
Kim Dotcom to be extradited to the US, New Zealand judge rules (2015) - taylorbuley
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/12/kim-dotcom-to-be-finally-extradited-to-the-us-new-zealand-judge-rules/
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sanswork
Kim is someone I really don't like and I have to admit I get a certain amount
of pleasure in seeing him fail but I am really not happy with this whole case.
Mostly because I don't want to see people being extradited over IP crimes even
when they are for profit like in this case but also because it has led to a
large segment of the population seeing Kim as some sort of hero fighting for
their freedoms instead of a convicted conman who would happily screw you over
for a buck.

I wonder what effect this will have on the million dollars he just raised to
develop MegaUpload 2(I thought that was mega).

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i80and
MEGA's actually quite good, FWIW. Dotcom, however, has an ongoing feud with it
for murky reasons, and has been claiming that MU2 will kill it dead when
released.

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cypherpunks01
This is 1 year old.. can OP or mod add (2015) to title?

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dang
Added - thanks!

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rivaldo
Not sure how I feel about this. He was certainly a character. I'm not sure
why, but what's the deal with all of these guys basically wanting to be comic
book villains? (Kim Dotcom, martin shkreli, etc)

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copperx
I hate to bring politics into HN, but isn't Dotcom's character highly
reminiscent of Trump? Same ideals, different skills.

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Darphe
This article is from almost a year ago.

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BusySkillFool
This is a year old story????

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donatj
How was Megaupload really that much different than say Dropbox or any other
sort of large file sharing service? Did they actively _encourage_ piracy?

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sanswork
Yes, and they actively engaged in piracy as a way of attracting users.

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donatj
Cite?

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sanswork
The emails between kim and the other staff discussing it were part of the
court case and are in most news articles specifically about the case.

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Daviey
IIRC they were written in German, and when translated the translation at the
worst didn't mention piracy - but did reference them as bad people.. with the
best translation that it would be a confusing mess for the authorities to look
through... You'll have to check the exact reference, but it wasn't as clear
cut as your comment looks.

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sanswork
"The men who ran the Mega sites passed around customers' e-mails with
reactions, complaints, and compliments, many of them mentioning obviously
copyrighted content. For instance, in May 2009, Batato sent an e-mail to
Ortmann with a customer note reading: "We watched Taken successfuly [sic] and
then tried to watch the Alphabet Killer a day later and got the message to
upgrade if we wanted to continue watching."

Another user in 2010 e-mailed Batato asking, "where can we see full movies?"
Batato answered, “You need to go to our referrer sites. Such as
www.thepiratecity.org or www.ovguide.com[.] There are the movie and series
links. You cannot find them by searching on MV directly. That would cause us a
lot of trouble ;-).”

In 2008, a user wrote directly to Dotcom complaining about video problems.
"I’ve been trying to watch Dexter episodes, but... the sound doesn’t match up
with the visual," he wrote. "I didn’t choose to use your site, you seem to
dominate episodes 6 and 7 of Dexter on alluc[.org, a linking site]."

Dotcom forwarded the e-mail to Ortmann, writing: "on many forums people
complain that our video / sound are not in sync... We need to solve this
asap!”

from [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/us-unveils-the-
ca...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/us-unveils-the-case-against-
kim-dotcom-revealing-e-mails-and-financial-data/)

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hollerith
An article[1] published 4th November 2016 states that

>Where is Kim Dotcom now?

>He could face 55 years in prison if Dotcom convicted. All his assets would be
handed over to pay for the alleged $500 million in damages to the
entertainment industry.

>But for now, the internet mogul continues to live in his £15million mansion
with his wife and five children in Auckland.

[1]:
[https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2115443/](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2115443/)

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sanswork
He never actually owned the mansion it was a rental and it's sold recently so
I don't think he lives there anymore.

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disposablezero
The plutocrats' sheriffs need their pound of flesh to intimidate the peasant
sheeple into spending all their money on pointless trinkets and distractions
to keep the billionaires rich. Anything or anyone presenting a threat to the
corrupt establishment must be destroyed economically, socially and militarily.

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jaimex2
If racketeering and money laundering is the only grounds on which to extradite
him do they have any hope of succeeding or are they just aimlessly trying
everything on the list? As far as I know those are made up charges.

