing better to do do with your time?

I'm not playing Hollywood's game, you are - for me, if the movie isn't in Netflix's streaming catalog, I don't watch it.

Re:This case is a joke.

[ThatsMyNick]

Well three reasons, why I dont believe this is applicable to movies...
1) Most movies I watch are more than 20 years old. I firmly believe they should be in public domain. Since I cannot change copyright law, I choose to ignore it. In fact I believe the movie studios are stealing work from the public by lobbying to keep work on copyright for such a long time. If the beers you buy are 20 years old, and you believe they should be free and you can obtain them for free without stealing, go ahead.
2) If the movie is available on DVD, I still queue them up on Netflix (or at my local library), and I return it without watching them. So it all evens out, I guess. If you can postpone paying for your beer at the supermarket, I suggest you do.
3) If the movie is not available on DVD, I assume the MAFIAA has not intention on making money on it. I happily torrent it. If your brewer stops making the beer, and you still manage to get you hands on it, without stealing, I suggest you do.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Anonymous Coward]

Kimberly is a girls name. Kimburly is a mans name.

Re:This case is a joke.

[arose]

The part you don't seem to grasp is that substantial here is about functionality (e.g. you can upload your wedding videos instead of mailing DVDs), not quantity (e.g. only $ASSPULL_STATISTIC percent of the users upload wedding videos).

Re:This case is a joke.

[TapeCutter]

So to put that as a car analogy, if I pay to park my stolen car in a private car park then the car park owner must be a criminal.

Re:This case is a joke.

[mister_playboy]

I'm logged in, I have no clue why this ended up as AC.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Tom]

He is a real criminal, you idiot. Have they unthawt you yesterday? No matter what prison they finally throw him into, half of the people there will have done less than he has, and I'm not even counting the War on Drugs victims.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Tom]

The dude's name is actually Kim Schmitz. But that didn't sound sexy enough for the sleazebag, so he went by several alias names over the years, partially to cover his identity (he was convicted of computer fraud for the first time in 1998). He legally changed his name to "Dotcom", but I personally disregard such clear and obvious publicity stunts.

He's a career criminal, and even back then he was disdained in his original german hacker scene. Leaving Germany was partially because he couldn't fuck people over here anymore, pretty much everyone who was anyone knew not to work with him.

He is one of those assholes who give all of us a bad name. He is a criminal, a crook, a scammer. If you wonder why normal people think that we are all anti-social half-criminals, Kim is part of the answer.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Tom]

Contrary to Kim, those guys were quite capable. Many of them were offered jobs instead of prosecution when they were caught. Kim tried to cash in on that, when they caught him for the first time (for trading credit card numbers, if I recall correctly), he thought he'd be one of the cracker stars. They laughed him in the face and gave him a sentence.

It was a different world back then. Among other things, skills were obvious and scamming people wasn't as easy as it is today.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is a fair 'stupidity tax'. As a Kiwi, I feel we should be putting more pressure on our government to make the police a public resource rather than a government/foreign resource. It's our own fault, it is actually very easy to change governments in New Zealand. We have full elections every three years, and many parties which actually DO have a say. E.g. our 'right wing' government, despite being a majority government, actually makes a lot of concessions all of the Green Party, the Maori (indigenous) Party, Act (a scary right wing party). If we made our voice heard, the government can and will listen.

Also, it is impossible for any corporation to give any significant bribe through 'campaign contributions'. If our government does anything wrong, it is our own fault, and I don't think the US owes us a penny.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Tom]

Kim Dotcom simply provided a service that could be used both "legally" and "illegally"

You need to do some research.

Kim is a career criminal and has been his entire life. He's had run-ins with the law before, and he has been convicted for computer fraud before.

You obviously know nothing about how large-scale criminal enterprises work. The Mafia illegal prostitution and human trafficking places don't put up signs reading "young women abducted from Brasil inside. Ready to pleasure you thanks to two weeks of raping them into submission." - they do, however, put up signs. The signs read "laundry" or "2nd hand electronics" or whatever the front of the day happens to be.

If you had done any research on this, you'd know that the evidence we know about so far is fairly clear on what was going on. Kim and his people were running a large-scale, highly profitable criminal operation and a legitimate front business. The only two differences to the Mafia rape-cellar are that theirs was a virtual shop and that the front and real business were closely related (legal vs. illegal file sharing).

The e-mails between them show clearly that they had not the slightest doubt as to the legality of their own operation, took no steps to prevent illegal use and quite a lot to encourage it.

Re:This case is a joke.

[djnanite]

Hmmm...interesting. I tried ordering a couple of films about 6 months ago, and got a message from Amazon saying they were unable to ship the product to my specific region. But it seems to work OK now.

Is this a recent development?

Re:This case is a joke.

[BlueStrat]

More than that, his long term plan was to replace the content distribution channels with an alternative model using megaupload. He already had some celebrities lined up, and a promotional video and song done. That's significantly more than just being a fixer.

Oh, you mean he threatened the big US media/content cartel's monopoly on distribution?

As desperate as the big US media/content cartels have gotten lately in trying to prop up their dying business model by attacking "this whole 'open, anonymous internet' thing", I'm surprised they didn't just pay someone to put two rounds in the back of his head, execution-style, and post the video online as an example.

Strat

Re:This case is a joke.

[hawkinspeter]

I don't know why they're even bothering with a trial; they should just have asked you.

Re:This case is a joke.

[wvmarle]

Maybe they had to due to international cooperation treaties?

Re:This case is a joke.

[wvmarle]

Key in the case is the accusation that Megaupload promoted the sharing of copyright infringing materials, by giving discounts or even paying account holders that would upload such material.

Whether this accusation is true or not I don't know, but if true it sounds to me like valid grounds for prosecution.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Xest]

"I don't know he it jibes with the law and withold comment except to say HAHA FUCK HIM. Because he's a douche."

Oh dear, did he kick your ass on Call of Duty or something?

Re:This case is a joke.

[ColaMan]

One - this "fixer" role is not "perfectly legit" when his fixing breaks the law.

The law, according to a foreign country. Haven't seen the NZ government pressing charges......

Two - that also describes a pimp.

And it describes personal assistants, contractors, and a heap of other people in the service industry as well.

Re:This case is a joke.

[MrL0G1C]

Copyright law was written to ensure the artist was rewarded for their work and encouraged to create more, do you feel that The Beatles have not been adequately recompensed?

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

So basically, this guy bought a $24 million house by selling ad space and premium accounts to media that he neither made, nor owned, nor invested in, nor had a legal right (as dubious as those may be) to distribute? I get that you can't stop people from sharing, but anyone can see the negative repercussions of people making millions of dollars off of the transaction, when he is neither the sharer, the viewer, nor the author. He's a middleman and this money was ill-gotten; he's happy to play the victim to you guys but it's not about your right to copy, not remotely. It's about his right to make money off copying.

MegaUpload only provided a service to the pirates. It played the role of a neutral carrier, and the actual pirating was done by their customers.

Sure, 90% or more of everything on MegaUpload was probably pirated, and the owner(s) probably knew it. But if that makes them guilty, then anyone who earns money on BitTorrent clients is also guilty, since 90% or more of the content on BitTorrent is probably pirated. Same thing with Internet service providers who sell 100 Mbit connections to private persons -- almost nobody needs that kind of capacity if they don't download illegally.

Re:This case is a joke.

[garaged]

Man, that is the base of capitalism, what do you think it happens with the food from farm to the stores? Farmers in México barely make enough to eat, but stores sell their goods sometimes 20 times the prize they paid, you cannot justify that with tranportation and packing.

We dont need resellers, but law allows them to control the market so you think it is the right thing

Re:This case is a joke.

[Anonymous Coward]

Megaupload removed reported links as well. With defiance and taunting you're thinking Pirate Bay.

Re:This case is a joke.

[aaaaaaargh!]

He legally changed his name to "Dotcom", but I personally disregard such clear and obvious publicity stunts.

I personally think it's funny. Anyway, thanks a lot for letting thousands of /. readers know about your opinion, no matter how unimportant or irrelevant it might be.

Re:This case is a joke.

[aaaaaaargh!]

Wait a minute...

You do know that Megaupload voluntarily offered a web interface where rights holders could delete any content they wanted to delete?

You are aware of the fact that Megauploading was processing 800 file transfers per second 24 hours a day, making it impossible to monitor for copyright infringement? That they nevertheless had officials for dealing with any DMCA takedown request and fully complied with all of them? Just like Google, Youtube, and dozens of other file transfer services?

You know that Megaupload was prohibited by US law and the laws of many other countries from proactively snooping for potential copyright infringments in their users' accounts?

There is a good interview with Dotcom he recently gave for an NZ TV channel that might correct your prejudices a bit. I'm not saying he's a saint, but the allegations against Megaupload are essentially made up. The case is indeed pretty clear.

Re:This case is a joke.

[aaaaaaargh!]

why was megaupload raided when mediafire which was a much worse infringer (until recently) but is based in Texas of all places was not raided....seems might strange to me.

Because it's based in Texas and not run by a shady German businessman. US==moral double standards for everything

Re:This case is a joke.

[die standing]

And in sports news, Chad Ochocinco.....

Re:This case is a joke.

[ozmanjusri]

Mate, if you want my job, you can have it. It'd be great to see a Kiwi actually working.

I could make money selling tickets to that!

Re:This case is a joke.

[daver00]

He's a career criminal, and even back then he was disdained in his original german hacker scene.

This does not exempt him from due process. If the US DOJ fucked up their case and have no legal grounds to continue what they are doing, then the fact that this guy is dodgey has no relevance to the situation.

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

YouTube was established and still deals mostly in uploads shared by their creators. Their defense against charges of copyright infringement has been to remove infringing material as it is pointed out to them. Megaupload's response has been open defiance and taunting.

That's not what I read. When MegaUpload's received take-down requests from American companies, they've removed the infringing links on American servers, but let them remain on servers in other countries, which is entirely correct of them, since copyright laws are different in different countries.

For example, here in Sweden, I'm allowed to upload my legally purchased film or music album (format-shifting) and then share it with a close circle of friends. In some countries, it's legal to copy from anyone for private use. I'd be pretty annoyed if my (legal) copy of a film or album disappeared from the servers just because an American uploaded the same file illegally.

Needless to say, the American media companies didn't like this. They want American law to apply all over the world.

When several persons uploaded the same (identical) file, MegaUpload produced different links to the same copy of the file (de-duplication). When they received take-down requests, they only removed the links which were included in the take-down request, and let the file and the other links remain. Again, this is correct of them, since the same file may be uploaded illegally by some users and legally by others.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Smauler]

Why do you feel that you have to watch a movie created by someone that apparently doesn't want you to watch it?

The people who created the movies don't want the consumer to pay to watch their movies? I'm not a CEO of a major movie studio, but perhaps this may be one of their fundamental mistakes.

People don't _have_ to watch movies, or are entitled to. However, when consumers are artificially barred from paying for and watching stuff, and can do so without paying with a few clicks, what do you think they're going to do?

Re:This case is a joke.

[Smauler]

The only two differences to the Mafia rape-cellar are that theirs was a virtual shop and that the front and real business were closely related

Seriously? These are the only 2 differences you can think of?

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

MegaUpload had a scheme where they paid more to uploaders the more their content was downloaded. They didn't make any distinction between legal or illegal material; they just choose not to check.

The DOJ got hold of an internal memo which showed they were aware of some individual uploaders that uploaded illegal material. And that's about it. The rest of the case is highly circumstantial, such as: MegaUpload has "facilitated" piracy by *not* providing a search feature on their site (which is an insane allegation because, 1: many people upload private files they only want to share with a few people, and 2: if they *had* provided a search feature, that could also be seen as evidence that they "facilitated" piracy.)

