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Kim Dotcom Regrets Not Taking Copyright Law and MPAA "More Seriously"
concertina226 writes Kim Dotcom has spoken out about his long battle over copyright with the U.S. government and his regrets about the events that have led to his arrest ahead of his bail breach hearing on Thursday that could see him return to jail in New Zealand. "Would I have done things differently? Of course. My biggest regret is I didn't take the threat of the copyright law and the MPAA seriously enough," Dotcom said via live video link from his mansion in Auckland, New Zealand at the Unbound Digital conference in London on Tuesday. ... "We never for a minute thought that anyone would bring any criminal actions against us. We had in-house legal counsel, we had three outside firms working for us who reviewed our sites, and not once had any of them mentioned any form of legal risk, so I wish I had known that there was a risk."
It is actually probable that New Zealand law was broken, when their intelligence services were spying on him and possibly when they allowed the FBI to move a considerable volume of evidence back to the US without any legal process. As for New Zealand law being broken by the defendant, that hasn't been as well established.
A greedy moron who realized that he could become wealthy as a parasite, but somehow claims to not realize that eventually his wealth would not protect him from prosecution for his crimes. And yes, these were real crimes. This Isn't a guy who copied a couple of video tapes for personal use. He engaged in massive copyright infringement to enrich himself by stealing other people's work.
What he didn't evaluate was the risk that the MPAA et al had bought off/co-opted the US government, who decided they were going to go into the business of strong-arming people when they don't have an applicable law.
You can't plan for stuff like that.
Bullshit.
After the Pirate Bay was seized the 1st time, everyone in a similar business should've expected it, especially when he's a career criminal with several previous convictions, including for copyright violations, like Kimble is.
At that point, it's just a show trial.
And he's playing his role perfectly. What, you think he's the victim here? Please, get a grip. Actual victims of the government don't phone in their press conference from their mansion. They sit in Gitmo or some overcrowded federal prison with their assets seized through forfeiture laws. Yes, I know he's in NZ and those laws don't apply, I don't mean it literally. Everyone with three working brain cells will realized that if they wanted to, they could make his life less comfortable.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"to enrich himself"
This is what really sets him apart from other copyright cases. He knowingly hosted massive amounts of copyright content, regardless of how it got there, and created a system that gained him massive revenue from it.
No, as a matter of fact I think the man is an arrogant weasel and a parasite.
My problem is I have yet to see anything which indicates that NZ law was adhered to, that the US didn't take massive short cuts and just bluster their way through this, and that what he's accused of is actually a law on the books which is applicable where they claim it was broken.
I do not claim to understand all of the legalities. Not by a long shot. But, from what I've been able to see, neither the US nor NZ police bothered with them either.
So, as soon as you start to realize they skirted around the laws for something expedient, the amount of distrust around all of the rest of it goes up quite a bit.
If we don't have proper due process for scoundrels and assholes, what's to stop giving up on the pretense entirely?
I think the way this was handled by the FBI and the NZ police is so sketchy as to invalidate any of the claims about what he did, and who had jurisdiction to do anything about it.
And I also think that if he didn't have the resources to fight this, he'd have been carted off and subjected to a legal system which wasn't playing fairly.
So, in that regards, if he's fighting police agencies who feel they don't need to adhere to the niceties of the law ... well, then I think he should continue sticking it to them.
I'm far more concerned about the abuse of process and the law.
Because increasingly a lot of law enforcement has decided that the ends justify the means, and the law is just too damned inconvenient to follow.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.