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[Geist-]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...xtradition-to-us-new-zealand-high-court-rules

The high court in New Zealand has ruled Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom can be extradited to the United States to face a multitude of charges including money laundering and copyright breaches.

US authorities had appealed for Dotcom’s extradition to face 13 charges including allegations of conspiracy to commit racketeering, copyright infringement, money laundering and wire fraud.

The German national, who has permanent residency in New Zealand, faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted in the US of piracy, which authorities say cost copyright owners hundreds of millions of dollars.

Dotcom claimed Megaupload was a genuine file-sharing site that did its best to police copyright infringement but had 50 million daily users and could not control every aspect of their activity.

Denying any wrongdoing, Dotcom has accused US authorities of pursuing a vendetta against him on behalf of politically influential Hollywood studios.

The FBI alleges Megaupload netted more than US$175m in criminal proceeds and cost copyright owners more than US$500m by offering pirated content.

A statement from Dotcom’s barrister Ron Mansfield said the outcome was “extremely disappointing” but his legal team were far from defeated and planned to appeal the extradition order in the “politically charged and misunderstood case”.

Regardless of what you think of him, this is extremely frightening in the context of internet freedom.

 

[Slayven]

Had no idea this was still going on

 

[Generalpsyduck]

20 years for piracy? Thats ridiculous!

 

[UncleSporky]

Where does the money laundering and wire fraud come in? Those seem unrelated to running a file sharing site.

 

[norinrad]

They are going to turn him over to rot in a US prison aren't they?

I have issues with this guy and Edward being locked up.

 

[diablos991]

Somebody got paid off for that ruling.

 

[KHarvey16]

This should not be painted as an internet rights issue.

 

[Erevador]

Good to know that great resources are being dedicated to hunting down the world's most dangerous and deadly criminals.

 

[Skellig Gra]

20 years for piracy? Thats ridiculous!

The charges are a lot more than just piracy.

 

[Geist-]

Where does the money laundering and wire fraud come in? Those seem unrelated to running a file sharing site.

I'm not even sure those are actual things he did, the US might just be throwing whatever charges they can to see if one of them will stick and get him extradited. And it seems it worked (so far).

The charges are a lot more than just piracy.

The 20 years is from piracy alone.

 

[norinrad]

Good to know that great resources are being dedicated to hunting down the world's most dangerous and deadly criminals.

Well Donald did tell us the USA is not innocent and there are some really bad people out there.

Before you know it they'd be throwing crimes against humanity at him.

 

[Maintenance]

Good to know that great resources are being dedicated to hunting down the world's most dangerous and deadly criminals.

 

[Vilix]

Well Donald did tell us the USA is not innocent and there are some really bad people out there.

Before you know it they'd be throwing crimes against humanity at him.

Sad.

 

[Gutek]

lol - fucker was super cocky when the trial started.

 

[Foffy]

Didn't the US wiretap his home?

 

[Khaz]

Does it mean anything for mega.co.nz ?

 

[PillarEN]

This is still some of the worst BS related to internet history.

That fucking video of the raid on his mansion. Ridiculous.

Mega.nz is awesome though. Still use it. I think it's in the hands of his wife who divorced him after he got into trouble with the US government. Maybe she sold it now. Don't remember.

 

[norinrad]

lol - fucker was super cocky when the trial started.

Yes that was because the charges against him were ridiculous.

 

[Generalpsyduck]

lol - fucker was super cocky when the trial started.

He wrongly assumed the court system is not corrupt.

 

[Hackworth]

lol - fucker was super cocky when the trial started.

Yeah, because he assumed he'd get a reasonable ruling.

 

[Corronchilejano]

lol - fucker was super cocky when the trial started.

"I'm being accused of something the law says I cannot be accused of. What could go wrong?"

If the US wants to make an example out of you, either you'll end up rotting in jail forever or a drone will kill you and all your family. One way or another, the US gets its way.

 

[moffattron9000]

Please take him, this guy is a complete dickhead.

 

[Mass_Pincup]

"I'm being accused of something the law says I cannot be accused of. What could go wrong?"

If the US wants to make an example out of you, either you'll end up rotting in jail forever or a drone will kill you and all your family. One way or another, the US gets its way.

