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From File-Sharing To Prison: The Story of a Jailed Megaupload Programmer (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: "I had to be made an example of as a warning to all IT people," says former Megaupload programmer Andrew Nomm, one of seven Megaupload employees arrested in 2012. Friday his recent interview with an Estonian journalist was republished in English by Ars Technica (which notes that at one point the 50 million users on Megaupload's file-sharing site created 4% of the world's internet traffic). The 37-year-old programmer pleaded guilty to felony copyright infringement in exchange for a one-year-and-one-day sentence in a U.S. federal prison, which the U.S. Attorney General's office called "a significant step forward in the largest criminal copyright case in US history."
"It turned out that I was the only defendant in the last 29 years to voluntarily go from the Netherlands to the USA..." Nomm tells the interviewer, adding "I'll never get back the $40,000 that was seized by the USA." He describes his experience in the U.S. prison system after saying good-bye to his wife and 13-year-old son, adding that now "I have less trust in all sorts of state affairs, especially big countries. I saw the dark side of the American dream in all its glory..."
In U.S. court documents Nomm "acknowledged" that the financial harm to copyright holders "exceeded $400 million."
"It turned out that I was the only defendant in the last 29 years to voluntarily go from the Netherlands to the USA..." Nomm tells the interviewer, adding "I'll never get back the $40,000 that was seized by the USA." He describes his experience in the U.S. prison system after saying good-bye to his wife and 13-year-old son, adding that now "I have less trust in all sorts of state affairs, especially big countries. I saw the dark side of the American dream in all its glory..."
In U.S. court documents Nomm "acknowledged" that the financial harm to copyright holders "exceeded $400 million."
The USA sees its future in intellectual property. Non-tangible goods. With that directive the pendulum is swinging towards the absurd side right now. Eventually, say 10 to 15 years or so - government time, it'll swing back to a sane-middle.
Shh.
for the USA: manufacturing is done elsewhere, so it tries to monopolize the worlds intelectual property and tries to turn it into something protected and ever more valuable, extending copyrights indefinately and bullying any country that doesn't play ball.
We can only hope for and wait for the total downfall and collapse of the US economy, before this madnes ends.
Don't be so smug. We came damn close in the first separation referendum. After the second one, it's obviously not going to happen, but now we've got the old WCC (Western Canada Concept) separatists starting to come out of the woodwork.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Vive le Quebec libre!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
...In U.S. court documents Nomm "acknowledged" that the financial harm to copyright holders "exceeded $400 million."...
Wouldn't the relatively light jail sentence handed down belie the level of financial harm claimed?
Everything I create is non-tangible intellectual property. All biomedical genetic advances are in the end described by sequences and methods. Completely replicable. And without patents or copyrights they would never ever reach their potential as there would be no money to deliver them to people or companies. Companies would not base product lines around things they can't monetize or would expect to be undercut by an overseas manufacturer. SO they rot in the lab.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You are supposed to embrace the heresy. The rich are only here to make the rules for you. They only have 1 rule for themselves. Greed no matter the cost.
Never going to happen. The younger generation doesn't give 2 shits about the old farts complaining about some fat woman working at Eaton's speaking to them in English more than half a century ago.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
you can't do the time. Don't do it!
He complains about some money siezed. Odd how he didn't complain about others' money being lost thanks to him and that FAT German.
Large-scale copyright infringement is a felony in many countries, and we got our current draconian copyright system in large part at the urging of European publishers. Copyright law is still more permissive in the US than elsewhere. References to the US or the "American Dream" are utterly gratuitous.
Someone seems to be criminally naive.
I don't either. Your point being?
When that massive housing bubble of yours crashes, you won't be so smug.
The people who "share" files were never the ones that would buy content.
A file shared is not a media stolen.
A file shared is not a copyright violated - no money exchanged hands for the "media".
File sharing isn't "pirating" - no sabres were rattled, no ships were stormed, no lives were lost.
