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 …

COMMENTS

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  1. Naughtyhorse

    So it's about now that we can expect dotcom to be labeled as an al queda supporter and shipped off to gitmo never to be seen again. civil law? criminal law?? none of it applies there.

    simples

    1. LarsG

      HE WILL BE RELEASED...

      Then a few months from now he will not be heard of again, the USA will contend that he has moved on or is keeping a low profile.

      In the mean time he will be holidaying in a small cell in Morocco or Syria or Wherever, because we all know that rendition does not exist.

      There is absolutely no truth in it at all!

      At no time did any flights pass through UK airspace.

      Good luck dotcom, you will need it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @LarG

        Maybe, maybe not. I dunno but it is possible to keep an eye out for this. I've read (and then noticed) that dotcom held the leading position in the online FPS game Call of Duty. If he's released I'd imagine that he'll pick up right where he left off.

    2. peter 45
      Pirate

      Well obviously

      But we all knows that copyright violation (opps...sorry....PIRACY) puts money in the pockets of organised crime and Terrorism. Also I'm pretty sure Ive heard that al queda are terrorists. QED he is .

      What more justification do the Americans need to place a order an XXXL jump suit with reinforced crotch?

    3. david wilson

      @Naughtyhorse

      >>"So it's about now that we can expect dotcom to be labeled as an al queda supporter and shipped off to gitmo never to be seen again. civil law? criminal law?? none of it applies there."

      Of course.

      Since if the USA does anything at all, it is obviously precisely as singleminded in its pursuit of stopping copyright infringement as the most bedroom-bound teenager is in his pursuit of doing it to get the latest movie or game downloaded.

      Because the grown-up world really is as black-and-white as that, and the only sane way to think is to believe that what might be important to me must be equally important to everybody else, who is either with me or against me.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    the words...

    "hoist" and "petard" come to mind.

    At least he can afford a proper legal team. As morally uncertain as this is, I'm always up for seeing legally aggressive corporations given a massive slapping.

    1. Danny 14

      indeed

      although he can claim massive costs as they seized *all* of his assets didnt they? No sir'ee I had no offshore accounts in the cayman.

  3. Mephistro
    Black Helicopters

    It's about time...

    ...that any country with an extradition agreement with the USA starts looking at said agreement with a big magnifying glass.

    1. Drew V.
      Mushroom

      Forget the magnifying glass, how about a blowtorch?

  4. Winkypop Silver badge
    Joke

    Flight risk

    I'd say!

    Imagine sitting next to him in economy.

    The guy is HUGE

    1. Drew V.

      Gitmo administrator worries

      "We don't appear to have any orange jumpsuits in that size."

      The US military's Lockheed C-130 Hercules planes should be able to carry him just fine tho.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Sadly a few weeks out in the sun with all that sensory deprivation kit they make the poor bastards wear, will soon that out.

  5. irish donkey
    Megaphone

    These guy's have been charged (have they)

    but not convicted but yet everybody is convinced they are guilty.

    I call trail by media. (official sponsors of ACTA/SOPA/PIPA)

    Welcome to the new order... sponsored by the old order.

    Next we will be invading some small country because they wouldn't allow us to build a gas pipeline

    1. Gordon 10

      Let me correct that.

      Everyone is convinced they *will* be found guilty.

      Simply because truth and justice are no longer the American way ( and it's doubtful they ever were)

      1. rjmx
        Pirate

        They never were ...

        Remember, it was "Truth, Justice AND the American Way". Three separate items there.

        1. Grease Monkey Silver badge

          I thought it was "Truth, justice OR the American way".

    2. DanceMan
      Flame

      ...........invading some small country.................

      Canada's not small. And it's oil sludge, not gas. No need to invade anyway. Albertistan and Harper are giving it away.

  6. Richard Wharram

    But the money laundering charge?

    The greasy, fat fuck is as dodgy as they come. They must have found something they can extradite him for surely? His accounts would make Harry Redknapp's look rock solid I'd bet.

    1. Danny 14

      accounts?

