Since visiting Cambodia a few years ago I've always said it is my first choice if I have to leave my home. Looks like I wasn't alone.
It's a lovely place with friendly people. I will never be able to distinguish the Khmer consonant sounds enough to understand or speak it, but English is common.
Unfortunately for fugitives, they do have extradition treaties.
Do they have a _real_ health system? I doubt that the life in Cambodia is better than in Sweden. Maybe it's ok if you to go the country as US-American, but the Swedish living standard is much higher ;)
i can tell you i walked into a clinic and saw a doctor within minutes, ran bloodwork, got tested for dengue and yellow fever. in and out in 20 minutes, had my results the next day. that cost $45. everything was clean and sterile, needles came from packages, went into biohazard boxes.
also, i walked into a pharmacy and bought a round amoxicillin without the need for a prescription. i had a note from the doctor to make sure i had the right dosage. that cost me $4.
also, you can wear a t-shirt and shorts with sandals all year round. you can eat all you can fit inside your body for less than $10 a day ($3 if you eat local food). you can visit some of the world's largest and most amazing ruins as well as some of the world's last undeveloped paradise islands.
Their landline broadband connections are quite horrible actually, often below 2Mbps. However, funnily enough, their HSDPA coverage is quite good, fast and not too expensive ($5 for each 2GB).
Quality of life is all in the head. There isn't an easy way to measure this. I'm guessing that he was very happy in Cambodia as he chose that location over many others he probably could have lived in.
The health care system in third world countries in Asia are fine for the basics, but you wouldn't want to go through something like emergency heart surgery there. ;)
Though, this depends on where you are actually located. There are a lot of areas in S.E. Asia which have become locations for medical tourism and I imagine you could get decent care in those places. You better have the money though. In the Philippines they won't let you leave the hospital until you have paid your fees. You often have to pay partially up-front as well. When I went to a hospital to treat a broken wrist, I had to go back through town in a bumpy (ouch!, ouch!, ouch!) pedicab to pull money from an ATM. Oh, and you can only pull out the equivalent of $230 / pay / card at the ATM's there. So, if your fees are higher than that, then you might need to stay multiple days just so that you can pull enough out of the ATM.
not really. definitely not any more so than any other southeast asian country, and most definitely safer than some (southern islands in the Philippines for starters).
He would have had better luck hiding in the US, IMO. A white guy in a largely non-white country sticks out like a sore thumb, especially a fugitive. Rescinding use of his various online accounts, utilizing cash and public transportation as well as altering his appearance and working on his accent, he would've easily blended into the masses here. LE has a hard enough time tracking down some serious domestic offenders as it is.
As mentioned in the article, he was living in an apartment above an expat bar, on the very touristy riverside strip in Phnom Penh. It sounds like he wasn't really trying to hide. Perhaps because he was chronically ill, and needed to make frequent hospital visits anyway?
I think it's pretty unlikely, even if he did take various measures to hide, that he'd be able to if influential foreign governments were putting pressure on the Cambodian government to find him. Cambodia is a pretty tiny country.
I'm really surprised he was on an "international wanted list", I mean come on you don't have to agree/disagree that piirate bay is good/bad but I'm sure that if you kill your neighbor and leave the country you won't be on such list and it would be able real people, here it's about digital good (but it also affects real people) nevertheless I really think it's too much
A farmer from my region had a red notice issued by INTERPOL, it sounds impressive. What did he supposedly do? He is a potato farmer and was accused of selling low quality potatoes to Algeria.
He spent more than a year in a jail in Lebanon waiting for the Canadian government to sort it out, they took their sweet time.
Things like killing your neighbour and then leaving the country is pretty much what the international wanted list is for. Interpol mostly deals with ordinary crime and very rarely calls on Jackie Chan.
In my opinion, it is shameful he ran away. C'mon -- it was only 12 months jailtime; most likely he would be let go after 3-4 months for a good behavior. Serving this time he would be, technically, off the LE charts. This way he is just another "criminal on the run" and now sure prosecutor will be looking for more jailtime.
