I imagine the personal copyright violations are illegal under NZ law.
The leadership of MegaUpload is not automatically responsible for private copyright violations committed by their staff. If the leadership didn't know about it or show criminal neglect, they're not liable.
A large part of the fault lies with spineless leaders in Europe too. It's easier and more comfortable to let the United States run a large part of your defence, even if it means losing your freedom.
Julian Assange was accused of tampering with the condom so it broke, when the woman had only agreed to have sex provided a condom was used. He was also accused of trying to have non-consensual sex with the woman while she was sleeping, right after they had had consensual sex.
Yes, I also think it's questionable if that's a crime in the UK, but that's still the criteria the British courts used when trying the extradition.
Most mature western countries have very similiar copyright laws designed with the same notion: protect the property rights of a creator of an artistic or intellectual work. Check NZ and Swedish law before you blame the US
I'm very familiar with Swedish copyright law. It explicitly allows people to make a limited number of copies for individual use if they have a licensed original, and share them with close friends and family. Something which is usually illegal in the USA. That means a Swede and an American can upload the exact same file to MegaUpload, and only the American's copy is illegal. If a Swede loses his/her files on MegaUpload, it's definitely because of American corporations.
I admit I don't know what New Zeeland law has to say on the matter, but in any case, it was American corporations who initiated the shutdown and arrest.
(unless you've bought that big-Satan thing from Iran, or that big running dog thing from N Korea, or that...).
I'm perfectly capable of judging US international policy on it's own merits, thank you very much. The so-called Cablegate papers, released by Wikileaks, showed in painful detail how the United States systematically lobbies other countries to adopt their copyright policy. The Swedish government was described in the documents as "very cooperative". Give it a decade, and chances are we'll have lost the fair use rights we still have left.
It's not magic, it's extradition treaties and I had no idea that Swedes were that ignorant of international law. The crime happens wherever the equipment is located. And with good reason, it's hard enough to prosecute spammers and crackers as it is without having to convince the courts in their home country to convict. The crimes happen where the server is located and that's not a matter of magic, that's the logical extension of previous legal precedence.
Hardly. If the crime was taking place where the servers were located, it'd be even harder to prosecute someone. Then a person in the United States could defraud another person in the United States using a server on, say, the Phillippines, and the victim would be forced to take the matter to Phillippine courts. And the Phillippine courts would be unlikely to waste time and money on a legal process that had nothing to do with them.
Normally, the crime is considered to have taken place either where the victim or the perpetrator was located at the time. Or, in the case of a crime perpetrated through or against a company, where the company is based.
Of course, the United States has a tendency to pick and choose principles so the crime always falls under US jurisdiction. That doesn't mean other countries will agree to it, however.
I think the GP was referring to claims which are supposed to convince us that MegaUpload was intentionally promoting infringing material. For example, the claim that MegaUpload was "misleading" people about the amount of infringing files by "intentionally designing" their top 100 list to only list freely redistribuatle files. Really? Is there no other reason they'd chose to design the top list that way? Such as, they'd be committing copyright infringement if they listed links to files which were not freely redistributable.
The actual crimes they're accused of require state of mind, as the GP says, and the evidence for that seems very weak.
It's just that YouTube has been forced to provide such a tool to Universal by the DMCA. The law puts a censorship tool in the hands of large corporations.
If that's true, then DMCA will certainly lead to abuse and needs to be abolished.
It means a media corporation (like Universal) can issue a number of DMCA requests to a hosting service (like YouTube). The administrative expense forces the hosting service to give the media corporation an account where they can remove infringing material themselves. If that removal doesn't count as a DMCA request, It means the media corporation is now free to remove any file they want any time they want, with legal impunity.
Then why did their internal emails show that they were fully aware of the copyright violations?
The example seems to concern a user in Vietnam. I'm not familiar with Vietnamese copyright law, but I presume the uploads they rewarded him for were legal in Vietnam.
Remember, MegaUpload is not an American company, so they don't need to follow American copyright law.
Here is the kicker, we aren't talking about hypothetical or edge cases here. Artists were uploading their own tracks since they would get 90c in the dollar of the advertising revenue
Let's not forget all the non-Americans who uploaded songs and films legally according to their countries' fair use laws. Their access shouldn't be removed just because an American uploads the same file illegally.
Child pornography is illegal, in the sense that nobody is legally allowed to have it or distribute it. Copyrighted material, on the other hand, isn't inherently illegal. Just because one person is not legally allowed to distribute a copy doesn't mean that nobody else is.
