Re: Dotcom has always maintained
IF you accept that the warrants and extradition paperwork were properly in order it's not that simple. The NZ courts have now ruled that the search warrants were in order, I'm not sure about the extradition paperwork. Given the search warrants seemed to be the weaker issue, let's assume the extradition is in order to.
The Napster case set the precedent that if your business model depends on encouraging others to infringe on IP, your business is also liable for the infringement. It doesn't strike me that "I didn't know I was encouraging IP infringement as a key function of my business plan" is going to fly in a court of law.
Now the only time I have ever seen a reference on the interwebs to his site or several similar sites, it was always in relation to material that was either obviously infringing or questionably infringing, I don't see that the US government has a high hurdle in proving his business plan depending on people infringing those IP rights.
Yes, in the past I have used a link to his site to access material that fell on the questionable side. I regarded it as parody work but I also understand where the owners of the original work would have objected to the parody. Also, as far as I know, no one involved in the parody made any money from creating the parody work.
No, I'm not overly fond of the Napster case. I think we lost a system that distributed a lot of old and under-available songs to a lot of people. But I also see where the primary drive for it was costing IP owners a LOT of money. Whether the legal IP owners were the ones who deserved the money is certainly questionable from a moral standpoint, but not a legal one.