It says he was sick and in another country and the article posted today says he's still sick - would you go to a country that you're not currently living in, when you're seriously ill and in hospital, in order to go on trial and then to go to jail? Hell, for all we know, he was in hospital and didn't hear about it until after the trial. We don't know the circumstances.
The problem is evidence and particularly eyewitness testimony (unreliable to begin with) decay with age. Banning absentia trials creates an incentive for people to hang out for a few years, then come back and say "all this evidence is too old, you should reasonably doubt its integrity".
Dunno. I thought the thread had wandered away from a specific case and was making a general comment. But yes, I believe that's something considered before proceeding in absentia.
Frankly, were I in his shoes I would be very tempted to simply serve my sentence in Sweden. The prison system and amenities are (by American standards) very modern, and I would think the healthcare is superior to that in Cambodia as well.
This of course becomes moot if there's any real risk whatsoever of him being extradited to the US as some posters have pointed out. Is there any basis for this claim, or is it purely speculative?
This is just great. Instead of creating service that would be more attractive for users than PB, that greedy cats jail and rob you with giv arms. One should work more on kids minds to make them free from silly wish of watching that movie instead of doing some math for fun, or using MS wares instead of emacs :-) In this case there will be no need for PB, MS and WB alltogether.
Right. Blame America for Sweeden. Besides the guy's entire MO was distributing stolen files. In the article, the guy's t-shirt says it all. Anyway you slice it, he's no better than the Russian mobsters that steal credit card numbers. If you think everything should be free, then please leave your address so I can help myself to your stuff.
"Anyway you slice it, he's no better than the Russian mobsters that steal credit card numbers."
That's incorrect. He is better than the Russian mobsters that steal credit card numbers. I have presented as much evidence and analysis for my conclusion as you did, so they must be equally valid.
"If you think everything should be free, then please leave your address so I can help myself to your stuff."
I am happy to describe to you something I own so that you can make a copy of it. Gosh, it's almost as if copying something isn't actually the same as taking a physical object from someone.
"I am happy to describe to you something I own so that you can make a copy of it"
Fantastic - your comment history indicates you're a programmer of some kind, running a company. I'm sure you've got some interesting insights into this field. If you could just write them up into a decent book, edit it properly so I can understand it, make it pithy, smart and worth reading so I can get the most of your "description", pay someone to draw some decent diagrams, etc, and then ship it over, that'd be great.
But because it's just "information", and can be replicated freely, I'm not going to pay you to do any of that. I just want the "information" - the production costs are all up to you. So noone's out anything, any this is a perfectly reasoning thing to expect, right?
I have no interest in writing a book. Why would I do that for you? I said "I am happy to describe to you something I own so that you can make a copy of it". That is not - I repeat - not the same as "I am happy to write a decent book, edit it properly so you can understand it, make it pithy, smart and worth reading so you can get the most of my "description", pay someone to draw some decent diagrams, etc, and then ship it over".
If you can't see the difference between those two things then your perception and judgement is so hopelessly skewed as to render almost anything you say inherently untrustworthy.
If you can see the difference, then you know full well that you've constructed a false argument. Why you would do that I have no idea. Maybe you don't like the argument at hand and you want to change it to one you do like. Maybe you're suggesting that someone else who had done all those things would not be so keen to let someone copy it. That's great. I'm not someone else.
As an aside, I do not think that piracy is okay. I do think it's not the same as taking physical property. I do think it's not the same as selling credit card numbers. That's my argument.
You're confusing your own choice to give away your own work with the choice of many to take work of others not freely given. It's unreasonable to assume that everybody would make the same choice as you, which is why a creator's right to make that choice is important.
Would you, for example, feel the same way about publishing a book if you had no right to keep other people from putting their name on it and claiming it as their own? Or would you rather not have that choice at all?
> Would you, for example, feel the same way about publishing a book if you had no right to keep other people from putting their name on it and claiming it as their own? Or would you rather not have that choice at all?
I'd like to point out here that in most countries, copyrights and moral rights are legally entirely separate.