      Cut and dry. Money comes in tax goes out. NZ had no reason to investigate, it is the US claiming the money is for illegal activity therefore laundering.

    2. IPatentedItSoIOwnIt
      Megaphone

      He may well be

      The money laundering was thrown in to make the case meet it's "extradition" requirement. Even if he was money laundering that charge is against the individual not the company. If that's the only one they get him on I hope everyone with a mega account sues the US Gov for it's heavy handed approach to a legitimate business.

      Oh and if that does happen don't expect MAFIAA, the RIA or your bent politicians to pay for the cost of fixing this mess, no sir. That will be covered but the public purse.

      1. Richard Wharram

        Whoa there.

        I'm just saying I assume the US has something relatively substantial to pin on him and that from his previous history there's every reason to suspect his financial dealings are less than perfect. If they don't then fair enough. I somehow suspect he isn't going to be 'magically disappeared' by the all-powerful CIA+MPAA secret societies though. These kinds of things can be more readily attributed to fuckwittery than evil conspiracy.

        1. Tom 13

          Yep. Everybody KNOW Al Capone killed dozens and

          ordered hundreds of hits and thousands of assaults, but what they eventually nailed him on was tax evasion. It's them financial laws everybody breaks, even when they are trying to be law-abiding citizens.

      2. david wilson

        @IPatentedItSoIOwnIt

        >>"If that's the only one they get him on I hope everyone with a mega account sues the US Gov for it's heavy handed approach to a legitimate business."

        'Everyone' would seem a bit hopeful. I suspect that even if some might, many of the account customers would be unlikely to go around trying to sue the government.

        At least once, they'd be unlikely to try that one or two had been investigated on some real or invented pretext, and found to be in possession of things that they shouldn't be in possession of.

        Even if the *company* was found to be operating within the law, that doesn't by any means mean the same would be true of all the *customers*.

  7. Donald Becker

    Who protects the unpopular?

    Kim Dotcom isn't someone I can get behind personally. He is pretty much at the opposite end of that scale. But the U.S. government has really overstepped. Legal protection and due process apply to everyone, not just to those we like.

    I see the possibility of civil suits. Perhaps a bunch of them. But not a vast criminal conspiracy.

    1. Fatman
      FAIL

      RE: I see the possibility of civil suits.

      What good do they actually do? As some other poster pointed out, if there any damage awards, the taxpayers get stuck with the bill; NOT the MAFIAA (who, IMH{NS}O, OUGHT to be paying the award). Lastly, a money damages award does nothing to stop some fuckwit from doing the exact same thing again.

      Now, if you want a deterrent, put some Fed's ass in the slammer for a good 20 years; then you have a deterrent.

      1. bobdobbs
        Boffin

        @Fatman, i think the GP post meant they see the possibility of civil suits _against_ Dotcom as being reasonable, not against the government.

        If I understood correctly, they were hinting that treating this as a criminal matter was a bit over the top, and it only really meets the standard for some civil proceedings, at best, not a 70-man army storming a mansion compound with black choppers and sniper rifles. (i made that last part up, btw. but it's fun to think about)

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Stanford Law Center

    If you want to see something *really interesting* - check out which individuals and organizations have donated the bulk of the Stanford Law Center for Internet and Society's funds.

    Stanford Law Center Center for Internet and Society is strongly associated with what Andrew Orlowski would generously term the "Copyfighter" movement. It's basically the freetard version of someone from an MPAA backed institute talking about copyright. They have a particular philosophical agenda to push which boils down to "piracy, under no circumstances, not now, not then, and never in the future has no impact on the sale of the items which are pirated".

    1. Paul_Murphy

      And there's the question.

      Who are these pirates?

      'piracy, under no circumstances, not now, not then, and never in the future has no impact on the sale of the items which are pirated'

      Though there are undoubtably people who will copy something and share it on-line, and there are again undoubtably people who will download stuff that is made freely available online - who are these people?

      Do they care about the work in question or the money?