File sharing isn't "theft" - the original source of the file still exists and still belongs to the owner.
When will we, the people, kick our collective government representatives in the nuts until they wake the fuck up and stop listening to these RICO act violators, these Mafia-like entities, these black-mailing con artists who continue to make record profits while whining that they aren't making more, while continuing to withhold payments to the artists, directors, actors, stunt-people, gaffers, mixers, computer artists, musicians and whatnot.
Why are all of those that get the fruits of their labor stolen from them by the RIAA, MPAA, and other major criminal organizations like them, supporting these asshats? Why aren't they storming their strongholds and shoving spears through their collective entrails until they find the .1% of those organizations that aren't just greedy fuckwands willing to do anything just to make yet even more money.
sick of this authoritarian shithole
I had to be made an example of as a warning ...
This is standard behaviour for all governments and goes double, no, triple for the USA.
I was the only defendant in the last 29 years to voluntarily go ...
And that wasn't a red flag to him, especially since he knew was was being "made an example of"?
I saw the dark side of the American dream ...
There's no mystery how the US DOJ treats foreigners: Like the Australian who was imprisoned for 7 years before being charged with a crime.
On Friday his recent interview with an Estonian journalist was republished...
Ruin a lot of lives, seriously damage the global economy. It's all fine, as long as you don't make it easy for anyone to share a song or movie.
We keep using the phrase "The US is the world's policemen" without realizing that it is literally true, that even if you are not a US person and you do something that happens to be an offense in the US, even a nonviolent one, the FBI can come and get you in every part of the world.
This story needs to be trumpeted (or hillaried, if this is possible) in this year's political campaign. This is a lot more serious an abuse of centralized power than those banana regulations in the European Union.
Canada isn't much of a "state" at all, failed or otherwise, except perhaps a 51st state of the US.
The "American Dream" doesn't have anything to do with copyright infringement. It has to do with owning your own home and building a nice life for yourself, free of all but the minimal government interference. I guess he's just bitter and wants to shit on America by saying some words he heard once.
Seriously, I don't know what people like this are thinking. If you're going to commit copyright infringement on this scale then you've got to realize the forces you're up against and evaluate your risk against this kind of thing. And if you do decide on this career, stay in your own country where they can't get you.
What bothers me the most, I think, is the incessant whining. Waah, waah, police got me waah waah. You're going to be a martyr, don't be a baby about it. That's what bothered me about Assaunge, what a crybaby he was. Be defiant, tell them they can jail you but never silence you, and wear your prison sentence like a badge of honor. But no, it's always whine, moan, complain. P.U., what a bunch of stinkers.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
No,like America,but worse, at least the yanks are only a failed British colony,you canucks are partly a failed FRENCH Colony..
Lawyers lie. Jews lie. Jewish lawyers will try to convince you they are just standard American pioneers like Christopher Columbus.
In reality they are loyal to a country living under a force field.
A pirate without a boat can not be a pirate.
Make america great again!
Your arguments sound sane but couldn't be further from the truth.
When 'theft' of imaginary property takes place, that causes the loss of imaginary sales. Which causes damage to some rich f**s bank account. As in: imaginary money that does *NOT* appear in said bank account. Whether or not that imaginary money would have appeared otherwise, is irrelevant: it's the not-showing-up-of-something-expected that counts here.
For the 1%er concerned that's a very traumatic, life-changing event, and causes grave imaginary pain. Not to mention long-term mental harm (maybe that's why those rich f**ks are so f**d up in the first place).
Obviously that's much more serious harm than whatever a rapist could do to his victim. And therefore it follows that the punishment for this imaginary crime should be more severe than for rapists, murderers, armed robbers etc. No expense should be spared, no stone left unturned to grab these imaginary thieves off the streets, even if they were in a different country when the imaginary crime took place.
