Megaupload Wins Evidence Disclosure Battle

[Therumancer]

I'll also say that thumbing your nose at the US isn't the wisest move over something like this, because when the time comes and New Zealand wants our help with a crime (and it will happen given time) we're just as likely to do the same thing now, as New Zealand isn't holding up their end of things. Fears over this "becoming an administrative matter" are ridiculous because that's what it is, there is no need to provide evidence to prove him guilty at the moment as the whole idea is to bring it to trial, he hasn't bene convicted of anything. The evidence isn't needed until the trial begins, and by definition evidence and the circulation there of is kept under wraps before a trial begins. The more that stuff is circulated, the harder it is to get untainted jurors (one way or another) and the last thing we need is New Zealand going to the press and revealing what the evidence is, knowing dang well that with the interest this case ha garnered it's going to feed back into the US media and people will hear about it.

Something that seems to be missing in the article is that the NZ authorities have been cooperating with US very closely. The general opinion of the public in NZ is that we should tell the US to fuck off until we sort the extradition out. Nobody is happy about the FBI coming into our country to tell us what to do and unfortunately for them they stuffed up and NZ is in the position of ensuring Dotcom is treated fairly. Dotcom's lawyers were issued a written promise that any evidence seized and compiled by the FBI and NZ Police would not be handed over to the prosecution in the US without them being informed and given copies of everything that would be handed over. They recently found out that the evidence was handed over anyway. None of the crucial evidence will be seen by the media before any trial and it doesn't matter if the US thinks this should be treated as an administrative matter because the decision is with the New Zealand courts where the main concern is fair justice for a person who called our country his home. Not to please the large corporations that seem to be pulling the US Government's strings.

What's more, the guys involved in Megaupload have a LOT of money and are doubtlessly paying off the New Zealand goverment as happens in most of these cases involving rich people (both foreign and abroad).

As it so happens Dotcom has made several donations to NZ politicians. Most notably the two main candidates in the previous Auckland mayoral elections. One of the candidates declared the donation as required by law for larger donations while the other asked for two separate smaller donations so he could declare them as anonymous. He has since been called out on it by Kim Dotcom after the media did some investigating and it is likely he will be sacked from his current government position. Corruption in NZ is minimal and never very well hidden. Some notable examples we have had recently include an MP using his government credit card to pay for adult movies in his hotel room while traveling on business and others using tax money to pay for air fairs while traveling overseas on holiday (as they are entitled to) which is viewed negatively by the public.

EDIT: I would also like to add that copyright infringement and racketeering are NOT covered by the NZ-US extradition treaty.

Most of what your saying is irrelevent, since NZ shouldn't have made promises it couldn't keep in terms of evidence and such, and that's not anyone's fault except their own (such agreements general make no sense in the case of extraditions). In the case of the treaty not covering Copyright Infringement and Racketeering, that's a little differant if it's specified and NZ would be right in that case, no denying that. I would however question whether that's actually the case, or an interpetation now being used, because especially when it comes to Racketering that's pretty much the entire point of having such laws, extradition treaties being used to hammer organized crime internationally as much as anything. You could be right, but if Racketeering was off the table, it makes it unlikely there ever would have been a treaty to begin with, because before Copyright issues became such a big deal, that was like the #1 reason why networks of such treaties and things like Interpol came to be.

The point kind of being that if Bobbie The Bookie makes 10 million off of book keeping and illegal gambling in say the UK, and then flees, his options of where to go are limited because none of the relatively civilized nations are likely to take him. Ditto for people say running drugs, human traffiking, etc... through more than one country, you might not have anything on a lot of the people involved other than Raketeering.

As I said, you might be right, but I'd be very surprised. Now granted, copyright infringement isn't the usual thing this is used for, which is a valid point. In the end I think NZ is mostly just trying to stick it to the US to assert independance, and to put it bluntly Kim Dotcom is known to be very rich, he's doubtlessly using his money and connections to influance the legal process just as much as the companies pushing the US
are. In the end I'd imagine that has a lot to do with it, but those who want to see Kim as some kind of hero, or the US as the bad guys, probably aren't thinking in terms of him being just as corrupt as the forces on the other side.

