
Kim Dotcom wins battle in ongoing fight against U.S. extradition - reeteshv
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-internet-dotcom/megaupload-founder-wins-battle-in-ongoing-fight-against-u-s-extradition-idUSKBN1H20D0
======
ponderatul
I always wanted to know how is the damage done determined ?

"U.S. authorities say Dotcom and three co-accused Megaupload executives cost
film studios and record companies more than $500 million and generated more
than $175 million by encouraging paying users to store and share copyrighted
material."

Distributing copyrighted stuff is illegal, period. But the way those
calculations are made worries me. Do they start from the presumption that if
the movie wasn't uploaded on megaupload, some person would have bought tickets
to that film ? Is that the underlying premise?

I mean as a consumer I could either buy the movie, or watch an illegal upload
of it. Isn't that a false dichotomy?. I could just as well not watch it, if
that illegal upload didn't exist, and as such I would not have costed the
company one cent.

~~~
franciscop
It depends on the country! In Spain for instance it's totally legal as long as
there is no commercial intention.

Both "distributing" and "copyrighted" are terms that some times have not such
clear boundaries. Is giving your sibling a used DVD illegal? Is selling it to
a 2nd hand store illegal? A book is clearly legal to resell, right? Then why
wouldn't some digital material be? There is a whole industry interested in
making you think that is illegal, so please don't spread FUD :)

~~~
derekp7
The word "copyright" implies the right to make copies. Copyright laws (in
various jurisdictions) also include language regarding performance of a
copyrighted work, but that is a separate issue.

Digital media is interesting, as when you receive a copy of it on a physical
medium, it is basically unusable unless you make a copy of it (i.e., putting
the disk in a computer and copying the contents to computer memory). So to
enable people to actually use that copyrighted digital work, the copyright
holder grants an end user the right to load (copy) the digital work into
computer memory (via the shrink-wrapped license agreement) for the purpose of
executing / watching / reading it. And of course typically things like
computer programs are installed (copied) onto a computer's storage device,
which the license also typically grants permission to do.

Now it could be written into copyright law that if the normal method of using
a work is to copy it into working memory, or load it into storage on a
computer, that the law would explicitly allow that (or, as an alternative, the
courts could allow that via "fair use" doctrine). But instead, the law,
courts, and copyright holders are perfectly fine with this ambiguous grey area
so that they can reserve a number of rights via the shrink-wrap software
license.

~~~
Retric
That's a rather tenuous connection. EX: "Transitory storage" does not count as
a copy.

You need to make a copy of a book on the back of your Retna to read it,
however nobody calls that copying.

It's easy to argue that playing a DVD is not actually copping the DVD as at no
point does a DVD player copy the full DVD. Without a durable copy it's no more
copping than the back of your Retna.

~~~
ben_w
I recall there was a court case about that. A copy of a program in system
memory was deemed non-infringement because it was necessary for use of the
software, however (certain classes of) modified copies were unlawful. I
believe this is the precedent used to take down cheating apps for (e.g.) World
of Warcraft.

~~~
xbkingx
From what I understand, it usually comes down to whether copy protection
mechanisms were circumvented in order to make the copy and whether the copy
was transmitted to a nonlicense holder.

So, making an image of a DVD isn't illegal, but sending that image to someone
that doesn't own a license is. But, ripping that disk to mp4 is illegal if any
form of protection is in place, no matter how weak.

Of course, ripping to mp4 and then sending it to someone is double illegal,
which makes it legal. I should mention now that IANAL.

------
redm
Love Kim Dotcom or hate him, you have to applaud his tenacity in defending
himself. When he was arrested in 2012, I don't think anyone remotely imagined
he would still be battling, and, in many regards, winning against the US
Government.

~~~
ben010783
If you don't have money you take a deal and plead guilty. If you have money,
you can drag things out for years.

~~~
the-pigeon
Yeah but they froze most of his assets initially so he didn't have money to
defend himself.

It's been a mix of luck, US Government mishandling the case and the tenacity
of Kim.

~~~
jaclaz
>It's been a mix of luck, US Government mishandling the case and the tenacity
of Kim

Don't forget the local (NZ) mishandlings.

~~~
fareesh
Yep. I don't think many people can make the claim that they have had a head of
state apologize to them on national TV.

------
kodablah
> a Wellington court ruled the attorney general broke the law

When does the sentencing or punishment phase start?

~~~
Taniwha
in New Zealand, a parliamentary democracy, all ministers are elected
politicians, including the attorney general - that particular attorney general
is now out of power - sentencing has completed and a fine (against the
government) levied

------
tytytytytytytyt
Is there an alternate universe where our tax dollars aren't being flushed down
the toilet on things like this?

------
fareesh
Kim claims that he gave Hollywood companies direct DB delete access for
anything they didn't like, in addition to DMCA takedown request processing.