Leader of the free world though.

/s

 

[aspiegamer]

Sort of like The Pirate Bay has always been the top target for legal action related to "traditional" piracy and then torrents (and is relentlessly hunted), he's a go-to law enforcement example of file hosting. He's a symbol of one massive method of piracy that costs the industry millions a year. Perhaps just as important as the actual means, his filesharing is easily explained to the general public. Torrents are more abstract, but direct downloads are something anyone on any jury could understand. That's bad for him.

Not judging him here, but this is a whole lot more than just a "lol the cops are wasting their time with movies" case.

 

[Elchele]

What a fucking joke. And people wonder why Snowden didn't want to face trial, lol

 

[Alienfan]

I'm very curious as to where this line is drawn. YouTube has pirated content uploaded all the time, they take it down if requested by the original owner. Is that any different than how Mega upload handled things?

 

[lightskintwin]

"I'm being accused of something the law says I cannot be accused of. What could go wrong?"

If the US wants to make an example out of you, either you'll end up rotting in jail forever or a drone will kill you and all your family. One way or another, the US gets its way.

It hasn't gotten its way with Roman Polanski. European courts protect him.

 

[AoM]

This guy really created an Internet Party lol

 

[Phased]

I'm very curious as to where this line is drawn. YouTube has pirated content uploaded all the time, they take it down if requested by the original owner. Is that any different than how Mega upload handled things?

Mega was charging for faster speeds and unrestricted access to that pirated content, so he was profiting from that. They also offered cash for uploading popular things (including pirated material) which is beyond shady.

I agree piracy and copyright laws are ridiculous, but it's weird the internet is taking such a stand to defend this guy. He was very clearly profiting from pirated materials and that goes beyond just free sharing.

 

[moffattron9000]

This guy really created an Internet Party lol

You need to look up some of the shit that The Internet Party did. From having "rallies"(they were really just parties with free booze), to having people chant "Fuck John Key"(The Prime Minister). That's before we get to "The Moment of Truth"; where he flew in Glenn Greenwald, and Skyped Julian Assange and Edward Snowden to say that they had evidence that the New Zealand Government is spying on its citizens. It then turned out that the evidence presented had major holes in it, thus mitigating it. It was forgotten about by Wednesday.

 

[Geist-]

Not judging him here, but this is a whole lot more than just a "lol the cops are wasting their time with movies" case.

That "whole lot more" still sounds like they're spending untold amounts of taxpayer dollars on something that hurts no one on a premise that isn't necessarily correct. They're assuming that people would still pay for their media even if piracy was impossible, but it's more likely they would just not bother.

I'm not condoning piracy, but the amount of resources spent fighting piracy is vastly inflated by special interest lobbying.

 

[Alienfan]

Mega was charging for faster speeds and unrestricted access to that pirated content, so he was profiting from that. They also offered cash for uploading popular things (including pirated material) which is beyond shady.

I agree piracy and copyright laws are ridiculous, but it's weird the internet is taking such a stand to defend this guy. He was very clearly profiting from pirated materials and that goes beyond just free sharing.

He definitely knew what he was doing, no doubt, but he was still enabling copyright violations rather than violating them directly. My only worry is that seems like a charge that could in theory be applied to many different websites.

 

[mid83]

They are going to turn him over to rot in a US prison aren't they?

I have issues with this guy and Edward being locked up.

Now I don't know the details regarding the money laundering, but purely from Megaupload/piracy I'm not sure how he even comes close to what Snowden did.

Dotcom let people download movies illegally while Snowden is basically a spy, intentionally or unintentionally, masquerading as a whistle blowing hero.

Please don't compare the two.

 

[KHarvey16]

He definitely knew what he was doing, no doubt, but he was still enabling copyright violations rather than violating them directly. My only worry is that seems like a charge that could in theory be applied to many different websites.

What other websites willfully ignore copyright notices and intentionally share and profit off of stolen material? Do you think anyone would argue the innocence of the person or people running them?

 

[Taiser]

Does it mean anything for mega.co.nz ?

 

[BibiMaghoo]

There were and are thousands of other people and companies doing exactly the same thing. I don't know why they have such a boner for this guy, maybe because he embarrassed them a bit.