Personally, I think the guy should stand trial, honestly despite everything that has been said I am not sure if they will actually convict him of anything, but I think a hearing is definatly in order. If it was anyone else, chances are he'd be in front of a judge already.

 

[Baresark]

snip

snip

The point of an extradition treaty is specifically that the person's relative status in the country they are being extradited from is irrelevent. Indeed the person there might not even have comitted a crime under that law, but within that of the nation they are being extradited to. All that matters in this case is that the guy is wanted for trial in the US, the merits of the case, and how New Zealand might perceive the issue, are more or less irrelevent. New Zealand is treating this as a general request from the US goverment, as opposed to a matter of treaty which it is.

The guy DOES have the right to defend himself, but to do it under US law and within the US Judicial system. If the case is weak, so much the better for him, but that doesn't change the fact that he has to answer the charges under US law, and the country shielding him agreed to that well before hand.

As I said, it's an administrative matter, the policy is that if the guy is wanted by the US for trial and says "give us the guy" those who agreed to do so by treaty, do it. It's not supposed to be a Judicial matter where the case can be reviewed and that acting as a basis for releasing the guy or not.

Now if the guy was convicted and had received political asylum that would be differant, but that's not what's going on here.

You obviously know more about this process than myself, so I will of course digress in this situation.

That being said, perhaps the judge was in error in what he said. To think that one country can just summarily demand they turn over a citizen of another country, without so much as a single look at the evidence just to verify there is evidence of wrong doing as far as the other nation is concerned is just logically flawed. If that is the case, I can see yet another area of foreign policy needs to be looked over again.

My final thought is simply that we shouldn't get caught up on the language that was used by anyone, but look at the actual process or extradition. I can see the judge wanting to see the evidence as a natural part of the administrative process for extradition. And as part of that process, the lack of evidence being presented as an administrative screw up on part of the US Court system.

 

[SpAc3man]

In the case of the treaty not covering Copyright Infringement and Racketeering, that's a little differant if it's specified and NZ would be right in that case, no denying that. I would however question whether that's actually the case, or an interpetation now being used, because especially when it comes to Racketering that's pretty much the entire point of having such laws, extradition treaties being used to hammer organized crime internationally as much as anything. You could be right, but if Racketeering was off the table, it makes it unlikely there ever would have been a treaty to begin with, because before Copyright issues became such a big deal, that was like the #1 reason why networks of such treaties and things like Interpol came to be.

The point kind of being that if Bobbie The Bookie makes 10 million off of book keeping and illegal gambling in say the UK, and then flees, his options of where to go are limited because none of the relatively civilized nations are likely to take him. Ditto for people say running drugs, human traffiking, etc... through more than one country, you might not have anything on a lot of the people involved other than Raketeering.

As I said, you might be right, but I'd be very surprised. Now granted, copyright infringement isn't the usual thing this is used for, which is a valid point.

Lets have an actual list of extraditable offences copy-pasted from the treaty in question.

Spoiler

ARTICLE II
Extradition shall be granted, in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement, in respect of the following offenses:

1. Murder; attempted murder, comprehending the crime designated under law in the United States as assault with intent to commit murder.
2. Manslaughter.
3. Aggravated wounding, injuring or assault; wounding or injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily
harm.
4. Unlawful throwing or application of any corrosive or injurious substances.
5. Rape; indecent assault; sodomy.
6. Abortion.
7. Unlawful sexual acts with or upon children under the age specified by the laws of both the requesting
and requested parties.
8. Procuring sexual intercourse.
9. Willful abandonment of a minor under the age of six years when the life of that minor is or is likely to
be injured or endangered.
10. Bigamy.
11. Kidnapping; child stealing; abduction.
12. Robbery; assault with intent to rob.
13. Burglary; housebreaking or shopbreaking.
14. Larceny.
15. Embezzlement.
16. Obtaining property, money or valuable securities by false pretenses or by conspiracy to defraud the
public or any person by deceit or falsehood or other fraudulent [*3] means, whether such deceit or falsehood or any fraudulent means would or would not amount to a false pretense.
17. Bribery, including soliciting, offering and accepting.
18. Extortion.
19. Receiving and transporting any money, valuable securities or other property knowing the same to
have been unlawfully obtained.
20. Fraud by promoter, director, manager or officer of any company, existing or not.
21. Forgery, comprehending the crimes designated under law in the United States as the forgery or false
making of private or public obligations and official documents or public records of the government or
public authority or the uttering or fraudulent use of the same; uttering what is forged.
22. The making or the utterance, circulation or fraudulent use of of counterfeit money or counterfeit seals
and stamps of the government or public authority.
23. Knowingly and without lawful authority, making or having in possession any instrument, tool, or
machine adopted and intended for the counterfeiting of money, whether coin or paper.
24. Perjury; subornation of perjury.
25. False swearing.
26. Arson and damage to property, utilities, or means of transportation or communication by fire or explosive.
[*4] 27. Any malicious act done with intent to cause danger to property or endanger the safety of any
person in connection with any means of transportation.
28. Piracy, by statute or by law of nations; mutiny or revolt on board an aircraft or vessel against the authority of the captain or commander of such aircraft or vessel; any seizure or exercise of control, by force
or violence or threat of force or violence, of an aircraft or vessel.
29. Malicious injury to property, comprehending willful damage to property under New Zealand law.
30. Offenses against the bankruptcy laws which are punishable by more than three months' imprisonment.
31. Offenses against the laws relating to the importation, exportation, supply, or possession of narcotics
including dangerous drugs; abetting offense against corresponding law in another country.
32. Unlawful obstruction of justice through bribery of judicial officers; corruption and bribery of heads
of government departments or members of the Congress in the United States, or Ministers of the Crown
or members of Parliament in New Zealand; corruption and bribery of law enforcement officers or government officials; fabrication of evidence; conspiracy to bring [*5] false accusation; corrupting juries
and witnesses by threats, bribes, or other corrupt means.

Extradition shall also be granted for attempts to commit, conspiring to commit, or participation in, or inciting,
counseling, or attempting to procure any person to commit, or being an accessory after the fact to, any of the offenses
mentioned in this Article.

Extradition shall also be granted for any offense of which one of the above listed offenses is the substantial element, when, for purposes of granting jurisdiction to the United States Government, transporting or transportation is also
an element of the specific offense.

and if anyone wants to read over the treaty here is a link to the PDF [http://newzealand.usembassy.gov/uploads/images/o16y8MOyHW2l-jJTxaMpeQ/ExtraditionUSNZ.pdf]

 

[OneTwoThreeBlast]

"eeergh Why do people hate the U.S so much wahhh" Because its always your govournment pulling shit like this all the time..fuck sake...if any other country threw throughs their weight around like that they get punched..now that ive got that off my chest.. I had a feeling that this case wasnt going to go through from day 1..im all for dotcom sueing for damages.

Well, it seems not a single person said anything near that, and it seems everyone is in agreement that this was handled poorly. So... Might want to that the quote you have up there and send it back to imaginary land.

OT: Honestly, I feel that Megaupload did need to be shutdown (and I think I remember that the providers were actually encouraging pirating? Pretty sure I remember that correctly, but dont quote me), so +1 on that. The U.S. Judicial System really needs to be looked over though (like the rest of the government), and learn that the our whole system was based off of fair trials, even if the accused seems 100% guilty. Innocent until proven guilty.

Yes, you do remember that correctly. I studied this case in my E-Commerce law class this past semester (I'm in my second year at Fordham Law). Not only are you right, but they also had employees who regularly downloaded illegal files posted to Megaupload...instead of, you know, deleting them. I know that runs counter to the narrative many would like to believe, but it's true.

On the other hand, what the Justice Department has done here is abhorrent and completely counter to the principles and laws of our judicial system...not that's this is anything new, I'm afraid. They JD actually appeared to have a legitimate case here, but now they absolutely deserve the slap in the face they get (well, hopefully they get it...but it will probably be more like a very light touch on the wrist).

 

[rapidoud]

good on new zealand. hopefully one of these days ill get my crap back the us government has stolen from me

NZ has a history of saying 'no' to the US, and the USA have pretty much said 'WELL WE WON'T BE YOUR FRIENDS ANYMORE!' in return (in reference to the whole nuclear sub 'yo we're cool to come in here right because we're at your door?' debacle) so I'm honestly not surprised because NZ doesn't need the USA for anything except trade which won't be stopped (for protection they have Australia).