Moral rights (the right to be recognized as the creator of a work, and in certain circumstances the right to dis-avow your involvement with a work, if it has been modified in certain ways for example) are generally non-transferable, for example.
Trying to conflate the two to argue against someone's belief that reproduction / copying a work is ok is thus rather meaningless - we can easily enough have one without the other.
> Would you, for example, feel the same way about publishing a book if you had no right to keep other people from putting their name on it and claiming it as their own?
Except everyone is against this. Everyone is against plagiarism.
That's where the law falls down: We have laws against 'copyright infringement', a wonky idea that essentially nobody understands or cares about, but not against plagiarism, which is what most people actually are against and will work to combat.
Some people actually think copyright infringement and plagiarism are the same thing, to the extent they believe that proper attribution keeps them on the right side of the law. It does, of course: The right side of the moral law, which is all most people ever really follow.
Then you have the few zealots, who try to equate copyright infringement with theft. They might just as well try to claim that it's a violation just like rape is a violation so The Pirate Bay is guilty of rape. They'd still fail, but at least their failure would be more amusing to the rest of us.
You're being dense. Why do I have to make a perfect copy? Without copyright protections, I could get a copy of your book, remove your name from the title and use my name instead, and then sell it to others. Who would of course be free to do the same.
Where's your marketing strategy if people just think you're one of the 250 people who claim to have written the book?
"It's almost as if copying something isn't actually the same as taking a physical object from someone." It isn't. The legal system and laws concerning copyright are very different than those concerning taking a physical object, and have been for centuries. Anyone saying they are the same either 1) don't know the law, or 2) deliberately want criminal property law to include civil copyright law. Probably so they can have the police do their dirty work.
Most countries separate moral rights (to be recognized as the creator of the work) from duplication rights in various ways. Moral rights are usually not transferable for example.
There's no reason why we can not enforce the two differently.
Especially seeing as there seem to be much less interest in violating authors moral rights - most pirated works retain the original credits. I would hazard a guess that most people would in fact be far more opposed to violations of a creators moral rights than of duplication rights.
Yes, I was using a US viewpoint, given that I'm a US citizen, HN is hosted in the US, and most of the participants are also under US copyright jurisdiction. The US doesn't have moral rights like what other countries have. Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. is the Supreme Court example showing that works which have entered the public domain can be edited, and in doing so, remove information about the original authors.
Moral rights, as I understand them, only apply when something "would be prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation." However, modification depends on copyright. These are two separate things, and I think you agree with that.
Scalia, writing for the Court in the 8-0 decision, points out that Dastar "could face Lanham Act liability for crediting the creator if that should be regarded as implying the creator’s “sponsorship or approval” of the copy." Because Dastar did not include mention of Fox as the original author, there is actually less chance of the new work being 'prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation' and less infringement on moral right.
Therefore, I don't understand how your mentioning of moral rights affects my "one of 250" scenario. Since different countries seem to have different view on what exactly moral rights means, could you explain what the specific principle is and how long that moral right would last?
When you do so, could you also comment on how moral right would change the Dastar case, and how it might affect the following circumstance, also quoted from Scalia's Supreme Court judgement?
"A video of the MGM film Carmen Jones, after its copyright has expired, would presumably require attribution not just to MGM, but to Oscar Hammerstein II (who wrote the musical on which the film was based), to Georges Bizet (who wrote the opera on which the musical was based), and to Prosper Mérimée (who wrote the novel on which the opera was based). In many cases, figuring out who is in the line of “origin” would be no simple task."
Current US copyright law is irrelevant, as I was responding to a discussion where you were giving consequences to removing copyright protection, so I don't know why you bring up current US law at all.
I pointed out that it is perfectly possible to protect moral rights without restricting duplication, something which most countries already do.
Somehow it works, and the world hasn't ended, and there is no massive stream of works where people is butchering the credits, because people actually have respect for that.
I bring up US copyright law because while I understand US law at least somewhat, I don't understand what 'moral law' means. I've researched it, and it doesn't seem to be the same as what people here - including you - believe.