So for members of the general public: don't do it! Where possible, buy the physical media, *and* ask the owners of that imaginary property if there is some way to send money their way on top of that. When a Blu-Ray comes out, that's a chance to re-buy a movie you already bought on DVD. And when some DRM scheme makes your imaginary purchases disappear, seize the opportunity to send more of your hard-earned money that rich f**ks way. Then they'll have more money to pay their (copyright) lawyers, the imaginary property will be better 'protected', imaginary sales go up, and artists will receive a much greater share of the royalties. Which in turn will make those artists produce more and not-as-crappy-s**t as they produce today.
All for the public good, of course. Win-win for everybody!
they work hard to rewrite the laws, inching closer to basically saying "all the money is ours".
There is a problem in quoting Jefferson on IP.
Jefferson was an aristocrat wholly dependent on slave labor. He spoke for a pre-industrial agrarian society that would ultimately be destroyed by the Machine --- and the Machine was the creation of those who did believe in IP.
Jefferson had the good life handed to him on a plate. The kid up North? He had to work for it.
Most of the younger people in the Brexit referendum had voted "Remain" while the older 60+ voters were predominantly "Leave". So you Canadians might want to watch out: never underestimate the power of a cranky voting bloc with plenty of free time.
His name isn't Andrew Nomm.
It's Andrus Nõmm.
I was told real estate is an investment and renting is bad. I can't wait either...
There's also the standard of living thing.
To 'keep up with the Joneses', US Americans will buy clothes and sometimes only wear them once (or never) and have huge room-sized closets; will buy pre-prepared frozen meals; will watch TV for as many hours as they sleep.
And THIS standard of living, living hand to mouth but not going deeper into debt, can be below the poverty line.
One of the big issues with the USA is not "shit is expensive because of greedy corps" but rather that consumerism leads to gluttony and sloth, and corporations make their profits by making life easier in volume.
What about the financial harm to US taxpayers in all this international brigandy by the Justice Department, or the loss of perfectly "legitimate" files to uploaders, downloaders, and posterity/history? Anybody put a dollar figure on all that yet?
His real name is Andrus Nõmm.
Andrus is a very frequent Estonian first name.
The strange umlaut in "Nomm" / "Nõmm" is this letter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
No Estonian would be named "Andrew" nor "Nomm".
If you are not guilty, don't confess.
If you are not guilty, don't plead guilty.
If you plead guilty, don't expect my pity.
Meanwhile, the people that have stolen my credit card numbers 5 times in the last few years are living the high life; ignored by the grand american law enforcement machine. I am not a happy camper.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
I've read all comments, and it seems everyone here accepts that providing a file sharing service is an illegal activity.
Did this man actually uploaded copyrighted material? He did not.
Did he worked on it with the purpose of others uploading movies? He did not. He just provided a file sharing service, which I have used it myself to distribute family videos that were large enough to not be sharable by email.
So why do you all accept this ludicrus position that file sharing is illegal?
you never, ever, put yourself in the hands of the americans, for any reason
NEVER
Megaupload was used for breaking the law, but so is google, youtube etc.
What if USA decide to jail Tor developers?
In U.S. court documents Nomm "acknowledged" that the financial harm to copyright holders "exceeded $400 million."
Don't forget the $178 trillion damages done to the public.
(Yes I made that up, but so did they.)
... I suppose that would be the same in my country.
Europe has countries (specially the Nordic ones) with more advanced social systems. The Netherlands AFAIU is in a similar position.
Not so in some other countries regardless of their economic advancement status.
Particularly, we should ponder on whether a $400 million loss is enough to justify human suffering (which might result in death, considering the "quality" of some New World prisons).
Actually, using a person suffering to convey a message to future crime perpetrators is in itself a revolting concept, no matter how light. One should never increase a punishment beyond what is just.
I also find it hard to believe that Megaupload was profiting from people who weren't paying for stuff.