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

I guess Kim Dotcom is lucky that he resides in New Zealand, not the USA, then. As does his company.

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

Oh, and I think the comparison between MegaUpload and an ISP is very apt. Both provide a neutral service with a variety of uses, but which people choose to use mainly for piracy. Very few people need a 100 Mbit/s connection if they're not going to pirate...

Re:This case is a joke.

[arth1]

There were tons of groups The Humble Guys, TRSi, Red Sector, etc.

Red Sector ended in 1990.

THG died in '95 (and Candyman died in 2006).

TRSI seems to have stopped cracking a long time ago and are demo guys.

No, Razor and Fairlight seems to be the only old warez groups.

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

You also have to read the indictment (and some decent legal analysis). The case hinges around private correspondence from the Megaupload guys in which they incriminate themselves by specifically organizing to make copyrighted works available. They are hardly disinterested couriers.

What the internal correspondence actually shows is that a few of the staff used MegaUpload for their own personal pirating. There's no evidence that the leadership knew of or encouraged it.

There's also evidence that MegaUpload knew of some individual cases where (external) users had uploaded pirated material and chose to do nothing about it, but that's not illegal in itself.

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

Perhaps because MegaUpload had started to hire artists and was planning to release original music downloads, thus putting them into direct competition with the traditional music companies.

That would also explain why the music companies abused the DMCA system to remove MegaUpload's ad from YouTube, even though it contained no infringing material. (YouTube)

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

In fact I believe the movie studios are stealing work from the public by lobbying to keep work on copyright for such a long time.

Especially when they extend copyright for works which have already been published. The rationale behind copyright is to encourage the production and publication of works, so when they extend copyright for already published works, it becomes blatantly obvious it's nnot about the public good, it's about enriching a few media companies which sit on copyright cash cows, such as Disney cartoons and Elvis Presley's or The Beatles' music.

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

MegaUpload paid uploaders more the more their content was downloaded, without checking whether it was legal or not. They weren't encouraging pirated material specifically (and why should they -- they made just as much money if the material was legal).

There's one or a few internal messages where MegaUpload staff shows they're aware of individual infringing users, but choose to do nothing about it, and continue to pay them for the uploads that were not known to be infringing. It's a bit far-fetched to see this as a conspiracy to encourage people to upload pirated material.

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

Up until this, it could be claimed to be negligence or willful ignorance (as it sounds like employees were merely making educated guesses, not legal deductions, about content) which at least possibly could be legally excused. This just makes it sound like Megaupload was specifically working with pirates to pirate a show.

And even that assumes Kim Dotcom was a cartoon buff who knew what Dexter was.

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

Correct - in many countries it's legal to upload your legally purchased DVD, for example, to access it from different places, or to share it with a circle of close friends. In some countries, it's even legal to download material from anyone for private use. As far as we know, the copy of Dexter could have been legally uploaded and shared.

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

I was, sadly, not aware of what MegaUpload was until it was shut down, but I can think of a number of legal uses off the top of my head:

1. Here in Sweden, I can purchase a film or music album, rip it, and legally upload up it to a site such as MegaUpload (format shifting). I can then legally access it from anywhere I want, and legally share it with a close circle of friends (fair use).

2. If I want to transfer a file which is too large for email, I can upload it to a site such as MegaUpload and just email the link.

3. Some independent artists released their original music on MegaUpload, and earned money from it, since they got paid for each download.

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

I don't doubt that Kim Dotcom was aware that most of the content on MegaUpload was illegal, and choose to do nothing about it. But to convict someone, you need actual evidence of something which is actually illegal.

If we give corrupt politicians and Wall Street bankers that benefit of the doubt, we must also give it to Kim Dotcom.

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

I think you missed my point. AT&T and Comcast pay appropriate fees to content providers when they host files for consumer download.

So, you mean someone who hosts files is responsible for their legality, but not someone who transfers them?

I fail to see the relevant difference. In both cases, you're facilitating piracy. Very few people need a 100 Mbit/s connection if they're not going to use it for pirating.

And the "incriminating private correspondence" is very vague and circumstantial. It basically shows that MegaUpload staff were aware of individual infringing users, but still rewarded them for the uploads which were legal (as far as the staff knew). The indictment is not to be taken as an impartial analysis; it's written to make as strong a case against MegaUpload as possible.

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

Or he pissed them because he was trying to go legit, hired his own artists, and was planning to release their music as legal downloads, putting him into direct competition with the traditional music companies.

Re:This case is a joke.

[kiwimate]

The law according to many different countries. NZ does happen to have copyright infringement laws.

You're correct; it describes a huge range of people. My point is that describing someone as a "fixer" and saying that's a valid & legitimate occupation or role just by inference is quite untenable.

Read up on Kim Dotcom's history. He has for years positioned himself as a modern day swashbuckler. Very romantic when Johnny Depp pretends to be one, I'm sure, but not a good long-term job choice if you're looking to stay out of trouble.

Re:This case is a joke.

[YttriumOxide]

As an American, I think a case could be made for giving NZ control of our DOJ.

As a New Zealander, I wholeheartedly agree with your proposal.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Internetuser1248]

So basically, this guy bought a $24 million house by selling [...] media that he neither made, nor owned, nor invested in [...] anyone can see the negative repercussions of people making millions of dollars off of the transaction, when he is neither the sharer, the viewer, nor the author. He's a middleman and this money was ill-gotten

So you are saying the RIAA should get the money instead?

Re:This case is a joke.

[chrb]

No, Razor and Fairlight seems to be the only old warez groups.

And Paradox. And in a parallel universe, Strider of Fairlight emigrated to the U.S. and became a Republican politician, allegedly continuing to lead Fairlight. Sometimes life is stranger than fiction.

Re:This case is a joke.

[zyzko]

That doesn't correlate with history I remember - at first Youtube was *the source* for music videos and short tv shows and comedy clips. Which were there totally illegally and they knew it, nobody was interested in *somerandomguy* ranting about gas prices on his videoblog. Shortly they began to comply because they knew they had to at least when they would be start serving ads to takedown-requests and implemented all kinds of music-detectors (hello, Germany) to different markets and made deals with tv shows on ad-sharing revenue and encouraged them to post their content legally. And then the big G came and suddenly everybody just made threats to sue but ultimately wanted just a piece and now it's all good and nice. Minus the occasional take down by some script-generated message.

But the start was only possible with sharing copyrighted works, it would have never risen up if all content was user-made and copyrights strictly enforced. There are not *that many* good artists to create momentum who like to share freely (and Vimeo has captured most of them - those who actually provide 100% original work, including music they use etc.) and Youtube would have been a fringe site without for an example people uploading (illegally) old music videos which gained huge popularity.

Re:This case is a joke.

[hjf]

Well, there's always the other answer: "Where's my movie?" "You have to wait". "Fuck that shit, I'm not going to watch it." Why do you feel that you have to watch a movie created by someone that apparently doesn't want you to watch it? Is there really nothing better to do do with your time?

Simple: BECAUSE I FUCKING WANT TO WATCH IT. Why do I have to give any more explanations? I want to watch a movie, I can pay por it. I have the money, just give me the fucking movie! What I do or not do in my free time is not your problem, or hollywood's, or anyone else's.

I own a store, and through the years I've learned that "the customer is always right" means that you shouldn't give a fuck about the customer's tastes. Just get him what he wants, or else he'll go somewhere else and get it anyway. Don't try to convince them that their taste is bad, because that just makes things worse.

I'm not playing Hollywood's game, you are - for me, if the movie isn't in Netflix's streaming catalog, I don't watch it.

Dude, you couldn't have chosen a worse example. The netflix streaming catalog is like 20 movies that have been on basic cable for ages, and TV series from the season before, only after the new season has started.

You are just limiting your options to a catalog Hollywood has picked for you, purely because they CAN. What technical limitation is there that won't let Netflix stream a movie that they can actually rent to you on DVD? How about european, asian, or south american cinema? I haven't seen much of that on NF's catalog when I had the 30 day trial. I liked the service, but I didn't renew it as the options weren't interesting enough for me. The DVD rental store near my house has a much more varied catalog, and they have the movies on DVD as soon as they're out in that format.

Re:This case is a joke.

[aaaaaaargh!]

I think it's pretty clear that he's just retarded, though not deliberately.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Inda]

hmmm. That "know somebody" was usenet, message boards, IRC... Even climbing the ladder wasn't hard, especially if you had a fat pipe and a multi-gigabyte hard drive.

I will admit that today no one needs to climb the ladder and obtaining your warez is a Google search away.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Inda]

I used it for both.

Kind of pissed off that links I've placed on forums no longer work. Mostly random football pictures I'd "photoshopped" and some videos of goals. I could go back though the thousands of posts I've made and swap them out, but that's not going to happen.

Couldn't give a stuff about the small handful of Xvids I put on there. They were put there for my real life friends who struggle with anything other than clicking a link in an email. They are still availiable on a billion torrent sites.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Inda]

When searching for release folder names, Megaupload was there regularly.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Hatta]

"Hi, I'm Kim"

Re:This case is a joke.

[Hatta]

There are lots of cases where prosecutors claimed someone was guilty, and he turned out to be innocent. In fact, there are lots of cases in which prosecutors (illegally) withheld evidence that would have proved the defendant was guilty.

There are lots of such cases, and very, very few where the prosecutor faces any consequences for his crimes.

Re:This case is a joke.

[wvmarle]

As I said: that's what they're accused of.

My info is what is available readily in the media; I haven't made a study of the case. I also don't know whether this accusation is true or not. It's an accusation, not a conviction.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Baki]

And then argue that the current laws apparently are insufficient, and re-introduce SOPA style laws.
I have believed from the start that the whole Kim Dotcom fuzz was just started to prove the need for harsher laws.

Re:This case is a joke.

[hawguy]

Well, there's always the other answer: "Where's my movie?" "You have to wait". "Fuck that shit, I'm not going to watch it." Why do you feel that you have to watch a movie created by someone that apparently doesn't want you to watch it? Is there really nothing better to do do with your time?

Simple: BECAUSE I FUCKING WANT TO WATCH IT. Why do I have to give any more explanations? I want to watch a movie, I can pay por it. I have the money, just give me the fucking movie! What I do or not do in my free time is not your problem, or hollywood's, or anyone else's.

There's lots of things I'd like to do, but can't either because I can't afford it, or it's not available in this area. Like, maybe I'd love to bungie jump off the golden gate bridge, but the bridge doesn't offer that service.I could drive a few hours away and find a bridge where it offered, but dammit, I'm tired of that bridge, I want the GGB and I want it now! I'm even willing to pay! (but only as much as I want to, I want to set the price)

I own a store, and through the years I've learned that "the customer is always right" means that you shouldn't give a fuck about the customer's tastes. Just get him what he wants, or else he'll go somewhere else and get it anyway. Don't try to convince them that their taste is bad, because that just makes things worse.

I've managed a store in the past and found that the customer is often not right - if every customer got to decide how I do business, the store wouldn't stay in business. "I wanna return this shirt, it doesn't fit." "But your wore it" "Only to try it on" "It has a ketchup stain" "Well I only wore it to one dinner party". There are clear rules on what is returnable, and a stained shirt does not qualify. Sure, maybe if I'd let him return the shirt he'd turn into a lifelong customer and tell all of his friends, but more likely, the next time he wanted to go to a dinner party he'd "borrow" another shirt from me and return it afterwards.

I'm not playing Hollywood's game, you are - for me, if the movie isn't in Netflix's streaming catalog, I don't watch it.