Precisely. I'm allowed to rip a song or a film and upload it, so I can access it anywhere (format shifting). I'm even allowed to share the link with my close friends and family. But if an American uploads the exact same file, it's illegal, since their fair use laws are more restrictive.
It makes sense for MegaUpload to only remove the links used for illegal sharing, and keep all the rest.
As the internal emails show they were also fully aware of this fact.
This is problematic...
Running a service which is used for criminal activity is not illegal. It's only illegal if there's an intent to support the criminal activity. Otherwise, all broadband providers would be criminals, since a large portion of the bandwidth they sell is used for copyright infringement. Even the postal service would be illegal, since they're aware some of they packets they forward are illegal.
MegaUpload removed the infringing content as they became aware of it, by giving the media companies accounts they could delete files with. The memos only show that a few individual employees traded copyrighted material, not that the leadership was aware of it.
Remember, the copyright lobby is using weasel language to make MegaUpload sound guilty. You have to read the accusations really carefully.
However, it matters because MegaUpload used hashes on all the files and if someone uploaded the same file again, they only made a new reference to it. At the same time when they got DMCA notice they didn't remove all the urls associated with the file, but only the one that received the notice. That clearly shows intent of keeping as many copies of the file online while only removing the one that has been detected by the copyright owner.
Because the other references belonged to other users, who may be legally entitled to access the file according to their respective countries' fair use provisions.
For example, in my country, I'm allowed to format shift and make a limited number of copies for individual use, so I could upload my music collection to MegaUpload and give the links to my close friends and family. It's not fair if my access to the files is removed just because an American uploaded the same file illegally. MegaUpload is, after all, not an American company.
Some countries have even more permissive fair use rules, and allow unlimited non-commercial file sharing.
The copyright infringement case is very weak, since they only have proof that a few individual employees knowingly traded copyrighted material. There's no proof the leadership knew about it. And please note that it's the New Zeeland standards for copyright infringement which are relevant when the New Zeeland courts decide about extradition.
(The leadership of course knew there existed infringing material on their servers, which they also allowed the media companies to remove as they became aware of them. MegaUpload was right in only removing some copies of a file when the meida companies asked them to, since the other copies may have been uploaded legally according to the fair use laws in the uploader's country.)
Likewise, if the US and New Zeeland laws define money laundering differently, it's the New Zeeland laws which are relevant when deciding about extradition.
Contrary to what many American believe, extradition treaties do not make their laws apply to the rest of the world. That'd be absurd, since it would also work in reverse - Americans would need to follow the laws of every country in the world they had extradition treaties with.
Normally, a person needs to be accused of something which is a crime in both the country requesting the extradition, and the country granting it, for extradition to take place.
No, they should be prosecuted on New Zeeland, where the company is based.
The American and Dutch governments are of course free to shut down the servers in their respective countries. They just can't expect other nations to hand over their citizens because they did something which is a crime on the other side of the world.
Because you can't extradite people over civil matters and you can't confiscate property on foreign soil to cover the award.
Of course you can confiscate property on foreign soil. How do you think people get back money from frauds or embezzlement - it's not lost forever just because the perpetrator transfers them to a foreign bank. You just need the cooperation of the local government, just as with criminal matters.
And you don't need to extradite someone for civil cases, since, if they don't show up in court, the court can make a default ruling.
In this case though, the money laundering and other charges are pretty much always going to be felonies. And apparently if you distribute one or more work worth $1 000 or more during a 180 day period you're committing a felony. [...] the US certainly does have the right to try them for those felonies.
Contrary to what many Americans believe, American law does not apply to the whole world.
New Zeeland can only extradite someone if what they're accused of doing is a crime according to New Zeeland law. That's how extradition works. Google "dual criminality".
If extradition treaties forced you to follow the law of every country your country had a treaty with, it'd be absurd. A legislative change in one country could suddenly make people in a hundred other countries criminals and subject of extradition.
It's not silly at all, they've been arrested for activities connected with operations in the US. Any criminal activities that they've allegedly committed with those servers represent criminal activities in the US.
That's up to the New Zeeland courts to decide. If they rule that the alleged crime was committed in the country where the company is based (i.e New Zeeland), then the operators should be tried on New Zeeland under New Zeeland law.
It doesn't matter if American courts believe the alleged crime was committed in the USA. The extradition is tried by New Zeeland courts according to their interpretation of the extradition treaty.
I don't know the specifics of New Zeeland law, but in my country (Sweden), the crime is normally considered to have taken place in the alleged perpetrator's country of residence, not the country where the servers reside.
Of course, Americans are free to shut down the American servers if they like. But they can't make laws that magically apply to people on the other side of the world.