 

[kouriichi]

"People in his service are breaking the law! Quickly, lets violate all of his rights, seize all of his assets and SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING without giving him any notice! Theres no way this can backfire!"

While im glad piracy is being fought, there are better ways to fight it then completely mangle due process and ruin a case that could have been easily won. Now, if they fail to win this, there will be more then enough ammo to go around. Every pirate getting looked at can say, "Look at the Mega Upload case. They were willing to go so far as violating civil rights. What makes you think their on the up and up with my case?"

 

[uttaku]

snip

I'm pretty sure that I've done things which would be illegal in Saudi Arabia. Should I be extradited there and stoned to death?

OT: Aww, how cute, America's taking after its daddy, Britain during the colonial era.

Hey! at least colonial Britain did it with class, less of this failure to follow proper legal procedure more GUNBOATS! Sigh those were the days.

 

[Kargathia]

Spoiler: snip for size

Spoiler: snip

Hmmm, well there are a number of problems here.

At it's core the US goverment does have a point. What's more where the US goverment generally has a problem in not really understanding what they are dealing with, in this case there actions are pretty much appropriate. Simply put, there is no other viable way of going after an international, telecommunications based business like Megaupload than the avenue they pursued. Megaupload is more or less hiding behind it's international status to basically argue that no goverment could viably go after them without stepping on something.

Ultimatly the treaties in force for things like extraditions exist for the specific reason of forcing criminals accused of a crime by another country to stand trial in that country. The whole point of the treaty is that it doesn't nessicarly require what someone did to be a crime in the country they are being extradited from. The agreement being that both countries will turn over criminals wanted for crimes in another country.

In this case it's pretty black and white, as I understand things New Zealand does indeed have an extradition treaty with the US (which is why they are not defending it that way), that makes this an administrative matter, not a Judicial one, because the whole idea is to bring the guy to the US to stand trial in the Judicial system to find out if he's guilty or not... and that's in keeping with the agreement. The evidence the US has is more or less irrelevent to the treaty in question, as the whole idea is that it's a simple matter of us wanting to arrest him.

From where I'm sitting, a lot of people are happy to see New Zealand sticking it to the US, and others are pretty much cheering for a file sharing site fighting against the goverment with a degree of sense. The bottom line here is that there is enough evidence to bring this to trial, whether Megaupload is guilty or not, and that's why pre-existing agreements for exradition exist. Sending the guy to the US at this point isn't convicting him, it's simply forcing him to have to face the court.

I have mixed opinions on the issue itself, but I generally come down as being just as anti-pirate as I am anti-industry.

I'll also say that thumbing your nose at the US isn't the wisest move over something like this, because when the time comes and New Zealand wants our help with a crime (and it will happen given time) we're just as likely to do the same thing now, as New Zealand isn't holding up their end of things. Fears over this "becoming an administrative matter" are ridiculous because that's what it is, there is no need to provide evidence to prove him guilty at the moment as the whole idea is to bring it to trial, he hasn't bene convicted of anything. The evidence isn't needed until the trial begins, and by definition evidence and the circulation there of is kept under wraps before a trial begins. The more that stuff is circulated, the harder it is to get untainted jurors (one way or another) and the last thing we need is New Zealand going to the press and revealing what the evidence is, knowing dang well that with the interest this case ha garnered it's going to feed back into the US media and people will hear about it.

Disclosure rules exist for a reason: to give the defendant's lawyers a chance of preparing their case. Right now it's only known he is accused of copyright infringement (along with a bunch of related legalese), but not whose copyright exactly it was he infringed.
This would be equivalent of you getting charged for robbery, without ever being told whom exactly it is you're supposed to have robbed - leaving you to defend against unknown evidence in an unknown crime in court.

An extradition request indeed does not require a guilty verdict. However, what happened here involved a few serious shortcuts in correct legal proceedings - and Megaupload's lawyers are correct to try and burn the case to the ground on every single missed comma in the veritable deluge of accusations that's been coming their way.

Quite frankly I do hope he wins it. A conviction would set an extremely worrisome precedent in both the legality of this flavour of cowboy justice, and the whole deal with charging data storage / transfer services for the misdeeds of their customers.

All of your points about the case are ones that apply within the US legal system. All the evidence he's entitled to will be presented, the issue right now is for him to enter into the US system, and face trial like anyone else who committed a crime in this country.