      Since both side of the equation above do not swap any money it can't be the latter, so it must mean that the people doing the 'pirating' are necessarily people who, on the one side, want people to see this stuff, and on the other side people that want to see the stuff in question.

      I put it to you, members of the reg forum reading this, that the MPAA etc. are ignorantly interfering with a very effective publicity and promotion campaign run by people that think the content is worth something.

      I further put it to you that a far more effective campaign by the MPAA etc. would be to make the audience of their products share the files as far and wide as possible 'tell your friends, neighbours, people you meet about this' and have a link available for purchasing the official product, make donations or a flattr button.

      After all peoples disposable income is fairly fixed - and people will only be spending it on what they feel is worthwhile, if they don't know about your product you're not going to be getting their money.

      Or the MPAA can carry on with their 'backed into a corner' approach and we can all point and laugh as they get dragged into the future.

      ttfn

      1. Aggellos

        once the 5 tabs of acid wears off you just had....

        "piracy, under no circumstances, not now, not then, and never in the future has no impact on the sale of the items which are pirated"

        Paul once you land back down on reality I suggest a rethink, This is gibberish of the highest order Sites like Megaupload have destroyed plenty a SME business and sent numerous one man outfits to the wall, years ago we did a bit of a fact gathering exercise when the Game Far cry was released at a retail price of £24 IIRC per unit and it sold 730,000 units within four months of release.

        Good show you say , well within 3 hours of the pirated version going online there were 33,000 irc gets , 40,000 seeds on Torrent sites, tons of spots on FXP boards, ftp sites, usenet...etc. All in 3 hours, there were more pirated copies within the first week than legitimate copies in four months, no much of an effect.

        But here is the real funny thing fat gimps like billy bunter aka fat ass dot.com who make wads of cash out of it, i've heard people say yeah but i used MU legit , just my personal files. The only reason MU could offer this service was through the money it made through piracy whether directly or by round about means.

        If you want to play a game, listen to a song, watch a movie, use a piece of software, buy it. All this diametric garbage them us, reminds me of the winace v's winzip fiasco ..Let’s not deal with facts there to inconvenient.

        And Paul if you think my product is too pricey don’t buy it, but stealing it is ok.. I really want 458 spider guess it’s ok for me to steal one because i can’t afford it right or should Ferrari knock £120000 of the price just because i can’t afford it.

        You be pissed if EMI or EA were stealing £100 per month from your wages before you where paid, but when the shoe is on the other foot?.

        A thief is a thief .

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Priacy and FOSS / Cheapware

          Don't forget that piracy of commercial software hurts FOSS and smaller cheaper software companies - why use the GIMP when you can download Photoshop for free? Why use one of the many less expensive small commercial mail servers when you can download Exchange or Domino? Why use Ubuntu when you can grab a copy of Windows of a download site?

          Then, when you've downloaded whatever commercial software you want, why would you contribute any funding to a FOSS project? After all, you don't use any of them, so why bother?

          1. Mad Mike

            Damage to other software (@AC)

            'Why use the GIMP when you can download Photoshop for free'

            'Why use one of the many less expensive small commercial mail servers when you can download Exchange or Domino'

            Not everyone wants all of Photoshops features and find it too complicated. Therefore, they use the GIMP. Just because something can do more, does not mean everyone wants it all and wouldn't appreciate a simpler alternative. Exactly the same applies to Exchange and Domino. Also, try running Exchange and Domino on a small, energy efficient server and see how far you get.

            'Why use Ubuntu when you can grab a copy of Windows off a download site'

            Well, now you're just being silly. There are a huge number of users who use Linux (of whatever flavour) in preference to Windows and its not all for money reasons. If you can't think of at least 10 reasons to use Linux over Windows, you can't be trying that hard.

            1. Aggellos
              WTF?

              you can type that shit..but boy does it sound stupid when you say it.

              Mike don't be a child and turn this into linux v's windows i am sure you can find plenty of silly little forums for that.