Dude, you couldn't have chosen a worse example. The netflix streaming catalog is like 20 movies that have been on basic cable for ages, and TV series from the season before, only after the new season has started.

They claim to have 20,000 movies in their catalog, and I still have a queue of over 100 movies to watch. Having a TV series one season behind doesn't seem like a huge problem - there aren't many TV series' that are topical enough that they don't make sense a year later. If season 9 of The Office is worth watching in Sept, 2012, it's going to be worth watching in Sept 2013. I don't have cable TV so if it's not on Netflix, I'm not going to watch it.

You are just limiting your options to a catalog Hollywood has picked for you, purely because they CAN. What technical limitation is there that won't let Netflix stream a movie that they can actually rent to you on DVD? How about european, asian, or south american cinema? I haven't seen much of that on NF's catalog when I had the 30 day trial. I liked the service, but I didn't renew it as the options weren't interesting enough for me. The DVD rental store near my house has a much more varied catalog, and they have the movies on DVD as soon as they're out in that format.

There's no technical reason why McDonalds can't sell me a coke for their actual cost of 25 cents instead of making me pay $1.29, but they still do, because that's their business model. Just like Hollywood's business model is to restrict what movies are available in different media and markets.

I know the argument -- but if I steal a coke from McDonalds, they are out 25 cents of product so it's not like downloading a movie since that costs the movie industry nothing. But if you satisfy your desire for movies

Re:This case is a joke.

[hawguy]

Why do you feel that you have to watch a movie created by someone that apparently doesn't want you to watch it?

The people who created the movies don't want the consumer to pay to watch their movies? I'm not a CEO of a major movie studio, but perhaps this may be one of their fundamental mistakes.

Apparently the high paid CPA's and marketing experts have told the movie houses that their current model is the way to maximize revenue. Sure, it sounds reasonable that if they just made all of their content available everywhere that they'd earn more revenue, but I haven't done the market analysis and no one outside the movie industry itself has all of the data to do that analysis.

People don't _have_ to watch movies, or are entitled to. However, when consumers are artificially barred from paying for and watching stuff, and can do so without paying with a few clicks, what do you think they're going to do?

Oh there's no doubt that people can't be trusted not to steal something. Every industry faces this.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Tom]

This does not exempt him from due process.

No, it doesn't.

What gets me upset is how people root for him. He's the exact kind of person responsible for giving all of us geeks and hackers a bad rep. And now people on /. applaud him? Was I dozing when the crazy pills were handed out?

Re:This case is a joke.

[Tom]

"fairly clear" sounds like a interesting standard for evidence. Where does it rank on the scale from "reasonable suspicion" to "beyond reasonable doubt"?

This is /. and not a court. The courts will judge by their standard for evidence.

Please show the e-mail in which kimble states that what he is doing is illegal in the jurisdiction he lives in.

I assume that you will trust a torrent site as being not on the side of the government or media companies in this case?

http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-what-made-it-a-rogue-site-worthy-of-destruction-120120/

Alternatively:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=megaupload+internal+emails

Re:This case is a joke.

[Tom]

Seriously? These differences can think?

Selectively quoting out of context to butcher the original intended meaning is so much fun, isn't it?

Re:This case is a joke.

[BeanThere]

People are rooting for 'due process' (which he has been denied, and he has been the target of an illegal home invasion), and you are confusing rooting for justice, with rooting for the individual, an old but still common mistake.

If you or I conduct an illegal home invasion, we rightly get put in jail, so I'm wondering (/sarcasm) who will go to jail for this illegal home invasion. I'm guessing 'nobody' - what we are tired of is officials being above the law, i.e. we live by one set of laws, and they live above those laws.

Re:This case is a joke.

[BeanThere]

It's not really 'sovereignty' that ought to be put first, per se --- it's universal principles of justice, like due process, and not conducting illegal home invasions (i.e. home invasion without a proper warrant, etc.) - regardless of who asks for them. Sovereignty is a bit of a red herring issue, in that it distracts from the more real underlying principles.

Re:This case is a joke.

[BeanThere]

Kim Dotdouche facilitated criminal activity, and he got what he deserve

In WWII, those who smuggled Jews out of Germany also "facilitated criminal activity". Something tells me you haven't quite pinned down the basis of the distinction between "legal" and "legitimate" yet.

Re:This case is a joke.

[hjf]

There's lots of things I'd like to do, but can't either because I can't afford it, or it's not available in this area. Like, maybe I'd love to bungie jump off the golden gate bridge, but the bridge doesn't offer that service.I could drive a few hours away and find a bridge where it offered, but dammit, I'm tired of that bridge, I want the GGB and I want it now! I'm even willing to pay! (but only as much as I want to, I want to set the price)

That's a technical or logistic limtation. Hollywood's region-locking mechanism is a purely arbitrary measure.

I've managed a store in the past and found that the customer is often not right - if every customer got to decide how I do business, the store wouldn't stay in business. "I wanna return this shirt, it doesn't fit." "But your wore it" "Only to try it on" "It has a ketchup stain" "Well I only wore it to one dinner party". There are clear rules on what is returnable, and a stained shirt does not qualify. Sure, maybe if I'd let him return the shirt he'd turn into a lifelong customer and tell all of his friends, but more likely, the next time he wanted to go to a dinner party he'd "borrow" another shirt from me and return it afterwards.

That's exactly my point. "The customer is always right" means you should GIVE the customer what he wants. If he wants AMD, you give him AMD, and not tell him why Intel is better. Or vice versa. "Customer is always right" doesn't mean the customer can make stupid demands.

There's no technical reason why McDonalds can't sell me a coke for their actual cost of 25 cents instead of making me pay $1.29, but they still do, because that's their business model.

Yes, there is, and it's called profit. If they didn't charge you extra they would go out of business. I thought you said you managed a store? You seem to know nothing about businesses.

Just like Hollywood's business model is to restrict what movies are available in different media and markets.

Status quo. Defend it all you want, but the world keeps moving forward. There are hundreds of business models that became obsolete with technology. Like photo developing shops.

But if you satisfy your desire for movies by downloading pirated copies, they still lose revenue from you since it's likely that you're purchasing less legitimate content than you would have if you purchased your content legally.

No, they don't. Because I don't like what they offer, and I won't buy that anyway. If I liked what they offered, I'd buy it. Let's suppose it's not hollywood, let's talk about japanese anime. They are just not interested in licensing a lot of series outside japan. So the only way to get them is either move to japan and speak japanese, or download a fansub (fan-made subtitled version).

This is exactly the whole point of all this: CHOICE. I don't want to have the options someone else chose for me. I want to have ALL the options, and chose for myself. Just like I can do on the internet.

There's no reason for you to pay for Netflix streaming if you're willing to get your content elsewhere, but if pirated movies were not available (or you were morally unwilling to download them), then maybe you'd find content on Netflix worth watching and find that it's worth the monthly fee.

No, because hollywood's business models also tells me what I should watch. If I want to watch "Avengers" because hollywood and all the media apparatus that surrounds it has told me to, why doesn't Hollywood make it easily available and convenient?

Warning: I use the term "I" as an example subject. I don't really do these things. I haven't downloaded a movie in years, and the last time I rented a movie, that I remember, was probably in 95. it was "Speed". I don't have time to actually "sit down and watch a movie" anyways.

Re:This case is a joke.

[sneakyimp]

No, he stole my stuff.

Re:This case is a joke.

[sneakyimp]

Well Kim DotCom has apparently done the right thing then. Made an offer for a deal. He'll get his money back, pay his lawyers, come back and face his trial. If he's found innocent then he'll walk away a rich man and probably resume his business with his freed assets. If, on the other hand, he is found guilty of violating the law, he will not.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Travelsonic]

Um... copyright was meant to encourage creating by ensuring the artists had control for a limited time - absolute control to do whatever he or she wanted - nothing more, nothing less. Wish people would stop looking into things too deeply - but then again, I overanalyze the shit out of everything.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Travelsonic]

Obviously less than you substantial == types of uses, not what % of people use X for use A, use B, or use C, jackass.

Re:This case is a joke.

[sneakyimp]

I fail to see the relevant difference. In both cases, you're facilitating piracy. Very few people need a 100 Mbit/s connection if they're not going to use it for pirating.

I consider this an intellectual failing on your part. There's a difference between knowingly enabling people to violate legal licenses and unknowingly transferring bits and bytes for someone. The entire case, as I understand it, hinges on proving that Kim Dotcom knowingly helped people to distribute copyrighted works using his system.

Re:This case is a joke.

[sneakyimp]

There's also evidence that MegaUpload knew of some individual cases where (external) users had uploaded pirated material and chose to do nothing about it, but that's not illegal in itself.

It is illegal -- or at least open to a civil suit -- if someone filed a DMCA. It is at best unethical. How is this any different than funnyjunk profiteering off the Oatmeal?

Re:This case is a joke.

[MrEricSir]

Because AT&T and Comcast actually pay money to companies when they host their copyrighted content.

I never said anything about hosting, just their ISP service. After all, if I'm paying them money to illegally download files, aren't they just as guilty as MegaUplaod? Uou don't believe AT&T and Comcast aren't paying the RIAA and MPAA for all the BitTorrent download their users are downloading, do you?

You could make the argument that the ISP doesn't know about piracy, but given that it's 50% of all internet traffic I don't think anyone would buy that argument. ISPs profit off of piracy, period.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Post-O-Matron]

Well his assets were US-based so it makes sense if the US decided to seize them in response to him breaking US-laws. Next time when you break US-laws and taunt the US-companies that complain about you, move your money to Switzerland first.

In other news: NZ isn't in Europe (your post is slightly ambiguous on that point...)

Re:This case is a joke.

[MrEricSir]

When some guy owns a warehouse that is selling stolen goods, you don't arrest the person who built the road.

If it's a toll road and the people running it aware of the criminal activity down the street, that would make them an accomplice. So yes, you absolutely arrest them.

Re:This case is a joke.

[sneakyimp]

I think this is a fairly interesting point. It's worth noting (in the USA at least) that ISPs and content companies are fast becoming the same thing through mergers and such -- I really don't like this idea. I know for a fact that AT&T and Comcast hand a lot of money not directly to the RIAA and MPAA but to the companies they represent. This money is for the licensing of content (shows, tvs, movies, music, etc.). I had an exchange a few years back with a guy who had proposed a surcharge on internet bills, an idea that I really don't like: http://jaith.net/jimg/indexOLD.html

Re:This case is a joke.

[sneakyimp]

While the road metaphor wears a little thin in this case, you are right that legally speaking, accomplices risk prosecution too. What's tricky is that AT&T and Comcast and other companies that offer internet connectivity do show movies and tv and msuic and do show ads and do make money from those ads but they also do have licensing agreements with the content creators. That's the big difference. Those companies are probably the single biggest source of income for record labels and tv and movie studios. HBO gets all of its money from cable company deals. In that sense, the ISPs do pay for the privilege and are therefore on very solid legal grounds because they have a strong symbiotic relationship with the content creators. A content company will be unlikely to press charges against their biggest customer.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Tom]

And how many are applauding him on slashdot? You seem to be reading a different slashdot from me.

Different comment filters, maybe. But I was not talking about just this topic, which you are right is mostly what you say it is. The earlier stories, however, were quite a different story. It seems that the real story is slowly coming out. Go and read the comments on the first megaupload story. I still want to throw up over most of them.

He's far less a danger to the rest of the world than the bunch who seized his stuff. If they can do this to him, they might do something similar to me or you one day.

He is the reason that they might one day do it to you or me and the public will support them. That is where his danger lies. People like him are the reason that the criminalization works.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Flere Imsaho]

More like the National government took part in order to suck up to the U.S, with en eye on a free trade agreement.