There are arguments suggesting that he and his team knew that there was
illegally copied content on his servers and they did nothing about it of their
own volition. Is there a law that says that if you see something that was
uploaded and you don't believe that it's licensed, you are legally obligated
to suo moto delete it? Genuine question

~~~
ElCapitanMarkla
I believe part of the case here was that they would hash uploaded content,
only storing unique files once but would create a new link to the content each
time someone uploaded it. And when they received the DMCA requests they only
took down the reported link rather than all of the links to that file.

------
balabaster
They should make a movie about this guy :D

~~~
anc84
Only if it includes his illegal and disgusting previous activities, see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom#Legal_investigation...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom#Legal_investigations)
and
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom#Werdegang](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom#Werdegang)

~~~
zeth___
How bad do you have to screw up to make this guy look like the hero?

~~~
balabaster
Did they really need to screw up? I think we're all on the same page here, it
doesn't matter who you are or how much of a fuck up you are, if you're going
up against the MAFIAA, pretty much everyone's on your side :P

------
ebbv
Why is this guy's legal troubles news? Honestly. There's tons of rich jerks
like him who have legal troubles that we don't hear about. But for some reason
he likes to put out press releases about every step of the way and then they
actually get picked up and upvoted on sites like this. Why? I really don't
understand.

It's not like he's some principled crusader fighting for a precedent that
affects all of us. He's just some creep who got rich off of deliberately
running a site that facilitated piracy, and then managed to dodge the
consequences because he is rich. Whoopitee doo.

Don't get me wrong I think the US copyright laws are screwed up and have been
manipulated by awful corporations for decades. But his legal troubles don't
really have any consequence on that front, things won't be any better because
he wins (and won't be worse if he loses.) So I fail to see why anyone thinks
it is interesting on any level.

~~~
Mononokay
> He's just some creep who got rich off of deliberately running a site that
> facilitated piracy

He actually got rich off of the Dot Com bubble years before, which is why he
changed his name to Kim Dotcom.

He embodies a lot of the stereotypical hacker image that people have -
overweight, hacked the Pentagon+NASA+Citibank before he was old enough to
drink in the US, a touch dramatic, etc. It's only natural that he's given a
bit of attention.

Not to mention he _really_ didn't break any law - Section 230 made site-owners
not responsible for content posted to their site unless they failed to remove
it, and MegaUpload complied with DMCA requests all the time.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
He didn’t hack anything nor get rich off of the bubble. He was always a fraud.

~~~
Mononokay
> nor get rich off of the bubble.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/jan/26/internetn...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/jan/26/internetnews.business2)

> He didn’t hack anything

He claims to have, and I'm fairly sure he's convicted of doing so in his home
country, but I'm not going to contest it because I'm not incredibly familiar
with that part of the issue. I was going off of his Wikipedia page, which as
always can be innaccurate.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
He was well known to folks in the security scene in the late 90s/early 2000s.
He had many bold claims, but knew nothing about security and generally bragged
about his fictional transgressions for attention. It's not that it's difficult
to believe that someone of even low to moderate skill could have hacked such
targets during that time, it's just that he was a big talker that could never
back up what he was saying.

He initially got rich off of a blatant pump and dump engineered by himself,
followed by some Ponzi schemes, and a lot of credit card fraud, most of which
he probably wasn't busted for. It wasn't what we typically think of as Dot Com
Bubble money, it just happened to take advantage of that investment climate.

Megaupload was the closest thing to legitimate he has done.

------
aogl
Awarded NZ$60,000 for “loss of dignity and injury to feelings” haha

~~~
proaralyst
Why the laugh? The State caused him injury. Would it be better to leave the
injustice alone? Just say sorry? If this were a civil case he'd certainly be
awarded monetary damages.

~~~
baybal2
Compared to payouts in other common law jurisdictions, that is, indeed,
laughable.

~~~
ztoben
What would a typical payout be?

~~~
baybal2
Add two zeroes. In commom common law, defamation damages are all, but damages:
they are a sum of assumed and punitive damages. If accused is a corp., already
large punitive damages are scaled to its size.

UK's record damages were in above GPB 2M

~~~
bloak
Punitive damages are a daft concept and only exist in the USA, I hope.

GPB must be the Guadalupe Banana, right? Perhaps they have punitive damages in
Guadalupe...

------
sam0x17
here here!

------
baldfat
This is attempting to fix something that is already fixed.

Morally I want to pay for everything I use. I music production I own a license
for everything I use or demo. It is very simple to pirate plugins (Kayne West
pirated DeadMau5's Serum plugin)
[https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/dance/6897291/deadma...](https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/dance/6897291/deadmau5-kanye-
west-pirate-bay)

In the past it was impossible to pay for content and the only place it was
available was on torrents. It wasn't available and now people just pay for
streaming services because it is available. Also it is just easier to use
streaming services.

~~~
tachyonbeam
That's not quite true. I pay for streaming services, and when it comes to
music, I can find 99% of what I want on said streaming services. For video
though, even if you have Netflix, Amazon video, Google Play and HBO now, there
are still a number of movies and TV shows you don't legally have access to.
That, and last I checked, the software for HBO now was pretty crap, I couldn't
get it to stream on my Chromecast. Amazon video also refused to build in
Chromecast support because they want to sell you their own device.

~~~
baldfat
Sure there are always going to be a ton of exceptions but we are light years
past where we were just 5 years ago.