              The point is valid, the vast majority of the public who download warez are not exactly intrested in fanboy flag waving or linux most think a distro is a 70's themed night club that servers food and they want the best product they can get and through the path of least resistance. Not everyone yes but just the vast overwhelming majority do, usenet stats, Bt stats etc all backup it up there is only one silly person in here.

              The point still stands why would the majority of downloaders/leechers even bother with anything other than top quality safe products why take on the hassle of actually trying something new or moving out of your comfort zone, if you think otherwise then then you being naive.

              1. JEDIDIAH
                Linux

                The nonsense of mindless branding

                The idea that the unwashed masses that accumulate pirated software have any business touching Photoshop is highly amusing. It's simply overkill. So is the GIMP really. However, people tend to focus on big recognizable names because they don't really have any clue or anything meaningful to say.

                If you are willing to pirate stuff, you can simply pirate a better targeted tool.

          2. Peter 39
            Facepalm

            No wonder

            >Why use Ubuntu when you can grab a copy of Windows of a download site?

            No wonder you posted that as AC

        2. Jemma
          FAIL

          ...umm, you might want to be careful with that...

          You are stepping perilously close to the 'all fighter pilots are evil because they kill people, except ours' conundra...

          Situation the First:

          I walk into my local HSBC with a working version of Vasquez's somewhat modified MG42 and steal what little cash the bank has, jump in the car and disappear into the distance.. while the local police try to coax their Diesel Focus into life..

          Situation the Second:

          Disney use a DVD copier machine ($5000) and a load of blank DVD's ($0.01 each) to copy on 40 year old tat that even 8 year olds cringe at - and then sell it at £15 a shot, to parents that are barely making ends meet as it is... they used to call that profiteering...

          Both are little more than theft, but one person will be making the HMP Broadmoor equivalent of a Diane Fossey documentary while the other is sitting comfortably (and lets not forget, making sure that plenty of lawyers are on hand in case someone mentions a certain Walter Disney & his raving anti-semitism).

          Not to mention the fact that the only difference between the person doing the precise same thing as Disney but in their garage and selling the results for half the price - is a piece of paper saying Disney are allowed to?

          Profiteering is nothing more than legalised theft. Profiteering is what the media industry has been doing for years.

          I pay to watch TV in the UK for example, for the life of me nowadays I dont know why. I used to enjoy watching, back in the day, Buffy and Angel. I'd go with Buffy but I'd be thinking of Tara etc etc.

          I could tape or use other methods to record *something I paid for* for very little - corporations can do it for practically nothing because of economies of scale - but for the 7 series of Buffy you pay £100+ for a boxed set...? and thats honest commerce?

          Would you buy an iPhone for £20,000? because thats the equivalent mark up you are paying for a piece of cardboard and a printed frontispiece. (apple fanbois excepted of course).

          All this stuff with Megaupload is basically the US govt throwing its toys out of the pram because the PHBs got ass-raped over the SOPA/PIPA debacle. Its basically gulf war the 3rd. Lets go harass and dick around with someone who had NOTHING TO DO with whats got us with our panties in a knot, because we feel like it and we rule the world.

          Personally I would like a fair compromise. Fair profits for the corporations concerned and the artists concerned. Fair prices for the customer. Selling something at a 50% markup is one thing - a 5000% markup is something else entirely.

          As to Megaupload I hope and strongly suspect that this 'trial' will fall apart faster than a UK Police Corruption investigation. Notwithstanding the fact that the US has overstepped its mark to the point of needing the hubble telescope as a visual aid, they have also taken data that is entirely legal (for the given value of legality in this day and age), from people who have done absolutely nothing wrong, and seem intent on destroying it just because they can. I wonder how many businesses have been damaged by this action?

          Now, forgive me if I am wrong, but stealing someones own work and data and then destroying it is theft is it not? much the same as stealing someones Lexus and having an impromptu barbecue over its burning carcass is theft (and theft, sonny, thats just for starters).

          Not to mention the albino mastodon in the room but people, and this is the important bit, so sit up and listen at the back...

          PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS COPIED AND SHARED STUFF BETWEEN EACH OTHER...