Re:This case is a joke.

[Flere Imsaho]

If we made our voice heard, the government can and will listen.

Just like they are listening to us on the partial asset sales? I think you give King John too much credit.

Re:This case is a joke.

[LVSlushdat]

Lemme 'splain it to ya... We're cheering for him simply because he has more class than the US Government.. No matter WHAT kinds of "crimes" he's allegedly committed, he's a damn sight better than the bunch of liars/theves that comprise the US Government nowadays. I'm saying that as a person who served in the US military, and love America, despite the despicable garbage that runs the country now.. And for you (and theres ALWAYS at least one of you) who say "You don't like America? then GTFO.." .. I say to you, I love the country, but hate/fear the government.. I'm not a Democrat, not a Republican, I'm a flippin' AMERICAN....

Re:This case is a joke.

[LVSlushdat]

In fact, why is it right for them to confiscate all his assets, even the money that he needs to pay his lawyers to defend him against these charges?

I guess you're from out of town... THAT my friend, is how law enforcement works in the US now..

Re:This case is a joke.

[nbauman]

I know. That's why I said, "Why is it right?"

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

MegaUpload took down the material it received DMCA requests for (although, if the same material had been uploaded by multiple users, they only removed access for the users they had received complains for, since the same material may be legal for some users to share and illegal for others).

But yeah, if you think it's immoral to profiteer from other people's creations, then MegaUpload was immoral. Personally, I'm not sure the creators really lose anything by having their products shared for free. When people pirate, they tend to use the "saved" money to buy other music or films, not save it up (which would explain how the music, games and film industry can continue to increase their revenues year after year, despite the huge "lost sales" caused by piracy).

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

My point is that it's not illegal. A service provider is not liable just because their service is used for something illegal.

The case against MegaUpload hinges on trying to establish criminal intent by interpreting the staff's private correspondence in the most nefarious way possible.

Re:This case is a joke.

[metacell]

Both MegaUpload and ISPs knowingly help people distribute copyrighted works. ISPs monitor traffic for technical reasons, and can see that a very large part of their load is BitTorrent traffic, which is mostly used for illegal filesharing. They can also monitor which sites are most visited (thepiratebay.se, for example), and yet do nothing to block those sites.

To be liable, you need to intentionally help people distribute copyrighted works. And that's what I believe will be hard to prove. The DOJ's evidence seems to be mostly circumstantial.

This article explains some of the problems with the indictment. (Techdirt)

Re:This case is a joke.

[Raenex]

I'm saying that as a person who served in the US military, and love America, despite the despicable garbage that runs the country now..

Then you were a stupid pawn. What was so great about the government you served versus the one now? It's all the same shit, just different times.

As for this "Dotcom" character, he's a no-class parasite.

Re:This case is a joke.

[jwhitener]

I wonder how accurate gpeters is given:

"Based on popular usage, it is 1.587 times more common for Jason to be a boy's name."

I have never heard of a women with the first name "Jason".

Re:This case is a joke.

[ThatsMyNick]

Mmmm strange. I know the author personally, will report it to him. From what I understand, a lot of the percentages are calculated from analysis of content on the web (mostly blogs), I sure there must be a bug somewhere that misidentifies gender pronouns, when it comes to Jason.

Re:This case is a joke.

[sneakyimp]

They can also monitor which sites are most visited (thepiratebay.se, for example), and yet do nothing to block those sites.

Given that Time Warner owns so much content and that content companies like NBC are being bought by cable companies like Comcast, I suspect that these "ISPs" (they are so much more than just ISPs) will begin to develop a hearty appetite for packet inspection and other blocking technologies. And actually, some apparently do throttle P2P which is not exactly blocking it but not exactly net-neutral either. P2P is different because there is no vital point at which the technology can be easily severed. I don't think it should ever be severed because it is beautiful technology. I speak with some ignorance here because I haven't used BitTorrent, but I expect P2P is also different because it's not really a commercial entity like Megaupload which exploits its traffic for the commercial gain of a few fatasses like Kim Dotcom.

To be liable, you need to intentionally help people distribute copyrighted works. And that's what I believe will be hard to prove. The DOJ's evidence seems to be mostly circumstantial.

Excellent point. I would point out that an indictment is handed down by a grand jury -- meaning that a jury was already formed and that jury decided that there was enough evidence that a trial was worthwhile. Thanks for the link.

Re:This case is a joke.

[KingBenny]

so that warrants uncle s sending a swat team halfway cross the world on charges of nothing that was proven to make up the paperwork afterwards and even then it could barely pass scrutiny from the nz court ... there's several degrees of slease, business is one of them, forcing your authority in places where you have none is a whole different level

Re:This case is a joke.

[Xest]

Oh really, what stuff did he steal?

What is this talk of 'case'?

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

Once he's over there, they'll keep him.

Re:What is this talk of 'case'?

[Master Moose]

This is what I was thinking. Even if the current case falls over, would they not try to book him on something else?

Whilst in New Zealand, the US DoJ needs a larger stick to touch him. Entering the Lions den surely has the potential to put him at a larger disadvantage than he is in now?

Re:What is this talk of 'case'?

[Anonymous Coward]

Once he's over there, they'll keep him.

God I hope not. We already have more than our fair share of douche bags in this country.

Re:What is this talk of 'case'?

[Pool_Noodle]

Should the Megauploads Case fall flat (which if MPAA and RIAA were to assist would be certain), then its a guarantee that the DoJ would find something else to hammer him on. Take the case of Al Capone, the Fed couldn't get him on actual charges that he did commit, so they got him on Tax Evasion. Same concept here, DoJ will miss the mark on Piracy, but they'll get him on something else, and the MPAA and RIAA will dance around like fools screaming their ignorant heads off about how *They* helped bring down one of the greatest threats ... etc ... etc ... etc ... Ad Nauseum.
(My 2 Cents)

Re:What is this talk of 'case'?

[detritus.]

Yup,
News Flash: Al Qaeda documents found on Kim Dotcom's server hard drives. Dotcom's whereabouts are unknown and has not been in contact with his lawyers or family members for several weeks. The US has no comment.

Re:What is this talk of 'case'?

[Anonymous Coward]

Take the case of Al Capone, the Fed couldn't get him on actual charges that he did commit, so they got him on Tax Evasion.

I'm pretty sure Capone actually did commit tax evasion, though, so that's a poor example.

Re:What is this talk of 'case'?

[KingSkippus]

You are exactly right. Prosecutors have a lot of leeway in cases like this. It would not surprise me at all for the prosecutors to say, "Okay, we'll take you up on that!" then arrest him and throw him in jail as soon as his plane lands. If this guy is smart, he won't set foot anywhere near the United States or a U.S. extradition-friendly country. They can and will lie out of their asses to get him.

Re:What is this talk of 'case'?

[AHuxley]

Yes they have a few options. The classic one is to use a state charge, get you to call in a good lawyer, spend up on bail - then as your about to walk out of the jail complex, the feds arrest you. Your funds are drained and you spend a few days on the move around the federal system out of contact with your family and away from any legal team.
You are then found again and a one time offer is made :)
This will get interesting for the USA. Free his funds and he has a great legal team, if not be becomes a martyr/cause celebre.

Re:What is this talk of 'case'?

[Pool_Noodle]

The point is that the government couldn't make charges stick to him for crimes of murder, racketeering, etc etc etc, so they slapped him with a lesser charge just to get him off the streets (and yes, guilty of tax evasion). Same theory here, the case for Piracy won't stick so they'll find some other charge to get this guy off the street.

Re:What is this talk of 'case'?

[Robert Zenz]

I think you can't compare Capone to Dotcom...

Re:What country's holding Dotcom's funds?

[Anonymous Coward]

They were able to freeze his accounts all over the place, including his home country.

Re:What country's holding Dotcom's funds?

[djlowe]

Or does the US have the ability to put a hold order on money stoned in another country?

Yes, not only does the RIAA/MPAA have the ability to extend their influence overseas via the US Federal Government, so does the DEA: Stoned money in other countries is *definitely* under its jurisdiction, obviously it became stoned via illegal drugs!

Irreverently yours,

dj

This isn't good versus evil

[Rogerborg]

It's a bunch of fat worthless leeches trying to kill a tick that's fastened on to them

There's no good guy here, it's just parasites vying to see who has the biggest stomach. If only there's a way that they can all lose.

Re:This isn't good versus evil

[steelfood]

Yeah, but if Kim Dotcom loses, a lot of legitimate data whom the copyright holders themselves uploaded to the service (including files the U.S. military uploaded) gets lost as well.

They've effectively thrown the baby out with the bathwater. And I imagine they've pissed off more people domestic and international than they can imagine. This is exactly the kind of behavior we've all come to expect from decades of granting the federal government ever-increasing powers to control and limit the freedoms of the individual, whether these are U.S. citizens or not. It is also only the beginning of what's to come if we as a people don't make a stand.

Re:This isn't good versus evil

[sneakyimp]

Mod parent up.

Re:This isn't good versus evil

[tomhath]

If they uploaded to a site like that and threw away their only backup they're idiots.

Re:This isn't good versus evil

[swalve]

That's kind of what you get when you attempt to use (for legitimate purposes) a filesharing site called "megaupload" that pays users for uploading stuff. That's not how a legitimate service works.

Re:This isn't good versus evil

[Nemyst]

This isn't about the federal government growing, it's about institutionalizing corruption. The US has basically bowed to lobbyists and let them control everything.

Or do you really think the states would do a better job than the federal government?

Re:This isn't good versus evil

[bpkiwi]

http://www.slashgear.com/megaupload-claims-us-military-uploaded-94245-gigabytes-26220037/

[citation provided]

Of course, just because the user had a govt address doesn't really means it was government data.

Re:This isn't good versus evil

[martin-boundary]

You mean, like Youtube isn't legitimate either? Right, makes sense.

Re:This isn't good versus evil

[aaaaaaargh!]

Probably just porn.

Re:If they have no case...

[sgrover]

when the big boys come at you with everything they have... with all their rules and procedures they insist you follow... You loose if you play the game their way. Change the game and you have a chance of winning. But I agree with your sentiments re: getting worked up over Kim. Don't care or know him well enough to call him a douche though.

Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

Are you making that claim based on legal knowledge of the case or are you just talking out your ass? As I have read, the case is based on private emails of the indicted:

It quotes extensively from correspondence among the defendants, who work for Megaupload and its related sites. The correspondence, the indictment says, shows that the operators knew the site contained unauthorized content.

The indictment cites an e-mail from last February, for example, in which three members of the group discussed an article about how to stop the government from seizing domain names.

The Megaupload case is unusual, said Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University, in that federal prosecutors obtained the private e-mails of Megaupload’s operators in an effort to show they were operating in bad faith.

“The government hopes to use their private words against them,” Mr. Kerr said. “This should scare the owners and operators of similar sites.”

And it hinges not on the evidence seized at the arrest in NZ but apparently on emails detailing the deliberate actions of the site's proprietors to make copyrighted content widely available not just to the customers who uploaded these files, but to any visitors to the site. If you read some discussion of real legal analysis, things don't look so rosy for fat old K. Dotcom.

As for the customers getting their files back, that's a different issue. It should be legal for me to store my music in the cloud.

I hope fat old K. Dotcom chokes on his bratwurst.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[AK Marc]

The seizures of servers were not for evidence, but for punishment. Punitive seizures is one of the reasons the Constitution required proper warrants. The US no longer follows its own laws (Constitution), but requires everyone else follow its laws.