According to US law, if your work enters the public domain, then I can do almost whatever I want with it. I can chop it up into parts, rearrange the order, insert my own scenes, provide MST3K-like overlaps, and so on. What I can't do is imply that you have authorized or condoned the work. Hence the comment in Dastar that had Dastar left the attribution in the film then they might have been sued under the Lanham Act.
Please tell me if what Dastar did to the Fox film was butchering the credits or butchering the work, and if what they did was against the moral rights that you think ought to be used instead.
> Without copyright protections, I could get a copy of your book, remove your name from the title and use my name instead, and then sell it to others.
So that's what the law should prohibit, now isn't it? The law in this matter should be updated to reflect what most people are against. If it isn't, it isn't ever going to be enforceable, just like it isn't enforceable now.
(No, I don't think that every law should be brought into line with majority morality. Use your damn head.)
Right. You say "We have laws against 'copyright infringement', a wonky idea that essentially nobody understands or cares about, but not against plagiarism, which is what most people actually are against and will work to combat."
Plagiarism does not have a legal definition. It is based on moral/ethical principles which are specific to a field of endeavor. For example, academia has very strict rules against plagiarism while in artistic fields ... well, to quote Picasso, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." People are against plagiarism in the same way that they are against bad art, excessive noise, and foul manners - because by definition plagiarism is something people are against.
"So that's what the law should prohibit, now isn't it?" My point isn't tossed away so lightly. Current copyright law says that my scenario is illegal. Let's suppose then that we change the law. Can you tell me in a non-wonky way what that new law might be?
Under this moral law, can I take the text of Harry Potter, replace "Harry" with "Henry", and redistribute the modified text? (Crediting Rowling, of course). Why or why not? Can I translate Harry Potter into another language? What about fan-subs? Make my own MST3K-like version of the movie? Replace Potter's head with my own? Project the movie onto my garage for my neighbors to watch? And charge them money for it? There are people who would say "yes" to all of those. And people who would say "no." What is your guiding principle?
How would it affect the decision in Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.? Do you consider Dastar guilty of some sort of moral right which is punishable under the law? If so, then what is your view on Scalia, writing for the 8-0 Court: "A video of the MGM film Carmen Jones, after its copyright has expired, would presumably require attribution not just to MGM, but to Oscar Hammerstein II (who wrote the musical on which the film was based), to Georges Bizet (who wrote the opera on which the musical was based), and to Prosper Mérimée (who wrote the novel on which the opera was based). In many cases, figuring out who is in the line of “origin” would be no simple task." When does one give up figuring out the line of origin?
I think anything you come up with will be as wonky as copyright law.
Do you realize that the GNU GPL is based on strong copyright law, and that removing it means the free software movement, who can enforces freedom through the GPL, would be almost powerless under your proposal? Does that affect your thoughts?
All laws have boundaries, sometimes non very clear ones. But they are still usually understood. Copyright is violated everyday, by almost everyone.
Do you realize that the GNU GPL is based on strong copyright law, and that removing it means the free software movement, who can enforces freedom through the GPL, would be almost powerless under your proposal? Does that affect your thoughts?
I'm not derleth, but personally, I think it's a decent trade. Particularly since more and more free software is non-copyleft anyway.
Yes, laws can change. Though copyright is a hard one since that's a Constitutional power.
Can you answer my specific questions? Do you believe that all of those actions (regarding Harry Potter derivatives) should be allowed under the law? If not, why?
Is it okay for me to I take the top 10 best selling new novels for this week, put them into an anthology, and publish them on Amazon for US$0.99, without paying anyone, so long as I acknowledge that I'm not the author? What if I publish them on Amazon for $0.00? What if I put them on some torrent site somewhere? Do you believe that all of these are acceptable behaviors?
We can abolish copyright. Would you replace it with anything?
> copyright is a hard one since that's a Constitutional power
From my reading of the Constitution, the only thing it says about copyrights is that they're one of the matters over which Congress has jurisdiction (as opposed to the states).