          How do you think the Bible got to be such a popular title? - yup, they copied it (although to be fair, blokes with swords cutting up people who didnt agree with it was somewhat of an incentive)

          How do you think people learned about new music acts and stuff they now like? you guessed it, from mates giving them copies of albums or songs - I remember being at Uni and my friend lent me a copy of a Cranberries album.... OH GODS, BURN HER AT THE STAKE NOW!!!!!!

          Funny isnt it, that in the intervening years I went and BOUGHT, with my money, the CD's and the like that that band have produced.

          The only thing sadder and more pitiful than the US justice system would be drowning puppies, and there would have to be alot of them..

          1. Aggellos

            jemma when you get all growd up and that and join the adult posse....

            Jemma how would you feel if you worked your but off for a Phd , sweating blood , sleepless nights and years of hard graft, then just as you submit your work you're be told someone else had already submitted that body of work identical in every way word for word, and they accepted their work first and yours becomes void.

            Of course the other person just pirated your work...but hey that’s cool in your society beacuse you say

            "PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS COPIED AND SHARED STUFF BETWEEN EACH OTHER..."

            I find your attitude simplistic and child like and far removed from the society and technical systems behind it, just like my 13 yr old nephew’s friend who told me how he was the Foo Fighters greatest fan then proceeded to offer me a DVD with all their albums on it...woo some fan.

            The reason some software is so pricey is because of the stupendous level of piracy in the wild, not just having to charge more because lost profits on pirated copies but development cost of adding DRM and other unneeded code just to try to thwart piracy...And honestly it is more about damage limitation most companies now are just happy with stopping piracy during the first few weeks of release let’s face it so long as sites like MU exist and greedy little people like yourself they have no choice. And as you seem to have the business of a house brick i won’t even bother to take apart your comment on mark-ups.

            1. DRM

            2. HIGH SOFTWARE COSTS

            3. STRUGGLING START UP DEVELOPERS

            4. PUNITIVE LEGISLATION

            5. WAREZ SITES 2.0 OR NOT

            6. SMALL SOFTWARE HOUSES FORCED TO JOIN THE BIG GUYS TO SURVIVE

            7. LENGHTY DEVELOPEMNT TIMES

            8. STRUGGLING ARTISTS TRYING TO MAKING A LIVING

            9. CANCELLATION AND TERMINATION OF PROJECTS LIKE TV SHOWS

            10. STUNTED GROWTH IN THE OPEN SOURCE MARKET

            All of the above are not caused by big business nor goverments or slimy shit buckets like dot.com...they're caused by you.

            so now you have made your bed lie in it....should be a natural for a student.

            1. JEDIDIAH
              Megaphone

              Smug nonsense

              > I find your attitude simplistic and child like and far removed from the society

              > and technical systems behind it, just like my 13 yr old nephew’s friend who

              > told me how he was the Foo Fighters greatest fan then proceeded to offer me

              > a DVD with all their albums on it...woo some fan.

              Entire genres have been established with that kind of behavior. Some rather crass musical acts owe their fame and success and riches to that kind of behavior.

              It's your attitude that's simplistic. All you see is one transaction rather than the entire market in aggregate including other more profitable transactions that occur only because of some initial loss leader.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @Jemma

            "Personally I would like a fair compromise. Fair profits for the corporations concerned and the artists concerned. Fair prices for the customer. Selling something at a 50% markup is one thing - a 5000% markup is something else entirely."

            I'd have liked a fair compromise too. The corporations have had their chance though. They deserve no quarter.

            1. Jemma
              Meh

              @ AC 15.25

              I hate to say I am beginning to agree with you. Corporations havent done fair since Walter Disney married a Markovicz...

          3. david wilson

            @Jemma

            >>"Situation the Second:

            >>"Disney use a DVD copier machine ($5000) and a load of blank DVD's ($0.01 each) to copy on 40 year old tat that even 8 year olds cringe at - and then sell it at £15 a shot, to parents that are barely making ends meet as it is... they used to call that profiteering..."