And there's nothing to say that it couldn't be spun that they knew the US was unreasonable (as proven so far in this case) and they knew they had *some* infringing material, so they looked into prudent defensive measures. What they *should* have done is to use a lawyer as a remailer service to discuss everything, then even if the emails are seized, they could not be used. A few emails out of context indicating they knew infringing material was shared on the Internet doesn't prove they created the service for the purpose of infringing or anything else that *might* be illegal in the US (and almost nowhere else). He didn't publish or distribute anything. It's akin to suing the makers of trash cans for terrorism if a terrorist puts a bomb in them, as that's a known attack vector and they still make trash cans for profit that could be used against the US.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

You should read the arstechnica article Iinked. It offers a different slant that you might find informative (and much more legally sound than our armchair opinions):

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/01/legal-experts-say-megaupload-faces-long-odds/

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[whoever57]

If you read some discussion of real legal analysis, things don't look so rosy for fat old K. Dotcom.

Analysis that is based on snippets of emails included in the indictment and we know that the FBI would never use those snippets out of context or misrepresent the meaning or import of the reported email snippets, don't we?

[if you think that the FBI would not use snippets out of context in order to make a case, then I have a bridge to sell you]

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

It is certainly true that legal wrangling can rule out all kinds of potentially damning "evidence" for various reasons. That's hardly a reason to call the case a joke. Those emails may yet stand up in court. That arstechnica article I linked certainly suggests the case has legs.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[strikethree]

Did you read the emails in question? If not, why do you believe the characterizations of the emails made by people who intend to prosecute him?

Assuming the characterizations are accurate, were any of them written by the owner? Do they mention him in such as a way as to indicate that he knew what this "group of people" who worked for him knew? Why aren't the people who actually wrote the emails being charged?

From my point of view, it looks like he is probably guilty. He needs to convicted on proof though, not on what it looks like. Are we really going to convict this guy before he has his day in court? If he gets out of having to face his day in court, it is only due to incompetence on the part of the people prosecuting the supposed crime.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[cheekyjohnson]

Hopefully the stupid legal actions of law enforcement don't jeopardize the case

I believe the most idiotic legal action of them all was going after someone for this in the first place. A colossal waste of taxpayer money, I think.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[cheekyjohnson]

So you believe Herr Fatass should be able to profit by intentionally taking other people's copyrighted work

As far as I'm aware, he didn't take anything. And what he profited off of was ads and premium accounts, not copyrighted works.

actively making it available not just to its owners but to the world at large

All of this could be argued for any website. If you want to argue that he knew about it, that's a different matter.

and selling ads to the consumers without any license from the original copyright owners

I think it's ridiculous that some think you can't have ads simply because there might be copyrighted works involved.

Yes, I believe this is a complete and utter waste of time. There are plenty of other places to download what you want. And wasting so much money going after someone in a different country because they run a website that allows certain people to store copyrighted content? Really? Clearly the fact that some people may or may not be losing potential profit is a national security emergency!

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

As far as I'm aware, he didn't take anything. And what he profited off of was ads and premium accounts, not copyrighted works.

Perhaps you should edify yourself. Read the indictment which asserts that he actively strove to make copyrighted works available not just to their "owners" but to the internet at large for the express purpose of making profit. Yes, it's only what the FBI alleges, but that appears to be precisely what the trial (it it happens) will be arguing. Not sure what you are talking about, this is what I'm talking about.

I think it's ridiculous that some think you can't have ads simply because there might be copyrighted works involved.

I think it's ridiculous that you think anyone really gives a fuck about Megaupload except to the extent that it could provide them with free access to copyrighted content they never paid for. It's fine you believe it's a waste of time. I believe it's money well spent. Chances are it will set a precedent for other likely lawsuits. Law is all about precedent so I would hope the prosecutors have been careful in that regard.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[cheekyjohnson]

Read the indictment which asserts that he actively strove to make copyrighted works available not just to their "owners" but to the internet at large for the express purpose of making profit.

That's not what I said. I said that he profited off of ads and premium accounts. It isn't as if the copyrighted works were locked away and they were selling copies of them.

I think it's ridiculous that you think anyone really gives a fuck about Megaupload except to the extent that it could provide them with free access to copyrighted content they never paid for.

That doesn't have anything to do with what I said. But... since when do I think that? I don't really care what people go there for.

I believe it's money well spent.

Why?

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[fredprado]

The ridiculous part is the government wasting millions of dollars trying to enforce the rights of just a few very rich people, whilst violating the constitution in order to do so. And worse, in a futile effort.

If the MAFIAA thinks its rights have been violated THEY should go and sue the violators (the users who uploaded the files). ONE BY ONE, and with their own resources, not with taxpayer money and a disproportional help from the government.

I am really tired of these people think they are entitled to their money by godly mandate and that the government should do any effort necessary to preserve it no matter the cost. If they can't prevail within the legal system, as everybody else, with their huge amount of resources, then maybe, just maybe they shouldn't anyway.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[whoever57]

Perhaps you should edify yourself. Read the indictment which asserts that he actively strove to make copyrighted works available

As I tried to point out above, but you chose to ignore, assertions contained in an indictment are not facts. Based on what we have seen in IP-related actions by the FBI, I would not bet 2 cents on the contents of an FBI indictment being objectively true.

Perhaps you would like to buy that bridge I alluded to?

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[AK Marc]

But they accept the legal stance as the correct or default one and argue from there. "inducement" is top of the list. How many CD-Rs are used for "music" that is copyrighted? A small minority, a large minority, a small majority, or a large majority? I think that the argument is usable against many things. What percentage of external hard drives sold retail end up with some infringing material on them? From my experience, it approaches 100%. And yet, nobody would think about going after the hard drive makers for making something that directly induces infringement. In fact, so assumed to be infringing that the hard drives have warnings on them to not illegally share (I laughed as there were multiple warnings on the outside of the one I just bought, couldn't resist a cheap upgrade to USB 3.0 when the sale was on), but it's at home and I'm at work, so I can't quote or count them at the moment.

Then it goes into the others, "direct infringement" where an employee uploaded something. Well, might as well put the USPS in jail for murder every time a worker goes postal. One, or even many, employees doing something doesn't make the company responsible for their independent behavior. And they "may" have DMCA safe harbor, but the courts don't know. Their "fault" was to openly discuss the fact they knew it was happening. Of course it happens. It happens in Gmail, but Google doesn't talk about it, probably not even internally, just so nobody will ever be able to say they knew about it.

If you read the article, you'll see that the arguments again them are weak, and possibly a little silly. Discussing what to do when the government comes for you somehow justifies the government in coming for you. What, has life turned into the Paranoia RPG? (God I hope Blizzard's next MMORPG they are working on but haven't discussed openly is Paranoia, that would be so cool)

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

The ridiculous part is the government wasting millions of dollars trying to enforce the rights of just a few very rich people

Where does it say that the MAFIAA represents only the interest of "a few very rich people"? The MAFIAA indirectly represents the interests of people who are not rich at all. They would include the various people who work on a large movie, extras, "baby" bands who are still struggling and people like Sly Stone who is reportedly homeless. And what's wrong with enforcing anyone's *rights*?

If the MAFIAA thinks its rights have been violated THEY should go and sue the violators (the users who uploaded the files). ONE BY ONE, and with their own resources

The MAFIAA itself doesn't have any rights. It acts as an interest group on behalf of its constituent memebers which, in turn, represent the artists with whom they have contracts. Why should each artist have sue anyone who distributes their songs for profit illegally? Do you have a problem with collective bargaining? Also, the laws as written -- at least in the US -- treat piracy as a criminal offense which is why the government is involved. If you disagree with piracy being criminalized, talk to your elected representatives to legislate differently. Also noteworthy is the fact that legislators in the United States passed the Digital Millenium Copyright Act which says that artists (and their representatives) *cannot* legally sue ISPs or online entities without first filing a takedown notice. This means Megaupload.com cannot be sued directly until it is proven that they have not honored a takedown notice. I'd be willing to bet that a civil action against Megaupload will follow the criminal action, much like the O.J. Simpson wrongful death suit followed the murder trial.

I am really tired of these people think they are entitled to their money by godly mandate and that the government should do any effort necessary to preserve it no matter the cost. If they can't prevail within the legal system, as everybody else, with their huge amount of resources, then maybe, just maybe they shouldn't anyway.

I'm reallly tired of people like Kim Dotcom who feel is it is their right to acquire millions of dollars on the backs of poor, hard-working artists when he doesn't actually create any music or video entertainment himself but somehow feels like it's OK for his company to collect and distribute digital copies of copyrighted works and earn money by letting the world download them and then blame the presence of such works on his customers. Your perception that everyone who has an interest in a copyrighted work is a rich person is completely, utterly wrong. Look at the credits for a movie sometime. You might see a thousand people listed in the credits (e.g., carpenters, drivers, grip, makeup, costume, etc.). These people have an interest too. They might not have rights in the work, but they may be out of work when the movie doesn't make enough money. Personally, I'd rather those hardworking people make $15 an hour rather than have Kim Dotcom purchasing his tenth Ferrari. If you really feel like producers of movies and music are out of line, I think a boycott would be the ethical thing to do. Expecting to enjoy the fruits of their labor for free is just plain scummy.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

I'm aware that assertions of the prosecution are not fact just like the assertions of the defense are not fact. I'm further aware that what is proven in a trial is not fact either [q.v. OJ Simpson trial]. Why try to predict the trial when we can just get it over with and at least get a better idea of the facts? K.Dotcom seems ready to do so.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

And what he profited off of was ads and premium accounts, not copyrighted works.

And why on earth would anyone visit the site and view the ads? Because Mr. Fatass posted pictures of his mans pubis up there? You can deny all you want that the value of Megaupload was the appeal of copyrighted content for which Megaupload had no rights at all but that's ludicrous and you should admit it. This is the essence of the trial. Stop being so obtuse. I believe it's money well spent because you have a cynical dickhead like K.D. profiting off the hard work of people who worked very hard to create this content. They are not, as is so often claimed, rich fat cats. They are hairdressers and makeup artists and carpenters and special effects people and CGI artists and musicians. K.D. has no right to make a penny by making their creations available for the sole benefit of his company. It's wrong. That's why I believe it's money well spent.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

You are totally ignoring the fact the indictment (which you probably haven't read) refers to emails sent by K.D. himself wherein he exposted his intentional desire to distribute copyrighted works. That's a bit different than setting up a cloud computing service, mostly in terms of it's unbelievable stupidity.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[nbauman]

Prosecutors write internal memos to tell each other the strengths and weaknesses of the case. Then they write indictments in which they leave out all the weaknesses. They often leave out exculpatory material, even during the trial.

They have millions of emails, and they've confiscated the servers so Dotcom and his lawyers can't go back and see what they actually wrote, and what happened before and after.

Dotcom can't even pay his lawyers because they confiscated all his money. If the federal prosecutors are so insistent on bringing justice for the poor entertainment companies, why don't they even up the contest by working without pay themselves?

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[fredprado]

Sorry, but you are insane. The MAFIAA does not represent the rights of anyone but big business'. The common work does not benefit from copyright at all. Most work in US is generated by small companies. Big companies outsource most of their jobs. And guess what, small companies are the mostly negatively affected by copyright issues.

And yes, it is wrong to enforce some people rights, when by doing so you are ignoring other people's rights. Thousands of people used Mega Uploaded service for legal storage, even if thousands more used it for piracy. The US government blatantly ignored these people's rights, and without observing ANY due process confiscated all their data, blocked their access and sequestered their data. How exactly can you completely ignore the huge amount of damage the government made to innocent people, in order to preserve the "rights" of just a few?

The MAFIAA is entitled to have rights, the problem is that their rights seem to be considerably greater then mine or yours. The government has the obligation to use proportional resources to defend people's rights. It can't just use all its money to help me to find the person who killed my family, for example, even if it is a just cause, because by doing so it would be neglecting everything else.