As far as the rest goes, I have to say that I disagree with you. For one I think a very strong, and nessicary, statement is being made here by extraditing this guy (or trying to) as it shows the US isn't going to stop just because someone thumbs their nose from IP laws from ouside of the country.

As far as going after service providers, one of the problems with this area of law is that it has few precedents set with it, and that's what putting cases like this on trial is all about. See, right now we (as observers) don't know what that evidence is any more than New Zealand does, all we know is that the goverment thinks it has a direction it can go in. If the guy is right, then by all means he'll win the trial, but we don't know that which is why there needs to be one. New Zealand isn't handing the guy over to be punished, but rather to stand trial. The evidence is being handled like any other case in the US to the best of my knowlege.

However much piracy can use some legal cases; this is not the way to go about it. The US attorney's office literally admitted they threw the book at him in the assumption that some of it would stick. Said impressive legal practice was promptly followed by details such as "jurisdiction" being conveniently overlooked in order to arrest him.

Which, of course, was followed in style by actively trying to deny him legal counsel - as virtually every single lawyer could be objected to as having a client somewhere in that massive heap of files. Not to mention this attempted denial of sharing the evidence. (Not exactly an "he'll get what he needs" there either - not if they could help it.)

If this is how the US normally handles their cases, then you might want to get a minor review in there somewhere.

Not to mention that even though it looks good on paper, convicting him could have rather nasty implications for many other data storage / transfer services. As undoubtedly noted countless times before; if this precedent sticks, then Google can easily be charged with exactly the same offenses, as they don't preview every single Youtube video before it gets uploaded.

Chasing pirates is all very lovely and well, but this particular piece of cowboy justice should get slapped out of court.

Well, see there is a flip side to this. Part of the reason why people engage in crimes over international borders is specifically to make themselves nearly impossible to prosecute for the reasons your pointing out. I don't see it so much as a matter of the US misbehaving, so much as it doing it's job despite the barriers. Like it or not this is exactly the kind of guy that needs to be gone after, and the precedents established. Throwing the book at someone in most cases, likewise is a pretty standard practice for all legal cases, especially when your dealing with someone trying to use the ambigiouity of their position as a defense. Likewise the nature of the situation Mr. Dotcom puts himself into is what makes legal counsel difficult, not being able to find a lawyer to represent you by your own doing is kind of a ridiculous defense.

To be entirely blunt, I'm hardly pro-pirate. I don't like what the goverment is doing with file sharing systems, but at the same time I think this is getting pretty ridiculous at times. A big part of the problem is that large file sharing sites don't even make the pretensions of trying to police themselves, hackers and such use tags specifically to ensure their warez are recognized as being from them to the regular user. If millions of people can recognize a tag like say AXXO, then the guys running a file sharing site can do the same exact thing. A big part of the problem here isn't whether it's practical for these services to police ALL files, but that they don't even make much of an effort, and yeah, that coming back to bite people is a big deal.

Honestly though, while not pro-pirate, I'll also say that I don't think it's as big a deal as the industries victimize it make it out to be, especially when the pirates themselves aren't making any money off of it (which is a whole differant area of discussion). The thing is that guys like Kim Dotcom have been making millions of dollars off of this stuff, granted he persumably gets his money due to advertising and the like through his sites, BUT at the same time the whole reason why he's such a hot property for advertisers is specifically because of all the warez that bring people to him. He might not be cracking games and music, but he is making money off of people doing it, albiet in an indirect fashion. One of the big defenses in terms of this being that nobody profits off of it, but we ARE seeing people profit off of it indirectly, and Kim is living what amounts to a truely epic lifestyle.

Throwing the book might be standard legal practice, throwing the book in a general direction in the vague hope you'll find something that supports it is not.

But pushing the legal delicacies aside: you might consider this kind of criminal enabling to be worthy of legal action; I empathically do not.

Gun stores shouldn't be held responsible whenever a gun they sold is used for crime; Ford shouldn't be charged whenever a pedo uses one of their vans; ski supplies stores shouldn't suddenly have to get a lawyer because they sell ski masks.

It's one thing to try and prevent legal services or goods being used for criminal purposes, but as long as the services or goods themselves are legal, the salesman shouldn't need to fear prosecution.