There's nothing in the Constitution which says that Congress can't change the requirements a work must meet for copyright to be granted, lengthen or shorten the amount of time a copyright lasts, or even abolish copyrights altogether -- in fact, in the past Congress has done all of these things, except weaken copyrights by shortening or abolition. No Constitutional amendments required.
You are right. I don't know how expansive the Supreme Court might interpret things. Can the power to extend copyright and patent protection also extend to specific moral rights? How far can that clause go? I guess the US passed the Visual Artists Rights Act, so it seems possible.
In Feist v. Rural, the supreme court said that copyright requires a creative action. It can be minimal, but it can't be a "sweat of the brow". Previous district court were divided over that. Compare to the UK, where the amount of work which goes into collecting or verifying a database is enough to establish a copyright.
I interpret this to say that there are certain copyright-like and patent-like actions which Congress cannot do, because it isn't a power granted to it. Yet on the other hand, trademarks are not based in the Constitution but are part of federal law. Which makes me wonder why copyright and patents are in the Constitution if they could have been done by other means.... except that perhaps it's the "for a limited time" clause which is important, as otherwise Congress could grant perpetual copyrights?
In any case, it's not "as opposed to the states", as states can also also grant rights. One such is the California Art Preservation Act. Federal law may preempt part of that state law. I think you should use "in addition to the states."
The GPL only uses copyright to prevent copyright from being used in far more harmful ways against future recipients of the work. If reverse engineering and redistribution were assuredly legal, we wouldn't really need it.
The GPL exists because even under the policy you describe, there's no way for someone who gets a binary to also have the ability to get the source code.
As an example, suppose I'm Tivo. I make this cool DVR using the Linux kernel. It contains modifications to the kernel, a new filesystem, etc. Suppose also that you purchase the DVR, which comes only with a pre-built binary. Under the GPL, you also have a right to get the source code used to make the binary, and in a usable form. Which is why you can go to the Tivo site and download the source for your hardware.
Reverse engineering might get you the effective equivalent, after a lot of work. Redistribution right doesn't give you the right to source code.
The GPLv3 also uses copyright to require licensing of patent rights.
Do you not need these rights? Do you think others might find those rights useful?
I hadn't considered the relationship between GPL and patents. I'll have to read more. Off the top of my head, I don't understand how anyone who went to the time and expense of getting a patent could ever jeopardize it with a GPLv3 release, since there's no bright line between a version of your program and a completely separate program that merely links enough code in to get a free patent license.
GPLv3 and Apache 2.0 are the two most widely used licenses which specifically mention patents. The goal of GPLv3 is (quoting from the license) to "[assure] that patents cannot be used to render the program non-free."
The "bright line" isn't always so bright. Consider if a hardware company pays MPEG LA for an MPEG license in order to sell a piece of video hardware based on Linux. The hardware company didn't get the patent, so while they must release the OS source under the GPL, they don't have the right to sublicense.
if selling information was your main source of income, and you spent 10 years of hard work getting to a point where large audience was ready to reward your creativity, you most likely would care if someone else gave away a free copy of it for some ad revenue.
I think the guy's platform was a bit more nuanced than just "steal all da things". He DID help provide a service that overwhelmingly assists pirating of of movies/shows/software/music/etc. But their entire platform is that digital can not be contained. I can't say right or wrong, but I can say copying != stealing. But, if you want my address, fine.... you are welcome to exact copies of my stuff as long as the originals remain.
The pirate bay is a directory that helps people get together that are often doing illegal things. The site does not actually know the contents of the files. It does not participate in the behavior. It's better than people that actually deal in credit card numbers.
The idea of trumped up charges is still pretty nonsensical.
In this case though the pirate bay was a tracker/index site and didn't actually host any infringing materials. At the time it operated in Sweden this wasn't a crime. It's largely speculated that the US involved themselves to pressure Sweden to prosecute, but I don't know how substantiated that opinion is.
It's a lovely place with friendly people. I will never be able to distinguish the Khmer consonant sounds enough to understand or speak it, but English is common.
Unfortunately for fugitives, they do have extradition treaties.