back to article US entertainment lawyer casts doubt on Megaupload case

The Stanford Law Schools Center for Internet and Society has added a voice to the growing number of lawyers that expect America’s charges against Kim Dotcom and the “Megaupload conspiracy” to collapse in court. At issue, the article says, is that DCMA requirements under criminal law are different from the tests that apply …

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  1. Grubby

    I've had this debate with my mates

    Piracy is obviously wrong, but you wouldn't arrest the mayor of a town with a high crime rate would you. He has created a virtual city and provided the means to commit crime, but there's no proof he's taken part.

    On the flip side you would arrest the man who sells a gun to someone who says I'm want to buy a gun to rob a bank, and then goes on to rob a bank... So it's swings and roundabouts.

    On the subject of Piracy, at some point (if not reached already) there will be more people illegally downloading media than those that purchase it legally. But the law of the land is the law of the people... so you can't have most people doing something illegal?... Does that make sense? I've confused myself.

    1. david wilson

      >>"On the subject of Piracy, at some point (if not reached already) there will be more people illegally downloading media than those that purchase it legally. But the law of the land is the law of the people... so you can't have most people doing something illegal?... Does that make sense? I've confused myself."

      Even taking your argument, I think it'd be more a case of comparing the the numbers of people who are meaningful downloaders of material they haven't paid for to the numbers of people who aren't.

      I dare say most drivers break the speed limit on occasion, but that doesn't necessarily mean that most drivers would vote against having speed limits.

      There are quite a few things that people do, while recognising that if everyone did those things with no limits, the consequences would not actually be something that they'd want.

    2. Crisp
      Alert

      Laws are enforced with the consent of the people.

      If the people don't consent, then it doesn't matter how many laws are passed banning the duplication of information. Because people will still do it.

    3. Spandy
      Facepalm

      Bit of a bad example with the city mayor.

      If we follow the analogy through it would be, could you blame a mayor for crime in a city he built?

      - Considering he didn;t bother building a police force

      - When outside agencies told him that crime was happening in a buidling he put boards across one of the doors rather than stopping the crime (Aparently when copyright material was pointed out Megaupload only took down the link not the source, knowing that other links existed)

      - He paid people for bringing in items to his city even though he knew they were stolen (The alegation that Megaupload paid many of it;s top uploaders even though they knew a lot of the traffic was copyrighted material)

      - When asked what the citys prime trade was the mayor took a survey and removed the top lists of drugs and arms sales but kept the nicer sounding ones such as shoe making (Once again, it;s aleged that if you looked at the top downloaded items all copyright material was removed from that list).

      So the answer to the major thing is...yes ..he would be to blame.

      But then again we could do this for ever, because... real world analogys never match the way the virtual world works.

      Also most of my above statements are gained from several articles...which means they might turn out to be a little different from the truth

  2. Spudbynight
    Thumb Up

    Piracy....on megaupload?

    Am I alone in only having used Megaupload for legit purposes? I have never downloaded anything ilegally from it. In fact I have never even seen anything available on there.

    What I have done is downloaded lots of apps hosted there by the developers. I have downloaded lots of mods for games like Skyrim that have been hosted there.

    In short there seems to be an awful lot of perfectly acceptable uses for megaupload.

    1. Paul_Murphy

      Of course there are.

      'In short there seems to be an awful lot of perfectly acceptable uses for megaupload.'

      That's why this sort of knee-jerk over-reaction; shutting down sites and arresting people is not going to work in the long-term.

      It's also the reason so many people are fighting back against SOPA/ACTA and the like, can you imagine how the copy-right dons would behave if they were given even more powers?

      Reading Roo'd (http://www.josh.is/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/rood.html) atm, which postulates Disney (and presumably other companies) running it's own copyright armed police. It owns several countries outright which it uses for slave labour and it has no worries about using extreme violence to halt threats to it's business.

      Interesting reading.

      ttfn

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Bugger!

      I never got the chance........

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not going to matter.

    Even if it all doesn't stand up in court, by that time the whole megaempire will have been well and truly buggered. With frozen assets and a release back to the hosters of the stuff they haven't taken (and not all of which was actually investigated), the hosters will take back their hardware, wipe it clean, and rent it to someone else. That is going to hurt a lot of people including a lot that haven't done anything wrong.