At the end of the day there isn't even any law explicitly stating that when you run a data storage service you need to check every single file. Point in fact, there are multiple privacy laws hindering you from doing so.
Sure, it's extremely likely he was aware that a decent part of their files were pirated, but he was under no legal obligation to do anything more than remove files when it was brought to his attention they were illegal - and even then arguably only when served with a DMCA takedown request.

Long story short: holding a business owner responsible for his customers' (mis)use of his (legal) goods or services is absurd.

 

[Savryc]

I can't speak for New Zealand but I know here in the UK getting America to extradite people to us is nigh on impossible yet we fling people over there if Ol Uncle Sam so much as sneezes at them. Wish our politicians/judges actually had spines, like these Kiwi's.

 

[madster11]

Now once this is thrown out of court, all dotcom needs to do is sue the US government for $500 million, claiming that's the total money the company will lose due to not being able to expand this last year.

 

[HentMas]

snip

Ok, you actually raised a point I didn't thought about, the possibility that Dotcom is pushing with money to remain in NZ, it´s fairly plausible, and that could be the case, and well, that last part actually made me realize you are absolutely right, things do have to start somewhere, too bad its in a "file sharing" site, not in a hackers house... you made a very good point

still, the thing that gets me as "odd" is how the US handled the case from the start, it makes me question if they are not trying to make things more "hard" for Dotcom to defend himself... but well, lets just hope both parties are actually trying to achieve justice and not only further pushing the agendas of those behind them with the money

 

[Therumancer]

In the case of the treaty not covering Copyright Infringement and Racketeering, that's a little differant if it's specified and NZ would be right in that case, no denying that. I would however question whether that's actually the case, or an interpetation now being used, because especially when it comes to Racketering that's pretty much the entire point of having such laws, extradition treaties being used to hammer organized crime internationally as much as anything. You could be right, but if Racketeering was off the table, it makes it unlikely there ever would have been a treaty to begin with, because before Copyright issues became such a big deal, that was like the #1 reason why networks of such treaties and things like Interpol came to be.

The point kind of being that if Bobbie The Bookie makes 10 million off of book keeping and illegal gambling in say the UK, and then flees, his options of where to go are limited because none of the relatively civilized nations are likely to take him. Ditto for people say running drugs, human traffiking, etc... through more than one country, you might not have anything on a lot of the people involved other than Raketeering.

As I said, you might be right, but I'd be very surprised. Now granted, copyright infringement isn't the usual thing this is used for, which is a valid point.

Lets have an actual list of extraditable offences copy-pasted from the treaty in question.

Spoiler

ARTICLE II
Extradition shall be granted, in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement, in respect of the following offenses:

1. Murder; attempted murder, comprehending the crime designated under law in the United States as assault with intent to commit murder.
2. Manslaughter.
3. Aggravated wounding, injuring or assault; wounding or injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily
harm.
4. Unlawful throwing or application of any corrosive or injurious substances.
5. Rape; indecent assault; sodomy.
6. Abortion.
7. Unlawful sexual acts with or upon children under the age specified by the laws of both the requesting
and requested parties.
8. Procuring sexual intercourse.
9. Willful abandonment of a minor under the age of six years when the life of that minor is or is likely to
be injured or endangered.
10. Bigamy.
11. Kidnapping; child stealing; abduction.
12. Robbery; assault with intent to rob.
13. Burglary; housebreaking or shopbreaking.
14. Larceny.
15. Embezzlement.
16. Obtaining property, money or valuable securities by false pretenses or by conspiracy to defraud the
public or any person by deceit or falsehood or other fraudulent [*3] means, whether such deceit or falsehood or any fraudulent means would or would not amount to a false pretense.
17. Bribery, including soliciting, offering and accepting.
18. Extortion.
19. Receiving and transporting any money, valuable securities or other property knowing the same to
have been unlawfully obtained.
20. Fraud by promoter, director, manager or officer of any company, existing or not.
21. Forgery, comprehending the crimes designated under law in the United States as the forgery or false
making of private or public obligations and official documents or public records of the government or
public authority or the uttering or fraudulent use of the same; uttering what is forged.
22. The making or the utterance, circulation or fraudulent use of of counterfeit money or counterfeit seals
and stamps of the government or public authority.
23. Knowingly and without lawful authority, making or having in possession any instrument, tool, or
machine adopted and intended for the counterfeiting of money, whether coin or paper.
24. Perjury; subornation of perjury.
25. False swearing.
26. Arson and damage to property, utilities, or means of transportation or communication by fire or explosive.
[*4] 27. Any malicious act done with intent to cause danger to property or endanger the safety of any
person in connection with any means of transportation.
28. Piracy, by statute or by law of nations; mutiny or revolt on board an aircraft or vessel against the authority of the captain or commander of such aircraft or vessel; any seizure or exercise of control, by force
or violence or threat of force or violence, of an aircraft or vessel.
29. Malicious injury to property, comprehending willful damage to property under New Zealand law.
30. Offenses against the bankruptcy laws which are punishable by more than three months' imprisonment.
31. Offenses against the laws relating to the importation, exportation, supply, or possession of narcotics
including dangerous drugs; abetting offense against corresponding law in another country.
32. Unlawful obstruction of justice through bribery of judicial officers; corruption and bribery of heads
of government departments or members of the Congress in the United States, or Ministers of the Crown
or members of Parliament in New Zealand; corruption and bribery of law enforcement officers or government officials; fabrication of evidence; conspiracy to bring [*5] false accusation; corrupting juries
and witnesses by threats, bribes, or other corrupt means.