Regardless his service was enough of a gray area for the charges to be pretty stupid.

 

[Alienfan]

What other websites willfully ignore copyright notices and intentionally share and profit off of stolen material? Do you think anyone would argue the innocence of the person or people running them?

Did Mega ignore copyright notices though? I was under the impression they didn't

 

[KHarvey16]

There were and are thousands of other people and companies doing exactly the same thing. I don't know why they have such a boner for this guy, maybe because he embarrassed them a bit.

Regardless his service was enough of a gray area for the charges to be pretty stupid.

Grey area? Lol. People really need to read the case against him.

 

[KHarvey16]

Did Mega ignore copyright notices though? I was under the impression they didn't

Yes. They would remove the link and create a new one to the same file.

 

[Phased]

He definitely knew what he was doing, no doubt, but he was still enabling copyright violations rather than violating them directly. My only worry is that seems like a charge that could in theory be applied to many different websites.

I think it's that he was outright profiting from the piracy that is the stickler here. Regardless of whether or not he was pirating the material himself, he made A LOT of money off of it.

It wasn't just a popular site people uploaded pirated stuff to, he was charging for premium memberships for better access to the stuff and creating incentives for things to be pirated by offering cash for popular uploads, all the while he made boatloads of money from it. I think he absolutely deserves to be in jail for awhile.

 

[Kinyou]

Good to know that great resources are being dedicated to hunting down the world's most dangerous and deadly criminals.

Remember how his house got raided by swat teams like he was some druglord?

 

[JSoup]

Did Mega ignore copyright notices though? I was under the impression they didn't

As I recall, they'd respond to notices with 'we'll remove the offending material', and then just deleted the direct download link. The file was still kept around in case someone tried to upload it again, they'd still have superior transfer speeds.

Or something like that, I'm sure there is an article about it somewhere.

 

[LiquidSolid]

You need to look up some of the shit that The Internet Party did. From having "rallies"(they were really just parties with free booze), to having people chant "Fuck John Key"(The Prime Minister). That's before we get to "The Moment of Truth"; where he flew in Glenn Greenwald, and Skyped Julian Assange and Edward Snowden to say that they had evidence that the New Zealand Government is spying on its citizens. It then turned out that the evidence presented had major holes in it, thus mitigating it. It was forgotten about by Wednesday.

Forgotten about? No way. It energised the right, made the left look like children and hurt everyone he was associated with (not that I care for Hone Harawira). He's a fucking idiot and an embarrassment.

I think the case against Megaupload is bullshit but at the same time think he can't fuck off fast enough.

 

[Breakage]

How will he play call of duty in prison?

 

[andythinkpad]

I still remember his mega launch party foundly. That shit was better than Konami E3 conference 2010.

 

[norinrad]

Now I don't know the details regarding the money laundering, but purely from Megaupload/piracy I'm not sure how he even comes close to what Snowden did.

Dotcom let people download movies illegally while Snowden is basically a spy, intentionally or unintentionally, masquerading as a whistle blowing hero.

Please don't compare the two.

I'm going to, the end game is the same, both get to rot in prison for all the wrongs reasons.

 

[BibiMaghoo]

Grey area? Lol. People really need to read the case against him.

They didn't obtain or upload the material, the greater crime, which is usually where enforcement comes down hard from what I read. People that host are knocked offline, but in this they are going after the man long after they shut down the site.

 

[lvl99 Pixel]

How will he play call of duty in prison?

some prisons do have that actually

 

[lastplayed]

That's before we get to "The Moment of Truth"; where he flew in Glenn Greenwald, and Skyped Julian Assange and Edward Snowden to say that they had evidence that the New Zealand Government is spying on its citizens.

That was so funny. People didn't really give a shit, or assumed it was the case anyway. That and the whole Dirty Politics thing, a guy at work was getting all excited because he was sure National would collapse at the election. Turns out it was the other way around.

 

[KHarvey16]

They didn't obtain or upload the material, the greater crime, which is usually where enforcement comes down hard from what I read. People that host are knocked offline, but in this they are going after the man long after they shut down the site.

They incentivized the upload of that material and profited vast sums all while intentionally circumventing copyright enforcement to keep it going.