MegaUpload doesn't openly promote copyright infringement either. They provide a service which promotes copyright infringement - just like the broadband providers do.
Note that Dotcom is not originally New Zealander. Countries sometimes refuse to extradite people born in their country, but such usually isn't the case with foreign nationals.
Doesn't matter - the alleged act still needs to be a crime in the country granting the extradition.
And I'm pretty surprised you would support him either
I'm not supporting the person, I'm supporting a company that provided a valuable service to the public. MegaUpload helped people all over the world to exercise their fair use rights.
For example, in my country, I could rip my music CDs and put them on MegaUpload, and then listen to them anywhere, since format shifting is legal here.
Of course, the American media companies didn't like that, so they demanded that MegaUpload delete all copies of a file, even the copies that were uploaded legally.
I'm pretty tired of American corporations who like to pretend American law applies to the whole world. They have no right to ask a New Zeeland company to delete a Swedish users files, just because the files happen to be illegal for Americans.
Exactly correct. It's funny that people always point out that The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites are hosted in Sweden and therefore it's Swedish law that applies to them, but now it's somehow different when they hosted in the US.
You're quite correct that US law applies to the servers which are situated in the US. If you want to raid or shut down those servers, it's US law that applies.
However, the person(s) operating the servers normally fall under the jurisdiction of their country of residence. Since the "person" in this case is a company, MegaUpload, based in New Zeeland, it's likely that the alleged crime will be considered to have taken place in New Zeeland, and New Zeeland law will apply.
Basing jurisdiction on where the servers are situated wouldn't have worked anyway, since MegaUpload also have servers in other countries, like the Netherlands
In the case of Pirate Bay, both the servers and the people behind them resided in Sweden, so Swedish law applied to the whole case.
Promoting copyright infringement is a crime in quite a few countries
If "promoting copyright infringement" was a crime, then all broadband providers would be shut down long ago. There needs to be a criminal intent, which is very hard to prove.
Also, it depends on the exact circumstances. It doesn't necessarily have to be illegal in the extraditing country (although it usually is), but that would be determined on a case by case basis, I believe.
It's not decided on a case-by-case basis; the extradition treaty outlines exactly which crimes may lead to extradition even if they're only criminal in the country requesting extradition.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, I'll do it right from now on.
I imagine the personal copyright violations are illegal under NZ law.
The leadership of MegaUpload is not automatically responsible for private copyright violations committed by their staff. If the leadership didn't know about it or show criminal neglect, they're not liable.
As an American, I'd like you to know that most of us are tired of this, too.
Thank you :)
A large part of the fault lies with spineless leaders in Europe too. It's easier and more comfortable to let the United States run a large part of your defence, even if it means losing your freedom.
Julian Assange was accused of tampering with the condom so it broke, when the woman had only agreed to have sex provided a condom was used. He was also accused of trying to have non-consensual sex with the woman while she was sleeping, right after they had had consensual sex.
Yes, I also think it's questionable if that's a crime in the UK, but that's still the criteria the British courts used when trying the extradition.
That, unfortunately, has a lot of truth to it.
Most mature western countries have very similiar copyright laws designed with the same notion: protect the property rights of a creator of an artistic or intellectual work. Check NZ and Swedish law before you blame the US
I'm very familiar with Swedish copyright law. It explicitly allows people to make a limited number of copies for individual use if they have a licensed original, and share them with close friends and family. Something which is usually illegal in the USA. That means a Swede and an American can upload the exact same file to MegaUpload, and only the American's copy is illegal. If a Swede loses his/her files on MegaUpload, it's definitely because of American corporations.
I admit I don't know what New Zeeland law has to say on the matter, but in any case, it was American corporations who initiated the shutdown and arrest.
(unless you've bought that big-Satan thing from Iran, or that big running dog thing from N Korea, or that...).
I'm perfectly capable of judging US international policy on it's own merits, thank you very much. The so-called Cablegate papers, released by Wikileaks, showed in painful detail how the United States systematically lobbies other countries to adopt their copyright policy. The Swedish government was described in the documents as "very cooperative". Give it a decade, and chances are we'll have lost the fair use rights we still have left.
It's not magic, it's extradition treaties and I had no idea that Swedes were that ignorant of international law. The crime happens wherever the equipment is located. And with good reason, it's hard enough to prosecute spammers and crackers as it is without having to convince the courts in their home country to convict. The crimes happen where the server is located and that's not a matter of magic, that's the logical extension of previous legal precedence.