Extradition shall also be granted for attempts to commit, conspiring to commit, or participation in, or inciting,
counseling, or attempting to procure any person to commit, or being an accessory after the fact to, any of the offenses
mentioned in this Article.

Extradition shall also be granted for any offense of which one of the above listed offenses is the substantial element, when, for purposes of granting jurisdiction to the United States Government, transporting or transportation is also
an element of the specific offense.

and if anyone wants to read over the treaty here is a link to the PDF [http://newzealand.usembassy.gov/uploads/images/o16y8MOyHW2l-jJTxaMpeQ/ExtraditionUSNZ.pdf]

Interesting, to be honest I do think it's covered by 19, and 20 to be honest, posisbly other things as well. Not that he actually did it (we won't know at this point), but the nature of the accusations being sufficient to demand he stand trial. While it's digital receiving and transporting/distributing stolen property through his network is pretty much the crime he's accused of. Fraud could be argued in terms of him presenting this as a legitimate service, and making money off of people buying advertising space and such off of his site assuming he was a legitimate business (and the space he's selling being valauble due to the ttaffic being attracted due to him distributing pirated files).

Basically New Zealand is sticking it to the US to make a point, and also probably because Kim is paying off the authorities to protect him. I think the spirit of things is pretty clear, but that's just me.

 

[Therumancer]

snip

snip

The point of an extradition treaty is specifically that the person's relative status in the country they are being extradited from is irrelevent. Indeed the person there might not even have comitted a crime under that law, but within that of the nation they are being extradited to. All that matters in this case is that the guy is wanted for trial in the US, the merits of the case, and how New Zealand might perceive the issue, are more or less irrelevent. New Zealand is treating this as a general request from the US goverment, as opposed to a matter of treaty which it is.

The guy DOES have the right to defend himself, but to do it under US law and within the US Judicial system. If the case is weak, so much the better for him, but that doesn't change the fact that he has to answer the charges under US law, and the country shielding him agreed to that well before hand.

As I said, it's an administrative matter, the policy is that if the guy is wanted by the US for trial and says "give us the guy" those who agreed to do so by treaty, do it. It's not supposed to be a Judicial matter where the case can be reviewed and that acting as a basis for releasing the guy or not.

Now if the guy was convicted and had received political asylum that would be differant, but that's not what's going on here.

You obviously know more about this process than myself, so I will of course digress in this situation.

That being said, perhaps the judge was in error in what he said. To think that one country can just summarily demand they turn over a citizen of another country, without so much as a single look at the evidence just to verify there is evidence of wrong doing as far as the other nation is concerned is just logically flawed. If that is the case, I can see yet another area of foreign policy needs to be looked over again.

My final thought is simply that we shouldn't get caught up on the language that was used by anyone, but look at the actual process or extradition. I can see the judge wanting to see the evidence as a natural part of the administrative process for extradition. And as part of that process, the lack of evidence being presented as an administrative screw up on part of the US Court system.