    IANAL but I wouldn't put it beneath them to make criminal complaints just to get the bunch extradited, then possibly /also/ file civil charges once in custody in the USoA. But with the sites down, the copyrightholding-and-lawsuits industry already have what they want. And now that it's become painfully clear the FBI is in fact for sale, we might see more of that weaponising of iffy laws. More of which are already lined up and good to go. Well, isn't that nice.

    1. david wilson

      >>"IANAL but I wouldn't put it beneath them to make criminal complaints just to get the bunch extradited, then possibly /also/ file civil charges once in custody in the USoA."

      I don't think they could do that (to the extent of having a civil trial if a criminal one failed) without crapping all over future extradition possibilities, since that would be something typically in breach of extradition conditions.

      However much some people in the USA might not like Dotcom, I'm not sure that that dislike is necessarily important enough to risk unknown future cases involving other people on.

      OTOH, when people claim that Dotcom could sue for damages if the extradition case falls apart, I'd wonder if he could do *that* while avoiding any civil action for MU's activities in the USA?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    fillum

    A kim dotcom film would be ace. I bet leonardo dicaprio is bulking up as we speak.

    1. david wilson

      >>"A kim dotcom film would be ace. I bet leonardo dicaprio is bulking up as we speak."

      If there is a film, I do hope DiCaprio is in it

      That way I could rely on the blanket warning words "starring Leonardo DiCaprio" to make sure I never end up starting to watch it by accident, rather than having to explicitly remember the name of the film on a list of experiences to avoid.

  5. Andy 18

    Compensation?

    In the UK, the legal cases brought by local councils on Sunday trading failed because the supermarkets countered with "You can't shut us down and take us to court unless you can afford the compensation if we are found not guilty". Does the same apply for the US vs. MegaUpload? After all, the US are $15 trillion in debt and are running at a loss.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Err...

      All the supermarkets in the area where I live (Berkshire) are only allowed to open between 10am and 4pm on a Sunday.

      1. david wilson

        @AC

        I think the reference is to much earlier battles regarding whether they could open on Sunday at all.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A bullet would have been cheaper and quicker <lol> <joking>

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Am I alone in only having used Megaupload for legit purposes? I have never downloaded anything ilegally from it. In fact I have never even seen anything available on there."

    Funny that's what they all say - expect a knock on your door.

  8. Pahhh
    Go

    @Aggellos @Priacy and FOSS / Cheapware

    Well no surprise you got downvoted. Saying at anytime that "pirating stuff is bad" awards you instant downvotes.

    I often download hookie music and if I like it I buy it. I have a sizable CD collection. I also run software that is plain too expensive to own personnally and under no circumstances would ever dream of paying for it due to its price. But I dont use any of it for commercial purposes although I have bought the same software for work because I am familiar with it.

    I am justified? No I'm not. Both your points are valid.

    Bottom line is its up to the owners of the software to decide how content is licensed and distributed. The fact its often an ineffective method is really not the point. Piracy is wrong even if I am a hypocrit.

    I however feel that dreconian measures for tackling piracy are futile and overreaching. I have sympathy for putting the toerag DotCom behind bars as he is a leach on society. Unfortunantly, that particular criteria could be extended to huge sway of the business world so where would it end......

    PS Good on you Aggellos for being brave and using your ID instead of going AC too.

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  10. Alan Brown Silver badge
    Devil

    Ironically...

    This is starting to look more and more like the plot of "Smiths's Dream" (The Movie version is "Sleeping Dogs")

    Given the number of NZ court decisions which were overturned by the Privy Council with some _very_ harsh statements made about NZ courts and police fabricated evidence by the Law Lords, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he gets extradited. (NZ police are generally about as straight as Gene Hunt - up to and including gang raping a drunk woman in a regional station one saturday night and gettting off on a technicality - the officers involved are still working for the NZ police and boasting about having gotten away with it)

    1. david wilson

      @Alan Brown

      >>"Given the number of NZ court decisions which were overturned by the Privy Council with some _very_ harsh statements made about NZ courts and police fabricated evidence by the Law Lords, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he gets extradited. "

      That's very interesting.

      Would that suggest that he maybe didn't make the best choice of country to live in?

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