Hardly. If the crime was taking place where the servers were located, it'd be even harder to prosecute someone. Then a person in the United States could defraud another person in the United States using a server on, say, the Phillippines, and the victim would be forced to take the matter to Phillippine courts. And the Phillippine courts would be unlikely to waste time and money on a legal process that had nothing to do with them.
Normally, the crime is considered to have taken place either where the victim or the perpetrator was located at the time. Or, in the case of a crime perpetrated through or against a company, where the company is based.
Of course, the United States has a tendency to pick and choose principles so the crime always falls under US jurisdiction. That doesn't mean other countries will agree to it, however.
I think the GP was referring to claims which are supposed to convince us that MegaUpload was intentionally promoting infringing material. For example, the claim that MegaUpload was "misleading" people about the amount of infringing files by "intentionally designing" their top 100 list to only list freely redistribuatle files. Really? Is there no other reason they'd chose to design the top list that way? Such as, they'd be committing copyright infringement if they listed links to files which were not freely redistributable.
The actual crimes they're accused of require state of mind, as the GP says, and the evidence for that seems very weak.
It's just that YouTube has been forced to provide such a tool to Universal by the DMCA. The law puts a censorship tool in the hands of large corporations.
If that's true, then DMCA will certainly lead to abuse and needs to be abolished.
It means a media corporation (like Universal) can issue a number of DMCA requests to a hosting service (like YouTube). The administrative expense forces the hosting service to give the media corporation an account where they can remove infringing material themselves. If that removal doesn't count as a DMCA request, It means the media corporation is now free to remove any file they want any time they want, with legal impunity.
Then why did their internal emails show that they were fully aware of the copyright violations?
The example seems to concern a user in Vietnam. I'm not familiar with Vietnamese copyright law, but I presume the uploads they rewarded him for were legal in Vietnam.
Remember, MegaUpload is not an American company, so they don't need to follow American copyright law.
Here is the kicker, we aren't talking about hypothetical or edge cases here. Artists were uploading their own tracks since they would get 90c in the dollar of the advertising revenue
Let's not forget all the non-Americans who uploaded songs and films legally according to their countries' fair use laws. Their access shouldn't be removed just because an American uploads the same file illegally.
Child pornography is illegal, in the sense that nobody is legally allowed to have it or distribute it. Copyrighted material, on the other hand, isn't inherently illegal. Just because one person is not legally allowed to distribute a copy doesn't mean that nobody else is.
Precisely. I'm allowed to rip a song or a film and upload it, so I can access it anywhere (format shifting). I'm even allowed to share the link with my close friends and family. But if an American uploads the exact same file, it's illegal, since their fair use laws are more restrictive.
It makes sense for MegaUpload to only remove the links used for illegal sharing, and keep all the rest.
As the internal emails show they were also fully aware of this fact.
This is problematic...
Running a service which is used for criminal activity is not illegal. It's only illegal if there's an intent to support the criminal activity. Otherwise, all broadband providers would be criminals, since a large portion of the bandwidth they sell is used for copyright infringement. Even the postal service would be illegal, since they're aware some of they packets they forward are illegal.
MegaUpload removed the infringing content as they became aware of it, by giving the media companies accounts they could delete files with. The memos only show that a few individual employees traded copyrighted material, not that the leadership was aware of it.
Remember, the copyright lobby is using weasel language to make MegaUpload sound guilty. You have to read the accusations really carefully.
However, it matters because MegaUpload used hashes on all the files and if someone uploaded the same file again, they only made a new reference to it. At the same time when they got DMCA notice they didn't remove all the urls associated with the file, but only the one that received the notice. That clearly shows intent of keeping as many copies of the file online while only removing the one that has been detected by the copyright owner.
Because the other references belonged to other users, who may be legally entitled to access the file according to their respective countries' fair use provisions.
For example, in my country, I'm allowed to format shift and make a limited number of copies for individual use, so I could upload my music collection to MegaUpload and give the links to my close friends and family. It's not fair if my access to the files is removed just because an American uploaded the same file illegally. MegaUpload is, after all, not an American company.
Some countries have even more permissive fair use rules, and allow unlimited non-commercial file sharing.
The copyright infringement case is very weak, since they only have proof that a few individual employees knowingly traded copyrighted material. There's no proof the leadership knew about it. And please note that it's the New Zeeland standards for copyright infringement which are relevant when the New Zeeland courts decide about extradition.
(The leadership of course knew there existed infringing material on their servers, which they also allowed the media companies to remove as they became aware of them. MegaUpload was right in only removing some copies of a file when the meida companies asked them to, since the other copies may have been uploaded legally according to the fair use laws in the uploader's country.)
Likewise, if the US and New Zeeland laws define money laundering differently, it's the New Zeeland laws which are relevant when deciding about extradition.