Furthermore the government can't blow up its cities to kill criminals. Even if most of the city is composed by criminals. That is a think totalitarian regimens do... What the DoJ did to Megaupload is just that.

And please, stop with these fallacious arguments about the poor employees. The employees are either very rich artists, who don't really deserve all the money they already made, or common works that could work anywhere for basically the same amount of money they are payed. They are a small minority of the market and can easily be absorbed to other business even if MAFIAA ceased to exist tomorrow.

One more thing, the effect Kim has over MAFIAA business is mostly irrelevant. He is not the cause but just a symptom of the majority's repulse of copyright. Copyright was something created by society for a purpose and corrupted along the way. It will be gone sooner or later as society repudiates it, and no force can prevent it.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[cheekyjohnson]

And why on earth would anyone visit the site and view the ads?

It doesn't really matter what their intentions are. Advertisements and premium accounts are their revenue source, not copyrighted works.

You can deny all you want that the value of Megaupload was the appeal of copyrighted content

This is a straw man. I have repeatedly stated that I do not care what the users go there for as I feel it is irrelevant.

I believe it's money well spent because you have a cynical dickhead like K.D. profiting off the hard work of people who worked very hard to create this content.

This will do absolutely zero good. Profiting off of it or not, it makes no difference. There are many other sites from which to download things, this trial costs a lot of money, the guy was in another country, and the matter is so petty (an unquantifiable loss of potential gain) that it's not even worth it.

It's wrong.

According to you.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

Sorry, but you are insane. The MAFIAA does not represent the rights of anyone but big business'. The common work does not benefit from copyright at all. Most work in US is generated by small companies. Big companies outsource most of their jobs. And guess what, small companies are the mostly negatively affected by copyright issues.

It is you, sir, who are insane. The people who are directly represented by the MAFIAA, in turn, depend on and funnel money to tiny folks like you and I that provide small services: catering, craft services, drivers, etc. You obviously haven't the slightest inkling of how music of movies or TV get made.

The employees are either very rich artists, who don't really deserve all the money they already made, or common works that could work anywhere for basically the same amount of money they are payed.

Stop with YOUR fallacious arguments about how a rich asshole fat cat like Kim Dotcom is somehow a valid business man. He is not. Neither he nor anyone else is entitled to make money on the backs of content for which he has no rights.

One more thing, the effect Kim has over MAFIAA business is mostly irrelevant. He is not the cause but just a symptom of the majority's repulse of copyright. Copyright was something created by society for a purpose and corrupted along the way. It will be gone sooner or later as society repudiates it, and no force can prevent it.

It's more relevant than you'd like to admit. Society repulses copyright at their own peril. If society chooses to repudiate it, let it be legally done.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[fredprado]

The MAFIAA does depend on small people to do tasks, so does MegaUpload. Any company where the money goes to will use the money to buy goods. Actually it is a lot better for the common folk if the money is fragmented into a lot of small companies like Kim's, than concentrated in a few very big companies. Chances are it will circulate better and won't go to industrial plants in China.

I couldn't care less if Dotcom is or isn't a "valid" businessman, whatever that may be for you. He had a service and it was a very useful service for storage of legal content. Many many people used it for this end, even if many people more used it for illegal distribution of material. In my opinion he is not accountable for what his users did with their rented space, in yours he is. Fine, I won't discuss this. That is beside the point. Even supposing you are right and he should be accountable, that does not justifies what the government did.

As I said before it ignored the legal user's rights, destroyed their property without any warrant or due process, and all that using taxpayers money that would be a lot more useful elsewhere.

Regarding your last paragraph, society repulses copyright (at least as US sees copyright) legally in many places. Changing laws is unfortunately a slow process, but it will get there. While it does not people will do what they feel right as they always do. Just laws are usually obeyed with a little effort. Unjust laws, on the other hand, can only be enforced with machineguns pointed to people's heads, and as even US doesn't have that many machineguns, I highly doubt things will work out for the government. ;)

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[Tom]

Are we really going to convict this guy before he has his day in court?

Yes. We can do that, because we aren't a court of law. Our convictions counts for nothing. We have a conviction in the third meaning of the word.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[metacell]

It quotes extensively from correspondence among the defendants, who work for Megaupload and its related sites. The correspondence, the indictment says, shows that the operators knew the site contained unauthorized content.

That's not illegal in the slightest. A provider of a service is not liable for what their users do with it, and has no obligation to put a stop to it until they get a court order handed to them, not even if they know about it. Otherwise, you could hold a power company liable for selling electricity to criminals, or hold a gun manufacturer liable for selling guns to people who had committed crimes.

The indictment cites an e-mail from last February, for example, in which three members of the group discussed an article about how to stop the government from seizing domain names.

Once again, not illegal, or even suspicious. Any company who risks having their domain seized would discuss how to avoid it.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[metacell]

Well, duh. MegaUpload hired well-known artists, and paid them, to produce an original music video, and was planning to release more original songs as legal downloads. (YouTube)

Incidentally, the RIAA responded by taking the video down, using YouTube's DMCA take-down system, and when MegaUpload sued them for abusing the DMCA system, they RIAA defended themselves by claiming that they never made a formal DMCA take-down reqeust; they just pushed the button that YouTube gave them to take down videos.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[Hatta]

That is written based on the indictment. Why would you trust that anything in this indictment is factual?

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

Actually it is a lot better for the common folk if the money is fragmented into a lot of small companies like Kim's, than concentrated in a few very big companies. Chances are it will circulate better and won't go to industrial plants in China.

What??? A small band (four guys who own a van) sometimes depends on revenues from their ASCAP or BMI check (which pays the artists royalties). For me, it has meant the difference between making rent and getting evicted on one occasion. And you are generalizing the seizure of his company to the case at large. I would agree the seizure is heavy-handed and may well be found illegal, but I don't believe that should get in the way of prosecuting him. As I understand it, the seizure of his company would not be required to prosecute him. I guess we'll find out. On a personal note, I believe (with no evidence whatsoever) that the vast majority of files on MegaUpload were not legal. As for society repulsing copyright, that is society's right. I'm anxious to see how society sorts it out and expect that courts will sluggishly fall in line with society who appears to be practicing some civil disobedience. Things are certainly changing. I'm anxious to see if the courts match my ideas of what copyright law should mean. I firmly believe Kim DotFatAss is every bit as wrong as funnyjunk.com when they stole the Oatmeal and monetized it.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

It doesn't really matter what their intentions are. Advertisements and premium accounts are their revenue source, not copyrighted works.

You conveniently ignore the fact that nobody in the world would want either without the illegal copyrighted content. funnyjunk.com also made money off ads by showing the Oatmeal.

This is a straw man. I have repeatedly stated that I do not care what the users go there for as I feel it is irrelevant.

You'd feel differently if you had a personal interest in the matter. Suppose it was naked pics of your daughter?

This will do absolutely zero good. Profiting off of it or not, it makes no difference. There are many other sites from which to download things, this trial costs a lot of money, the guy was in another country, and the matter is so petty (an unquantifiable loss of potential gain) that it's not even worth it.

Profiting off it makes all the difference. If Megaupload establishes a precedent, it will be easier to prosecute the others, depending on the degree to which they adhere to the laws as written. If there were no money in it, it wouldn't matter at all.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

It think it's reasonable to assume that the prosecutors do have emails where the Megaupload employees discuss these matters. If they lied about that, it's a career-ending mistake as it embarasses not just the prosecutor but the judge as well. Indictments are a bit fictional when it comes to the scope of the crime, but must contain at least some fact.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

Please read the indictment (or at least one of the summaries linked above). The correspondence mentioned refers to copyrighted works that were not licensed and for which he had no rights (e.g., "Dexter" tv show). I am familiar with the megaupload video and I have to wonder about the decisions made by the artists involved. They don't seem particularly bright to me and I'd be willing to bet they might have been unaware of any nefarious activity on the part of Megaupload. The video in itself, however embarassing for the RIAA or artists involved, doesn't mean anything to me except some (rich) money-grubbing dopes took a handout from someone who was taking money out of their other pocket. Then, their money-grubbing managers/agents/lawyers pulled a sneaky to take it down. Ugly all around. I'm sure there are thousands of other artists large and small who a) wouldn't mind if a customer uploaded their own music to megaupload, possibly with the idea of sharing it with a few friends, who b) would not want Megaupload to make their songs/movies/tv available to the world at large and c) were not ever compensated despite the fact that Megaupload's CEO was making enough money to buy a dozen Ferraris.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

Yes but when Kim Dotcom says "yes, I know the TV show Dexter is on my site and we need to make it more easily accessible to everyone" that is something else and, depending on how the law is interpreted, possibly illegal. Here is some analysis that features actual lawyers: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/why-the-feds-smashed-megaupload.ars

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[cheekyjohnson]

You conveniently ignore the fact that nobody in the world would want either without the illegal copyrighted content.

"nobody in the world"? Well, that's quite the stretch, isn't it? That still has nothing to do with what I said, anyway.

You'd feel differently if you had a personal interest in the matter.

That's insanely off-topic. Still, it doesn't even matter what I'd feel in that scenario. That wouldn't make my current arguments wrong.

"You'd feel differently if..." isn't even an argument.

Profiting off it makes all the difference.

Not to me.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[cheekyjohnson]

That's insanely off-topic.

The "naked pics" part, anyway.

That said, if someone had a personal interesting in the matter, that wouldn't make their arguments any stronger. That's like letting someone whose child was murdered be the judge, jury, and executioner for the accused.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

That wouldn't make my current arguments wrong.

What are your arguments, exactly? You seem most often to resort to "well it doesn't matter to me." Let's see:

I believe the most idiotic legal action of them all was going after someone for this in the first place. A colossal waste of taxpayer money, I think.

That's really just an unsupported opinion which I don't share. And this, really, is why I mentioned those with an interest in the matter. If you are interested, you quite reasonably feel differently.

As far as I'm aware, he didn't take anything. And what he profited off of was ads and premium accounts, not copyrighted works.

Didn't "take" anything sort of misses the point. "Taking" something is not the crime in question. It's making money off other people's artistic works without a license.

All of this could be argued for any website. If you want to argue that he knew about it, that's a different matter.

That is precisely what I'm arguing. Read the indictment before you go running your mouth off.

I think it's ridiculous that some think you can't have ads simply because there might be copyrighted works involved.

This statement baffles me in that it belies an incredible simplicity that utterly fails to appreciate what this case is about. Personally, I don't want my music being used by a fatass german named Kim Dotcom to sell ads for hemorrhoid cream or cheeseburgers or whatever the fuck. Is that so wrong? In point of fact, the law provides remedies if someone chooses to use my art without my permission. That is what this case is about.

That's not what I said. I said that he profited off of ads and premium accounts. It isn't as if the copyrighted works were locked away and they were selling copies of them.

Your attitude on this point is particularly frustrating. Megaupload was in fact showing movies/tv/music to visitors who did not upload those songs themselves and making money by forcing them to watch advertisements while they did so. In point of fact, Megaupload was copying the bits and bytes of the song on their server to a datastream and delivering it to customers so yes it was in fact a copy of a copyrighted work. As the customers had not themselves uploaded this file (or any file with a matching hash), Megaupload was in fact distributing copyright-protected digital content for which they had no license. The indictment alleges that they did so knowingly and despite various DMCA takedown notices that could have uniquely identified the works in question. However strange or baffling this may seem to you, it is a violation of US law. Whether it all gets proved or not is another matter. Whether law enforcement and the prosecution over-reached is a related matter, but possibly not essential to the case.

