
Megaupload Trial May Never Happen, Judge Says - res0nat0r
http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-trial-may-never-happen-judge-says-120420
======
redthrowaway
From Kim's response [1]:

“This Mega takedown was possible because of corruption on the highest
political level, serving the interests of the copyright extremists in
Hollywood,” he says. “Mega has become a re-election pawn.”

The sad thing is, as flamboyant a character as he is, he's probably right.

[1] [http://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-lashes-out-against-
corrup...](http://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-lashes-out-against-corrupt-us-
government-120420/)

~~~
jmspring
I don't know about "re-election" pawn. But this whole thing is certainly a
pawn in the game between popular media consumption and rights holders. I
really can't see left or right taking a stand in favor of Mega's position in
this.

~~~
redthrowaway
I can quite easily see this as a move by the Obama DoJ to mollify the content
industry after SOPA fell through, so they wouldn't follow through on their
threat to not donate. Colour me jaded, but I can easily see him (or any recent
US politician) doing that.

~~~
AJ007
More than just conjecture, they openly threatened not to support the re-
election campaign.

Procedural errors indicate to me that someone put a "rush" on the case and the
results were sloppy.

~~~
read_wharf
The results were as intended, the business was destroyed. Bonus: the govt
doesn't have to spend money on a trial, and risk an innocent verdict.

Mission accomplished.

~~~
waterlesscloud
This is far from ideal for the government.

It seems extremely likely the government could have proved that Megaupload was
built on copyright infringement. But instead they're just going to come out
discredited, making it harder for such actions to succeed in the future.

All that's happened here is that they've taken down one player among many, and
their ability to get the rest is lessened. That's not what they wanted here.

~~~
drucken
On the contrary, one could easily overlook:

1\. the _intimidation factor_ of the US government willing and able to do
anything to any company over "intellectual property", including foreign ones,
even if it falls well outside the legal jurisidiction of _any_ state.

2\. forcing the hand of _foreign jurisidictions to expedite US government
processes_ to carry out these types of activities on pain of economic issues,
e.g. the infamous trade blacklists, or other on-going diplomatic relations.

3\. the _acquisition of assets_ and resources for the federal governments
budget (this runs into billions every year that is siezed).

4\. _minimum total resource usage_ for highly effective results means that
very little political or judicial capital risks being spent. Someone somewhere
in government has likely benefitted greatly from this outcome or certainly
will in future even just for the potential to recreate the same type of
results.

5\. the _creation of precedent_ that causes jurisidictions formulating their
own domestic rights and justice system around new technology to reconsider
what is the norm or what is pragmatic based on global "standards" or actions.
This is particularly strong pressure for English-speaking/Anglo countries.

All this without judicial oversight and no domestic political repurcussions
because of the accepted plutocratic culture of the US.

If this had been the actions of China or Russia against a US company, e.g.
against Google/Youtube, I wonder how people would have felt then...

TL;DR. One could say this is about as "ideal" as it gets: "we, the US
government, can get you anytime, anywhere, for anything with little effort or
reason - laws are irrelevant".

~~~
rwmj
On the other hand, this has shown people that the Megaupload business model
was very profitable (which was a surprise to many, certainly I didn't think it
could be).

People who feel themselves sufficiently hidden from the US government, or just
don't care, are going to come along and create a raft of similar services to
fill the same space.

------
Osiris
I never quite understood how the government could have the power to completely
shut down a business before a court had determined the business' practices to
be illegal. It seems completely backward to me.

In other well known laysuits against major publicly traded companies, for
example the anti-trust suit against Microsoft or AT&T, the government wasn't
able to take any action against the company until a settlement or verdict had
taken place.

Even in other torrent lawsuits, like the isohunt.com lawsuit, those sites
weren't shut down even after being served the suit. In fact isohunt.com is
still operational despite the lawsuit that was filed a number of years ago.

So I wonder under what legal authority the FBI operates to completely shut
down an entire business without a court order or ruling?

~~~
Joakal
USA has a reputation for trumped up charges: mentioning money laundering
charge allows police to seize everything. There's no money to request lawyers.
Judges in USA are known to do ex parte and default decisions in favour of
plaintiffs. And a history of sovereign immunity which means no compensation
because police can lie that they did it in good faith. There's no liability
for police to lie in USA.