            So breadline parents keep buying Disney DVDs even though their kids hate them and presumably only ever play them once, if at all, and then throw them away in disgust?

            Maybe there's a reason some people are on the breadline.

            >>"Profiteering is nothing more than legalised theft. Profiteering is what the media industry has been doing for years."

            It's nothing remotely like 'legalised theft' if the thing being 'overcharged' for is an unnecessary luxury, rather than something like water or electricity or basic foodstuffs.

            If someone wants to charge a seeming fortune for a DVD, or for a pair of jeans with a particular label on, they're not forcing anyone to buy it. At best, they're advertising in the hope that people will buy it, but people who are mentally incapable of resisting advertising for things they can't afford seem likely to get well and truly screwed in the modern world sooner rather than later.

            >>"I could tape or use other methods to record *something I paid for* for very little - corporations can do it for practically nothing because of economies of scale - but for the 7 series of Buffy you pay £100+ for a boxed set...? and thats honest commerce?"

            It is honest commerce.

            If people think it's a rip-off, they should simply fail to buy it unless/until the price comes down.

            And if they thought so little of it that they couldn't be bothered to record it themselves, why should they be particularly bothered what it costs?

            (As it is, it seems like the limited edition numbered box set is ~£100, but a non-fancy one is £50, (effectively, £7 per series) from play.com or Amazon UK)

            >>"Personally I would like a fair compromise. Fair profits for the corporations concerned and the artists concerned. Fair prices for the customer. Selling something at a 50% markup is one thing - a 5000% markup is something else entirely."

            It's pretty daft to work out a 'markup' based on the marginal cost of something where upfront costs of making the first copy are large.

            It's like saying "Other people have already paid/should pay for the fixed costs, so I want my version for fuck all."

            If they really had a 5000% markup, that'd be reflected in their accounts.

            Now, if you could change the rules so that having the TV rights bought effectively wiped out any further claim to copyright ownership in the relevant country, so that the series really *was* 'something you had paid in full for', maybe you *could* have DVDs sold for a markup on their marginal cost of production just large enough to make it worthwhile making them..

            Though, of course, in such a situation, with one revenue stream cut off, the TV rights may well become more expensive, and they'd still have to be paid for by someone, one way or another, whether through license, advertising, or subscription.

            At least charging for the boxed set does put some of the costs directly onto the people who *really* like the programme, which seems to have an element of fairness around it.

            And if selling the TV rights pretty much exhausted the copyright, would that actually make things better in terms of choice or quality?

            At least at the moment, an independent production company could gamble on their new series being popular and set the price they ask TV companies to encourage someone to take the series on in the hope that they could recoup some money from future DVD sales, and the BBC can commission a flagship nature programme or other big budget production knowing that they can not only sell it for overseas distribution, but also make a decent amount of money from disc sales.

            >>"Notwithstanding the fact that the US has overstepped its mark to the point of needing the hubble telescope as a visual aid, they have also taken data that is entirely legal (for the given value of legality in this day and age), from people who have done absolutely nothing wrong, and seem intent on destroying it just because they can. I wonder how many businesses have been damaged by this action?"

            I guess it depends how many businesses were retarded enough to use MU as a storage provider for stuff they didn't have copies of anywhere else.

            >>"PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS COPIED AND SHARED STUFF BETWEEN EACH OTHER..."

            You reckon there might be a meaningful difference between me giving a copy of something to a mate, and me doing the equivalent of posting copies to anyone in the world who asks for one, with a business rewarding me for doing that while making money out of it themselves?

        3. JEDIDIAH
          Mushroom

          Industry whiners

          Games have been pirated for decades yet the industry continues. If a game is any good at all, expect it to be pirated. Even blockbusters get pirated. It doesn't really matter in the end.

          You will succeed or fail based on the quality of your work and whether or not you can convince anyone to buy.

          People that are successful in the industry realize that they aren't just competing with the rest of the industry but anything that can distract the customer.

          If you are trying to blame piracy for your troubles then you are a loser trying to blame someone else for the fact that you can't make it in a tough market.