"nobody in the world"? Well, that's quite the stretch, isn't it? That still has nothing to do with what I said, anyway

While I'll admit it's a bit of a stretch that "nobody" would want to go (people do use file sharing services) I don't think in the case of Megaupload it is much of a stretch at all. Given the nature of Megaupload's promotional tactics it seems pretty clear to me that access to copyrighted content is a cornerstone of their business model -- and not just one's own content but any content. This is the essence of this case and why it matters.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

Well, if some serial killer happens to come and torture you for a few weeks, it doesn't matter to me. If anyone tries to investigate it or perhaps try and rescue you or your family, I would consider that a complete waste of taxpayer money. Sorry.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[cheekyjohnson]

Alright. That is your opinion, after all. But I'd put an actual murder on a whole different scale than the mere possibility that potential gain was lost.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

It is certainly on a different scale -- in much the same way that Kim Dotcom's ill-gotten wealth is on an entirely different scale than the money I've made off my own music. People could get my band's music on Megaupload.com. I didn't want it there and couldn't do anything about it. Life is all about self interest.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[cheekyjohnson]

What are your arguments, exactly?

Have you been reading? That they make money off of advertisements and premium accounts, not copyrighted works. In order to make money off of copyrighted works, they'd have to sell them directly.

That's really just an unsupported opinion which I don't share.

It's just an opinion.

If you are interested, you quite reasonably feel differently.

That is precisely what I'm arguing. Read the indictment before you go running your mouth off.

That was one of the things you were saying, but I still do not believe they made money off of copyrighted works. That was my point. If knowingly letting people infringe copyright is a crime (if it is), then that's a separate issue. In my opinion, it cannot be said that they actually made money off of the content itself.

Personally, I don't want my music being used by a fatass german named Kim Dotcom to sell ads for hemorrhoid cream or cheeseburgers or whatever the fuck.

I don't care.

Is that so wrong?

I don't believe it's wrong to simply desire that it not happen. But to waste taxpayer money in a futile effort to stop what cannot be stopped, and what I believe should be a civil matter if it's illegal at all? Yes, I believe that's wrong.

Megaupload was in fact showing movies/tv/music to visitors who did not upload those songs themselves and making money by forcing them to watch advertisements while they did so.

My argument is that it does not matter that they made money off of advertisements. I believe they have every right to put advertisements on their website and make money from them, even if some of the content may be copyrighted. I believe that the only way to make money off of the copyrighted works themselves would be to sell individual copies to people.

Whether law enforcement and the prosecution over-reached is a related matter, but possibly not essential to the case.

It may not be essential to the case, but it's what I, personally, care about. I don't believe I mentioned what I think the law is, but only what I think it should be.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

That was one of the things you were saying, but I still do not believe they made money off of copyrighted works.

We disagree on this matter. I find your position ludicrous. I believe the popularity of Megaupload was blatantly built on the appeal of copyrighted content and file sharing of non-infringing content was at best a side show.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[cheekyjohnson]

I believe the popularity of Megaupload was blatantly built on the appeal of copyrighted content and file sharing of non-infringing content was at best a side show.

I don't have actual numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was true.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[Hatta]

The indictments contain only excerpts, devoid of context, and are still not very convincing. What exact statement from Dotcom do you find so damning?

Also, I think you are wildly optimistic about the accountability of prosecutors.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[fredprado]

This small band of people could just as well depend on the revenue of thousands of other smaller business. Money doesn't just disappear. It doesn't really matter if BMI, ASCAP or DotCom and his peers have the money. Whoever has the money will need services and goods and will pay for them.

Furthermore it is much better for your 4 guys small company and almost everybody else that money circulates the most it can. Money has a much worse tendency to accumulate if it is on the hands of a few very big companies. So from an economic point of view anything smaller that takes money from very big companies is a positive force.

The prosecution was an act of total disregard over people's rights and property. Even if most of the data stored was illegal (and it is a VERY big IF) that does not justify the seizure as it was done. You don't take all stuff from everybody's houses in a neighborhood, without warranties, to get evidence against a landlord because some of their tenants, or even most of their tenants are selling drugs within his properties. That violates human rights, constitutional rights and basically any right I can think about in any civilized country.

If you want to live in a totalitarian regimen, my friend, accepting and cheering actions like this is the quickest and best way to get there.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

You obviously have your own opinions about what is damning and what is not. Read it yourself: http://documents.latimes.com/justice-department-indictment-file-sharing-site-megaupload/

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

Money doesn't just disappear. It doesn't really matter if BMI, ASCAP or DotCom and his peers have the money. Whoever has the money will need services and goods and will pay for them.

Bullshit. ASCAP is a non-profit organization formed for the purpose of collecting and distributing royalties to artists. Megaupload is a for-profit organization which sells advertising on the back of ill-gotten content and funnels it all to a fatass German living in New Zealand who bought 12 Ferraris. My band's music was on that site. They didn't have our permission. They didn't pay us. As far as we were concerned, that money disappeared.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[Hatta]

I have. That's how I knew it was a bunch of context free excerpts. A lot of them are completely irrelevant to the case. e.g. Dotcom tells his people not to perform mass deletions of links if the request comes from Mexico. Completely irrelevant to a US court.

I think your original assessment is correct. Dotcom will lose big if he ever sees a US court. But not because he is guilty of breaking any law he had an obligation to follow. Only because the US justice system is wildly unjust.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[fredprado]

If an organization is profit oriented or not is irrelevant here. Money is money it circulates regardless of the source. What varies is how much of it and how frequently. MegaUpload had servers and employees and payed for them. Proportionally a much greater part of their income ended back in the economy than Time Warner's do, for example.

The only people really affected are copyright owners, like your band, but I can bet it is on many many other places in the Internet and whoever wants to pirate your music will with or without DotCom. I understand why you hate people that make money with unlawful distribution but as I see you can keep disgruntled about it to no benefit or accept it as a fact and adapt.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[metacell]

I've read a few of the summaries (with excerpts from the indictment), and in the case of the Dexter show, it seems Dotcom was just using a file with the Dexter show as an example of a playback problem that affected many video files (legal or illegal).

Depending on where the uploader lived, even the Dexter file itself may have been completely legal, since many countries allow you to rip DVDs (i.e, format-shift) and share them with friends and family (fair use).

Of course, the odds are in favour of the file being illegally uploaded, but MegaUpload can't assume that it was, and has no legal obligation to check it up.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[metacell]

P.S. The situation is similar to when someone sells a product that is used for illegal purposes in 99% of the cases (for example, equipment that can be used to bypass cable TV encryption). They may be aware that most of their income comes from illegal uses of their product, but as long as they don't have the stated purpose to facilitate crime, they're legally in the clear.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[metacell]

From the article:

Law professor James Grimmelmann of New York Law School tells Ars, "If proven at trial, there's easily enough in the indictment to prove criminal copyright infringement many times over. But much of what the indictment details are legitimate business strategies many websites use to increase their traffic and revenues: offering premium subscriptions, running ads, rewarding active users.

The key word here is "if". The analysis assumes the allegations can be proven. Remember that the indictment is written to cast the accused in the worst possible light.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

"If proven at trial, there's easily enough in the indictment to prove criminal copyright infringement many times over.

This sentence is confusing to me, but I paraphrase it thusly: "if the prosecution really has the evidence described in the indictment and this evidence is permitted at trial, then they have a slam-dunk case because they can prove criminal copyright infringement many times over." I could be reading it wrong. The sentence wants for lack of clarity. If my interpretation of Grimmelmann is correct, I would expect that the Megaupload trial will be used to establish precedent for wide-ranging prosecution of similar firms that use these strategies. At this point in time, copyright law in the wild west of the internet is not clear. I expect the justice department, under fierce lobbying from entertainment-related industries, is hoping to establish some kind of order in the madness and this seems a likely starting point -- a really unlikeable guy blatantly making money off stuff for which he has no license. He's like the poster boy for unscrupulous douchebaggery.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

I think you are correct, sir. It must be proven that they had intent for the criminal case to stand. From what I can tell, some of the email presented as evidence illustrates that to some degree. The grand jury seems to have thought so.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[sneakyimp]

I agree with your assessment. I suspect it was the desire for more detailed information about the legality or illegality of such files that led to the seizure of property -- they wanted to find out more about the provenance of these files. I can't comment on whether that seizure was legal or not. They had servers in Virginia and other places too. Apparently New Zealand's courts have a different feeling about Kim DotFat's Ferraris and such. I doubt they will go very far in proving anything.

Re:Your opinion is a joke

[metacell]

Yes, something like that. But I think the DOJ has gone out of its way to find something nefarious in MegaUpload's correspondence, and are now having difficulty proceeding with the case.

I'm not sure they even want to proceed -- perhaps they just want to drag it out until MegaUpload is bankrupt, or until the whole issue is moot because some other filesharing technology has taken over.

Re:What country's holding Dotcom's funds?

[Darkness404]

Sadly there is nothing not under the USSA's tyrannical jurisdiction with the exception of countries such as North Korea. Even "safe" jurisdictions such as Switzerland have treaties with the US government.

Re:More like Kim Dot-Scum

[Darkness404]

So what? He provided a good service to millions. A company has very little to do with the personality of the creators. A good product is a good product even if it was created by someone you wouldn't admire.

Re:What country's holding Dotcom's funds?

[k(wi)r(kipedia)]

I've not been arrested for terrorism, so I don't know. Seriously, I've always thought that funds are frozen only for people alleged to have committed serious shit like blowing up buildings or selling large quantities of hallucinogens.

Re:What country's holding Dotcom's funds?

[rhook]

After 9/11 it was all over the media when the US Government extended its reach concerning financial institutions. They were freezing accounts "suspected" of being tied to terrorism all over the world.

Public Perception of Kim Dotcom

[enter to exit]

It's been interesting to see the public perception of Kim Dotcom morph from "evil bastard who got his comeuppance" to "cult hero and victim".

He would have had to be an idiot to an unbelievable level not to have known that his mega* services were for the most part being used for piracy. On the other hand the mega* could have been used for legitimate purposes as well and they did provided a mechanism for entities to declare infringement and have the offending files removed. It seems like he has following the law to the letter and nothing more (which is all we can ask).

The next question is: Did he do anything he shouldn't have? He provided storage for files in exchange for advertising. It's previously been ruled that a service provider is not responsible for the content users store, until they have been given proper notice of illegal activity in which case they must act appropriately.

However this pans out it's going to be precedent setting.

Re:Public Perception of Kim Dotcom

[detritus.]

It's been interesting to see the public perception of Kim Dotcom morph from "evil bastard who got his comeuppance" to "cult hero and victim".

Learn the difference between personal opinions of character to defending due process, liberty and justice for anyone.

Re:Public Perception of Kim Dotcom

[bpkiwi]

I have to agree. What will be most interesting for me is the discussion around MegaUpload paying 'popular' users. If they reasonably knew user X was uploading Dexter episodes, and they paid that user money because their uploads were popular, did they have the responsibility to ensure that user was legally entitles to distribute that content?.

I hope the answer is 'no' - as long as there is some plausible scenario where the user might be entitled to do so, it should not be up to the infrastructure provider to check. Indeed, how could they? - start calling the studios and saying "hey, do you have a staff member with an account called "jose4452" on megaupload and do they have permission to promote Dexter by uploading episodes?". Would they be expected to work out that an obscure b-grade movie was in fact owned by a guy in Detroit and get hold of him to ask?

Once you add in factors such as countries where time/format shifting is legal, and that just because it's called "Dexter.avi" doesn't mean it's actually a popular TV show, and it would be insane to feel that the burden of checking falls upon them. The safe harbor provisions of the DMCA are there for this exact reason.