There's no justice in USA against government abuse except through some gun
amendment I hear.

I'm not sure about NZ though. Join your Pirate Party to fight against the
anti-Internet American government.

------
drcube
Since the sentence (taking down MU's business and confiscating all of their
property and money) has already been carried out, I'm pretty sure the FBIAA
doesn't care.

~~~
liquidise
FBIAA might be one of the best, and most accurate, acronyms I have seen in
some time

~~~
kiiski
What exactly is it supposed to be an acronym for? MAFIAA at least has a clear
meaning ("Music And Film Industry Association of America"), but FBIAA seems to
only stand for "Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents Association", which
doesn't have anything to do with copyrights.

~~~
beezus
I think it's an acronym portmanteau rather than straight up initialism.

------
fpp
Once you have looked behind the curtain of government wheeling and dealing at
such multi-billion situations you tend to believe that what Kim Schmitz is
telling might actually be the closest we get to the truth.

Now we should all think about how such a case would/will be handled in a few
years time based on the changes to civil rights / Internet regulations /
totalitarian powers currently in the pipeline across most western societies.

2015:

I guess you will not hear about it other that a few of those who lost their
files and were not immediately constraint with gag orders will mentioning it
on some low frequented boards. Sites like TorrentFreak will then immediately
taken off the net / silenced by gag orders.

A brave new world we are looking forward to - the .... are just practicing in
the moment and will eventually get better over time.

~~~
a3_nm
> A brave new world we are looking forward to - the .... are just practicing
> in the moment and will eventually get better over time.

But of course, we don't care enough about all of that to bother using
censorship-resistant technologies like Freenet or Tor hidden services because
The Web is so much more efficient and convenient...

(Not trying to blame you -- I'm guilty of the same laziness myself.)

~~~
thebigshane
"Necessity is the mother of invention" -- paraphrase of Plato?

~~~
fpp
maybe more along the lines of "what can be done will be done"

------
jakeonthemove
From Kim's reply: ...“We have already been served a death sentence without
trial and even if we are found ‘not guilty’ which we will, the damage can
never be repaired,”...

That pretty much sums up what the US Gov intended to do from the start - show
that they don't need SOPA or whatever. Hopefully, Megaupload can sue the US
Gov and get some money out of them, although that's probably not going to
happen...

------
jrockway
I wonder how many real criminals (murderers, etc.) are never prosecuted
because of all these procedural errors.

~~~
fl3tch
Very few (although it does happen), because generally law enforcement takes a
lot of time and great care to build a case. They may allow a drug gang to
operate for months or years before busting them. This case seems rather
rushed.

------
calloc
So does this mean that all of the assets that were seized from Kim Dotcom were
illegally seized (especially the assets in NZ)?

If so what does this mean for Kim Dotcom going forward? Does that mean he gets
back all of the seized assets, and start rebuilding MU?

------
jimfl
Seems like another section of a businesses disaster recovery plan should be
the one on how to resume operations after a government raid.

------
Strallus
Have they already wiped all of the Megaupload's HDDs?

~~~
suneilp
Wouldn't that count as destruction of evidence? Even being the 'authorities',
surely that would count as a strike against them.

~~~
droithomme
The feds are trying to have the servers wiped and evidence destroyed. Dotcom
has tried to stop this as he believes the evidence on the servers is crucial
for his defense.

[http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-host-refuses-to-delete-
us...](http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-host-refuses-to-delete-user-data-
and-evidence-120410/)

The government's reaction to server host Carpathia refusing to destroy all the
evidence that Dotcom claims exonerates him is to announce that they are
considering filing criminal indictments against Carpathia.

[http://torrentfreak.com/us-megauploads-hosting-company-
might...](http://torrentfreak.com/us-megauploads-hosting-company-might-be-
sued-next-120415/)

~~~
chimeracoder
> The government's reaction to server host Carpathia refusing to destroy all
> the evidence that Dotcom claims exonerates him is to announce that they are
> considering filing criminal indictments against Carpathia.

That is absolutely disgusting.

Let me get this straight - their logic is 'These guys did something illegal,
and you have evidence that they didn't commit the crime in your possession.
You need to destroy the evidence, because we're planning on charging you as an
accomplice to that same crime.'

...I just don't even know where to begin.