Megaupload might have been profiting from advertisers who were stupid enough to advertise to people who refused to pay for stuff but how's that illegal? Plus wouldn't the presence of crappy ads be more of a discouragement than encouragement? Perhaps unlike me everyone else is encouraged by ad-infested pages? If you were using adblockers and downloading for free (not paid account) Megaupload would have been _losing_ money on you.
Megaupload might also have been making money from companies that signed up for paid accounts to legitimately transfer huge files. Back then there weren't that many _convenient_ options.
Conveniently, the older generation of separatists is dying off, in part because they were heavy smokers. They are not missed.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
A file shared is a copyright violation, since it involves creating another unauthorized copy. It isn't commercial copyright infringement, but it's still against the law, and still can be a criminal matter (as opposed to a civil matter) in the US.
Copyright serves useful purposes, in allowing people to create things more or less on spec, and profit from them according to the popularity. We do want to compensate creative people who create things for our use and/or enjoyment, and I haven't seen a better way.
As to why the US citizenry doesn't do much, it's a matter of distribution of harm. There are a small number of people who profit very much from ridiculous copyright laws, and a much larger number of people who are harmed very little and in an indirect way, so they really don't care.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The people who "share" files were never the ones that would buy content.
Yeah, then the people who don't buy the content shouldn't have access to the files, right?
A file shared is not a media stolen.
Oh, the creator received the value they were asking for, then?
A file shared is not a copyright violated - no money exchanged hands for the "media".
I'd argue that, but even stipulating it, the right of the creator to determine who can copy the work has been breached. Thus copyright has been violated.
File sharing isn't "pirating" - no sabres were rattled, no ships were stormed, no lives were lost.
OK I bow down before your sole right to determine what words mean in the world and never again shalt a word be allowed alternate usages outside of your duly established authority. Hmmm..... so why is it you have the authority to determine what the word piracy means but the rest of society doesn't have the right to establish copyright law different from your notions?
File sharing isn't "theft" - the original source of the file still exists and still belongs to the owner.
Actually you have established that file sharing isn't larceny. You haven't shown that something of value wasn't taken... as in the right of the holder to say no you can't just make a copy of the file.
And me, while I could be wrong I'm pretty sure you damn well KNOW it is wrong and you're making up every possible excuse you can think of to justify the unlawful act. Even if you don't agree that it is wrong... well, the law differs with you. And some of us actually support it, hard as that may be for you to understand. If you don't want to pay for it, then don't copy it, and it is that simple.
When will we, the people, kick our collective government representatives in the nuts until they wake the fuck up and stop listening to these RICO act violators, these Mafia-like entities, these black-mailing con artists who continue to make record profits while whining that they aren't making more, while continuing to withhold payments to the artists, directors, actors, stunt-people, gaffers, mixers, computer artists, musicians and whatnot.
Oh, about the time that we, the people come up with a different way for the rightsholders to be compensated for holding the rights to copy the work in question. And there are plenty of artists, directors, stunt-people, gaffers, mixers, computer artists, musicians and whatnot who are utterly free to create whatever they want to and hold copyright over their work. Funny how they don't ever seem to make as much as the corporations, or are able to enforce their copyright.... It's almost like those organizations you detest manage to add value into the equation by working out distribution channels, radio/tv/theatre liasons, pooled legal services. So maybe that's why they're still around in an age when they really are "unnecessary."
Why are all of those that get the fruits of their labor stolen from them by the RIAA, MPAA, and other major criminal organizations like them, supporting these asshats? Why aren't they storming their strongholds and shoving spears through their collective entrails until they find the .1% of those organizations that aren't just greedy fuckwands willing to do anything just to make yet even more money.
Uh, because those "greedy fuckwands" you refer to manage to collectively distribute the risk of failure in order to get a cut of the rewards? (i.e. for every twenty artists who receive advances from the record label, 19 of them won't break even, even by honest accounting?) So the greedster pays out $10 million to acts who never make it end up grabbing a large chunk of the $20 million pie on that one who does.
You're welcome to storm their strongholds and shove a spear up their entrails, the minute you come up with