Re:Public Perception of Kim Dotcom

[metacell]

Also, in some countries, filesharing in general is legal.

Re:Public Perception of Kim Dotcom

[brit74]

I'm not sure how much has reputation has actually changed. I'm sure a lot of people still reading the Kim Dotcom articles tend to disproportionately be pro-piracy - they dislike the US, hate that the US is actually enforcing copyright, bringing pain to piracy enablers like Kim Dotcom. By in large, they've decided that they'd rather see some nasty guy like Kim Dotcom make millions of dollars in ill-gotten money than have piracy go away.

Re:More like Kim Dot-Scum

[djlowe]

He is a convicted felon, thief, and con artist. Not someone to admire.

Who said anything about admiring him? Even if your assessment is true, he's still entitled to due process under US law, by definition, from "Yick Wo v. Hopkins", 1886, as quoted in

http://open.salon.com/blog/scottstarr/2010/03/20/despite_recent_demagoguery_non-citizens_also_have_constitut

Most relevant part quoted here:

The fourteenth amendment to the constitution is not confined to the protection of citizens. It says: âNor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.â(TM) These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality; and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws⦠The questions we have to consider and decide in these cases, therefore, are to be treated as involving the rights of every citizen of the United States equally with those of the strangers and aliens who now invoke the jurisdiction of the court.â

The truth of the matter is, this is actually the best approach he could take, and one that he SHOULD take. By US law, his assets MUST be unfrozen at this point, because he has yet to be found guilty of any crime by due process of US law.

The real question is: Will the US Federal Government actually OBEY their own laws as interpreted by SCOTUS?

Somehow, I doubt it. There's too much money at stake, potentially, and there's no way that our Facist Overlords in the US are ever going to permit this: Crippling him by freezing his accounts worldwide, regardless of due process, gives them leverage, and there's NO way that they'll give up that advantage without a huge fight.

Look for the US Federal Government to try to turn this into a RICO case, to keep his assets frozen, by arguing that this is a case of "organized crime", in response to this.

You heard it here first.

Cynically,

dj br

Re:What country's holding Dotcom's funds?

[k(wi)r(kipedia)]

Who knows, maybe heavyweight Dotcom's money is "stored" in stone. What worries me is what determines jurisdiction when mere accusation can put criminal suspects in the court system of another country? Personally, I'd prefer if the trials are done in the country where they live, even those accused of trading in illegal drugs. (Proof of possible guilt appears to be lighter in extradition cases.) I'd probably make an exception for war criminals and terrorists. The ideal solution would be for them to be tried in a truly international court, but with the way the UN works, who knows how the verdict would go?

Re:If they have no case...

[AK Marc]

Don't care or know him well enough to call him a douche though.

People who come up with a simple idea and make millions/billions off it are often "hated". Whether it's Facebook, or buying DOS from IBM and selling it back to them at a profit, or hosting a sharing site, if you make it big with an easy thing that anyone could do, they'll hate you because you did it and not them. He's apparently not a douche in person, though he understands the rules and chooses to break them, which pisses off many, to no end.

Pointless from the FBI/Cartel POV

[strikethree]

Ummm, why would they (FBI and media cartels) agree to this? The punishment of frozen assets is much better than risking not being able to punish at all.

Re:Pointless from the FBI/Cartel POV

[c0lo]

Ummm, why would they (FBI and media cartels) agree to this? The punishment of frozen assets is much better than risking not being able to punish at all.

As pointless as "calling your bluff" is in poker playing: if the called player is not doing it, then it becomes pretty clear to everybody he's not playing by the rules.

Re:Pointless from the FBI/Cartel POV

[bpkiwi]

Kim knows that - he''s just savvy enough to call them on it and get the positive press. "Kim? yeah he's not a criminal, he totally offered to just go over and sort it out - but the DOJ turned him down".

Dear Mr. Dotcom

[guruevi]

This is the DHS - ICE department. You have now been declared an enemy combatant. If you could, save yourself some trouble and go straight to Cuba.

Thank you for your cooperation, please spread wide.

Idiot

[dinther]

Do you use Dropbox, Google Drive or any of the other hundreds of file storing/sharing options out there?
My new Samsung Galaxy S3 phone even has a dropbox app build in that I can't even get rid off!

Inconsistencies in TFA

[TubeSteak]

Dotcom railed against the handling of the United States' legal case against him and a New Zealand court's decision to delay his scheduled Aug. 6 extradition hearing to a tentative date of March 25, 2013, saying that the U.S. government -- with help from authorities in New Zealand -- is using "dirty delay tactics instead of evidence."

Ongoing legal arguments over the legality of the evidence led to the delay of the extradition hearing, with both prosecutors and Dotcom's attorneys agreeing to the postponement, which was revealed in legal documents released on Monday.

So which is it?
The US Government is jerking him around or his attorneys agreed to the delay?

Re:Inconsistencies in TFA

[bpkiwi]

The judge ruled that the US had to supply Dotcom's legal team with all the evidence they had collected so he could use it to defend himself at the extradition hearing. The US want to appeal that ruling, and have said they will take it to the New Zealand Supreme Court if necessary. The delay is to give that appeal time to happen. Kim is saying that they are jerking him around by refusing to hand over the evidence to the defense.

Delusional

[__aaltlg1547]

Defendant offers prosecutor a deal? Somebody needs to explain to this fool that's not how these things work.

Re:Delusional

[ThatsMyNick]

Er, they do it all the time. Defendant offers a deal, prosecutor counters with another deal. When they can agree on one, both of them shake hands and leave.

Kimdotcom is either bluffing or stupid.

[xs650]

Kim needs to be careful and stay out of the US, embarrassing the US government can get you in more trouble than committing a crime.

Stupid move

[Anonymous Coward]

A wounded bear is still a bear, one is ill-advised to start poking it.

Much as I hate the emtertainment industry as it stands and the mockery of a justice system that panders to it, I wouldn't have a lot of sympathy if provoking the bear got him his head on a plate. It doesn't matter that they're (justice, government) entertainment industry puppets, it doesn't matter if they're right or wrong - none of that makes them any less dangerous.

Fwiw I am pro-sharing but anti-piracy - if you don't understand the difference between to two you have no business commenting.

They can always call him "terrorist" ...

[boorack]

... if other charges won't stick. Given how "just" is their DoJ, I think they'll lock him down forever the moment he appears in US, citing some obscure laws plus more or less fabricated "evidence" (or even without charges). They will keep him locked (in solitary confinement if needed) as long as he pleads guilty and signs a list of charges pre-written for him by US authorities. In his case going to a country whose legal system has morphed into something akin banana republic is a legal equivalent of suicide.

Re:They can always call him "terrorist" ...

[hughk]

All it needs is for something related to militant Islam (let alone bomb making instructions) to be found in the dumps and then Kim can be accused of "aiding terror".

Sounds like a man with a clear conscience.

[jcr]

I really want to see him litigate this, and press criminal charges against every government minion who participated in seizing his assets without his ever having been convicted of any crime.

-jcr

Re:What country's holding Dotcom's funds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you been living under a rock since 9/11?

What happened in September 2011?

Chickens came home to roost. Hilarity ensued. New Yorkers baaaaawwwwwwed their eyes out.

Re:More like Kim Dot-Scum

[ShakaUVM]

I'm curious how people are supposed to defend themselves when the government takes all their money up front.

How is this even legal?

scum will be scum

[Tom]

...and appearing to be the nice guy is just part of the scam. He wants his money so he can move it somewhere safe to a) disappear and b) should that fail, still have it no matter how the trial ends.

He's a scumbag and always will be, he has more than enough history to make it clear that he's a career criminal. This is not a good-vs-evil case, it's an evil-vs-evil case and we, the good people, should sit back and relax and despite your feelings (which have been manipulated by PR), our job should be to make sure that there aren't two winners, like these scumbags making a deal that is bad to all of us. Say, Kim getting a token sentence in return for becoming the MAFIAAs greatest asset in demonstrating that file sharing really is evil and everything and needs to be made illegal.

Re:scum will be scum

[zyzko]

Scumbags deserve justice too and the playground should be the same. And Dotcom is not likely to live in poverty right now, he just maybe can't go to Germany for his annual supercar-fest and has to rent a helicopter ride, not ride in his own. But this is a side-track, scumbags always stash money, even to the bitter and the dictators and criminals keep the last case of dollars/gold/jewelry with them. The real question is is the process done properly and should Dotcom have access to the material he seeks for his defense? That is not money, that is a principle of the justice system. And how are international cases handled and which laws are applied as more and more alleged criminals are citizens of country a, live in country b and are prosecuted in country c while their crime has happened in country d - this needs to be addressed more clearly.

It is shame rich scumbags (like Dotcom) usually do get better terms when facing for an example individuals that are victoms of a scam. But now he faces the mighty copyright-conglomerate of US of A and that means the opposite side can influence the rules as well.

It should not be this way, but we have to play with what we have, and I fear that two evils will make a deal in the end.

Re:scum will be scum

[metacell]

Both parties may be scumbags, but the media compaines are the dangerous scumbags with lots of power, while Kim Dotcom is the harmless scumbag who, in my opinion, also happened to provide a useful service that had a positive net effect on society.

Re:scum will be scum

[Tom]

He deserves everything that's coming to him and I don't care who delivers it. Even if you dislike the police, you are probably happy whenever they put a murderer or rapist away. Same here. I've been nicely asked to leave cinemas because I was distributing leaflets detailing some of the movie industry actions, so don't for a second think I'm on their side. But Kim needs to be put behind bars, good riddance, and we can focus on the criminal movie industry tycoons afterwards, it's not like they're going anywhere.

Re:scum will be scum

[BeanThere]

So we should give up fundamental principles of justice and due process because he is allegedly a scumbag? Then what is the point of believing in principles of justice at all? (E.g. due process, innocent until proven guilty, etc.)

Well, yeah, if you got a 6 digit UID

[SmallFurryCreature]

I suppose it is true that it is hard to tell the difference between male and female for the more senior slashdot users :P Oh wait, mine is actually lower... SHIT!

Kim Dotcom is a colossal asshole

[circletimessquare]

and yet the US DOJ and the rent seeking corporate parasites on whose behalf this fiasco is spearheaded, make Kim Dotcom look like an angelic martyr

copyright law is such a joke. when you try to enforce it, you wind up with hilarious farces like this atrocious case

Dear Kiwis:

As an American, I apologize for my government creating this farce in your country. There are plenty of Americans who are right there with you in thinking what a trumped up pile of sheepshit this painful embarrassment is.

Regards,
your fellow media conglomerate rent seeking parasite hater

At this rate

[ThatsNotPudding]

He will be asked in court to try on a pair of shriveled, dissicated gloves. Where's Sam Waterston when you need him?

Re:What country's holding Dotcom's funds?

[metacell]

I'm only following his case through this fine forum. So I'm curious, does King Dotcom have all his funds stashed away in some US bank? Or does the US have the ability to put a hold order on money stoned in another country?

In this particular case, the USA got the New Zealand government to raid MegaUpload, arrest Kim Dotcom and some of his associates, and freeze their assets, with the help of the extradition agreement between the two countries.

Right now, it's uncertain if the charges will stick long enough for Dotcom to actually be extradited.

If you liked them?

[phorm]

Heck, those guys "fixed" most of the games I already owned.
Back in the days where DRM was mostly easily-lost CD-keys and/or disc swapping, they made PC gaming a hell of a lot less of a PITA.
Nothing like finding a noCD crack so that you no longer have to keep a 200-CD wallet beside the PC and constantly swap discs between games (or hell, even for a single 5-disc game).