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Alleged KickassTorrents Owner Considers 'Voluntary Surrender' To the US (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Earlier this year a Polish court ruled that Artem Vaulin, the alleged owner of the defunct torrent site KickassTorrents, can be extradited to the United States. The decision came as a disappointment to the defense team, which quickly announced an appeal. Vaulin has since been released on bail and currently resides in a Warsaw apartment. His release has made it easier to communicate with his attorneys in the United States, who have started negotiations with the U.S. Government. While the extradition appeal is still ongoing, it now appears that under the right conditions Vaulin might consider traveling to the United States voluntarily, so he can "resolve" the pending charges. This is what the defense team states in a motion for a status conference (pdf), which was submitted earlier this week.
They will want to make an example of him..
Why the fuck would a sovereign nation extradite someone to the US over something as victimless as hosting a website?
Oh right. The corporations own the US and the US owns the world.
They think they can make their law apply worldwide and bully countries to give up citizens because they infringes some law in the US.
Imagine if insulting the president was against the law, similar to the lese majeste law in Thailand and other backward countries like it, would countries around the world let themselves be bullied by the US to give up hundreds of citizens for that as well?
For the linkbait headline, linky the linkbaiter. Coming to the states to resolve the despute legally is not even close to being equivalent to 'surrendering' one's self. It means that if certain criteria were met and parties were amenable, his legal team would be willing to work toward a favorable resolution for all in the states. He wouldn't be entering customs in chains or anything.
This terrorist is has performed crimes against arts and humanity itself.
I'd give him probation for coming up with such a cool name.
Having dealt with the government myself, I would urge Mr. Vaulin to do his utmost to disappear. Trusting the US to honor a deal would be extremely unwise, and I speak from experience which was both very unpleasant and very costly in the terms which matter most : years of a human life taken away for what in my case was a trivial offense. The adversarial nature of the US court system makes a result which is very perverted indeed all too possible. The court system is not about justice, it is about power, and that's the sad truth.
This fight against torrent websites proves one thing and one thing only, and that is that with enough money it is possible to get the US Justice Department to expend resources on a situation that is utterly insignificant to 99.9% of the American people. This exposes the true nature of how government works in the US. It's not really "of the people, by the people, for the people", it's a tool for the elite and all the rest of the population is along for the ride. Revolutions have started for less, in other countries, in the past. But the current average American is too fat and lazy to consider anything of the sort, so the shitshow continues.
kickass.cd? It's a pop-up hell, and seems only the 1st page works, but you can find torrents on it.
very bad idea... copyright is no joke in the USA
I still don't understand the legal theory that says that foreign citizens operating entirely outside of the US can be held accountable to US law.
We have seen this with gambling sites, file sharing sites, etc. I get applying US law if a foreign national defrauds a US citizen from their hideout in another country. Or going after the leadership of criminal conspiracies that operate inside the US but have their top people overseas - a buddy of mine investigates medical fraud cases that are run by an organized crime ring in Cuba of all places.
But this is different. A web site that hosts links to files hosted elsewhere and is itself hosted in another country by people who are subject to the laws of other nations? Can China come after the editors and owners of Slashdot for its users violating Chinese speech laws? They seem to take those more seriously than the US takes copyright law.
This whole thing is nuts. Or maybe I'm missing something.
If I would voluntarily travel to the US after being accused of something, One condition would be that I received US citizenship before getting on the plan. Without it foreigners have no right to a fair trail.
he wil get a minimum of 10 years in the best case scenario . i loved his website, it was best site on internet .
Set foot on US soil and you'll get your ass handed to you. Anyone facing charges would be better off to stay put and hope to evade prosecution by the vagaries of extradition proceedings.
I already copyrighted that joke. Please take it down now!
n/t
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.