Contrary to what many American believe, extradition treaties do not make their laws apply to the rest of the world. That'd be absurd, since it would also work in reverse - Americans would need to follow the laws of every country in the world they had extradition treaties with.
Normally, a person needs to be accused of something which is a crime in both the country requesting the extradition, and the country granting it, for extradition to take place.
No, they should be prosecuted on New Zeeland, where the company is based.
The American and Dutch governments are of course free to shut down the servers in their respective countries. They just can't expect other nations to hand over their citizens because they did something which is a crime on the other side of the world.
Because you can't extradite people over civil matters and you can't confiscate property on foreign soil to cover the award.
Of course you can confiscate property on foreign soil. How do you think people get back money from frauds or embezzlement - it's not lost forever just because the perpetrator transfers them to a foreign bank. You just need the cooperation of the local government, just as with criminal matters.
And you don't need to extradite someone for civil cases, since, if they don't show up in court, the court can make a default ruling.
In this case though, the money laundering and other charges are pretty much always going to be felonies. And apparently if you distribute one or more work worth $1 000 or more during a 180 day period you're committing a felony. [...] the US certainly does have the right to try them for those felonies.
Contrary to what many Americans believe, American law does not apply to the whole world.
New Zeeland can only extradite someone if what they're accused of doing is a crime according to New Zeeland law. That's how extradition works. Google "dual criminality".
If extradition treaties forced you to follow the law of every country your country had a treaty with, it'd be absurd. A legislative change in one country could suddenly make people in a hundred other countries criminals and subject of extradition.
It's not silly at all, they've been arrested for activities connected with operations in the US. Any criminal activities that they've allegedly committed with those servers represent criminal activities in the US.
That's up to the New Zeeland courts to decide. If they rule that the alleged crime was committed in the country where the company is based (i.e New Zeeland), then the operators should be tried on New Zeeland under New Zeeland law.
It doesn't matter if American courts believe the alleged crime was committed in the USA. The extradition is tried by New Zeeland courts according to their interpretation of the extradition treaty.
I don't know the specifics of New Zeeland law, but in my country (Sweden), the crime is normally considered to have taken place in the alleged perpetrator's country of residence, not the country where the servers reside.
Of course, Americans are free to shut down the American servers if they like. But they can't make laws that magically apply to people on the other side of the world.
MegaUpload doesn't openly promote copyright infringement either. They provide a service which promotes copyright infringement - just like the broadband providers do.
Note that Dotcom is not originally New Zealander. Countries sometimes refuse to extradite people born in their country, but such usually isn't the case with foreign nationals.
Doesn't matter - the alleged act still needs to be a crime in the country granting the extradition.
And I'm pretty surprised you would support him either
I'm not supporting the person, I'm supporting a company that provided a valuable service to the public. MegaUpload helped people all over the world to exercise their fair use rights.
For example, in my country, I could rip my music CDs and put them on MegaUpload, and then listen to them anywhere, since format shifting is legal here.
Of course, the American media companies didn't like that, so they demanded that MegaUpload delete all copies of a file, even the copies that were uploaded legally.
I'm pretty tired of American corporations who like to pretend American law applies to the whole world. They have no right to ask a New Zeeland company to delete a Swedish users files, just because the files happen to be illegal for Americans.
Exactly correct. It's funny that people always point out that The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites are hosted in Sweden and therefore it's Swedish law that applies to them, but now it's somehow different when they hosted in the US.
You're quite correct that US law applies to the servers which are situated in the US. If you want to raid or shut down those servers, it's US law that applies.
However, the person(s) operating the servers normally fall under the jurisdiction of their country of residence. Since the "person" in this case is a company, MegaUpload, based in New Zeeland, it's likely that the alleged crime will be considered to have taken place in New Zeeland, and New Zeeland law will apply.
Basing jurisdiction on where the servers are situated wouldn't have worked anyway, since MegaUpload also have servers in other countries, like the Netherlands
In the case of Pirate Bay, both the servers and the people behind them resided in Sweden, so Swedish law applied to the whole case.
Promoting copyright infringement is a crime in quite a few countries
If "promoting copyright infringement" was a crime, then all broadband providers would be shut down long ago. There needs to be a criminal intent, which is very hard to prove.
Also, it depends on the exact circumstances. It doesn't necessarily have to be illegal in the extraditing country (although it usually is), but that would be determined on a case by case basis, I believe.
It's not decided on a case-by-case basis; the extradition treaty outlines exactly which crimes may lead to extradition even if they're only criminal in the country requesting extradition.