        4. melts
          WTF?

          oh Aggellos

          other than your title being terribly worded and all, i thought i'd point out a few things; *caveat - i don't completely agree with the quote about piracy under no circumstances blah blah blah.

          first - if people can't afford something they won't buy it, but they might pirate it.

          second - people are reluctant to pay for something that is essentially an unknown quantity, only after ripping you off might they think it was worth paying for it and do just that.

          third - stealing is different to breaching copyright simply because you aren't depriving anyone of the original object.

          the problem with tying making a copy of something to income is this, if you sell 1 or a million copies, you've first put in the same amount of effort. essentially these days the copying/distribution is free. so any sale is a good outcome. you want to assume that anyone that illegally copies your work was going to pay for it, and that's just not true.

          and now, lastly, here in Australia at least, EMI etc are taking, sorry, *stealing* some of my hard earned every time i buy a blank cd/dvd. yep there's a levy on them that the copyright holders get, even if i'm burning a linux distribution, the latest copy of our Sophos toolkit or a backup. they have weevilled their way into tax collection on a basis that i'm a pirate, regardless of the truth of it, so why should i give a single toss what they say. they are pretty much green lighting the activity with these kind of antics.

      2. david wilson

        @Paul_Murphy

        I think the 'sample, then maybe buy' approach maybe works rather better for things like music than for MPAA output.

        If I got lent or given a copy of a music track by a mate, or downloaded it legitimately or otherwise, and I liked it, I might end up buying the album it's from, or other stuff by the same artists, at least partly because I'd likely be listening to it repeatedly and would feel some kind of guilt if I was just freeloading.

        Also, even a not -particularly-high-quality track would likely be good enough for me to make some kind of decision on.

        If I got given a copy of a film, if it was low quality I probably wouldn't watch it, and if it was high quality I'd be fairly unlikely to buy it after watching it, and not necessarily particularly likely to buy other stuff from the same actors/directors.

        If I was only ever going to watch it once or twice, I think I'd feel rather less guilt about that than about music that I enjoyed much more frequently.

        Possibly if a copy of a movie was a passable but not great quality one, and I had a HD setup I might be persuaded to buy a BD version, but that would still likely only be for a very few movies.

  9. Tom 7

    Court? It was never meant to go to court

    the mafia don’t go to court - they collect their dues by percussively or pyrotechnically modifying your business and sometimes your body.

    The jobs been done - they wont want to waste any more money finding out what they did was wrong - might give the victim an opportunity for compensation.

  10. Tony Paulazzo
    FAIL

    America: Fuck yea!

    Shoot first, no need for questions.

    1. Jemma

      Especially since we are talking about 'trained' Americans, which means there'll be no people on the same side left to ask anything.

  11. Jedit Silver badge
    Angel

    Oh, I like this

    The RIAA/MPAA want to exert the laws they paid for to bypass Dotcom's legal defence, but they can't. If the matter is pursued as a criminal case, there's a strong enough defence case to preclude his extradition. If it's pursued as a civil case a conviction is probably assured, but they can't get Dotcom to face the charges unless he goes to the US.

    1. Drew V.

      Even the most expensive lawyers can experience a *facepalm* moment.

      Usually as a result of their clients making unreasonable demands, of course.

  12. JohnG

    Destroying the remaining evidence

    The latest is that the US authorities are to allow the server owners to delete the remainder of Megaupload's data as the authorities have no further use for it and the server owners are no longer being paid (because the authorities closed the relevant bank accounts). Megaupload are saying they need the data for their defence - presumably to demonstrate that not all their customers were storing other people's copyrighted material.

  13. Grease Monkey Silver badge

    An entertainment lawyer? Not a specialist in IP matters or the internet, but an entertainment lawyer.

    Sounds like just the expert they need then. Not.

  14. 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

  15. 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........

  16. 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?

  17. 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.

  18. 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.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

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

  20. 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.

  21. 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.

  22. This post has been deleted by its author

  23. 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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