Not really, the problem with the case situation is goverments like New Zealand not going through with it.

The idea of such treaties is to prevent people from using international borders to commit crimes against the people of other nations with imputiny, or to flee accross borders to escape prosecution. As I said, the entire point of such treaties and even the existance of entire organizations like Interpol is specifically to handle international crimes without getting bogged down by differant laws. The idea being that if someone does something wrong, they will be held accountable for it no matter where they decide to go to hide or try and shield themselves. There is nothing wrong with that in principle.

By your arguement your basically saying that if someone commits crimes against the citizens of another country they should be able to get away with it, with imputiny, unless they can be convicted in their home country which may not even have laws against whatever they are doing, and most definalty doesn't have any direct, vested interest.

In general extradition treaties exist between countries that generally respect each other's standards of justice. For example you generally don't see them between first and third world countries in a form where say someone can be extradited to The Middle East and tortured to death for drawing a picture of Mohammad or whatever. You do however see them between more civilized nations specifically because of things like fraud, organized crime, hacking, and similar things that by their nature can't be resolved entirely within one country.

In this case New Zealand agreed to the treaty with the US, an given that Kim commited crimes against the US, we have the right to try him for them. The same would apply if a US citizen did the same thing against the people of New Zealand. The bottom line is accountability. In this case evidence doesn't much matter, because the guy is just being pulled for trial, he's not actually being tossed in prison for years or whatever, just being made to answer the accusations. In some countries that would be a joke (China, The Middle East) but not in the US (despite what you might think) especially in a high profile case. What's more there is also the entire embassy system and the diplomatic game, which has it's own rules, agreements, and policies. If someone is extradited for trial and it's a touchy subject, in general the nation sending the guy is probably going to have guys from their Embassy present to watch it, and step in through those channels if need be. In general extradition treaties don't happen between nations that don't have diplomatic relations to begin with... this is something people are also overlooking.

Among other things there is a general agreement that if the embassy requests someone be cleared of a crime, it happens, and they are deported. This is one of the reasons why nations like China have such a bad reputation, they tend to thumb their nose at things like that when requested, and thus get noses thumbed back at them (the David Faye incident for example). In he case of New Zealand however, if Mr. Dotcom was convicted, and New Zealand asked for him to be released, chances are it would happen for purposes of the ruling and policy, but he'd be handed over, probably with certain conditions involving his computer activities and how they might touch on the US... of course that's neither here nor there.

Basically the Kiwis are being buttheads, and when the time comes that they need these kinds of international law enforcement policies, people aren't going to be inclined to cooperate with them. Almost guaranteed a lot of people are looking at this, and whether they agree with the incident or not, the bottom line is going to be that they aren't going to want to play ball with New Zealand if they are going to play games whenever they need something in return.

 

[Therumancer]

Spoiler: snip for size

Spoiler: snip

Hmmm, well there are a number of problems here.

At it's core the US goverment does have a point. What's more where the US goverment generally has a problem in not really understanding what they are dealing with, in this case there actions are pretty much appropriate. Simply put, there is no other viable way of going after an international, telecommunications based business like Megaupload than the avenue they pursued. Megaupload is more or less hiding behind it's international status to basically argue that no goverment could viably go after them without stepping on something.

Ultimatly the treaties in force for things like extraditions exist for the specific reason of forcing criminals accused of a crime by another country to stand trial in that country. The whole point of the treaty is that it doesn't nessicarly require what someone did to be a crime in the country they are being extradited from. The agreement being that both countries will turn over criminals wanted for crimes in another country.

In this case it's pretty black and white, as I understand things New Zealand does indeed have an extradition treaty with the US (which is why they are not defending it that way), that makes this an administrative matter, not a Judicial one, because the whole idea is to bring the guy to the US to stand trial in the Judicial system to find out if he's guilty or not... and that's in keeping with the agreement. The evidence the US has is more or less irrelevent to the treaty in question, as the whole idea is that it's a simple matter of us wanting to arrest him.

From where I'm sitting, a lot of people are happy to see New Zealand sticking it to the US, and others are pretty much cheering for a file sharing site fighting against the goverment with a degree of sense. The bottom line here is that there is enough evidence to bring this to trial, whether Megaupload is guilty or not, and that's why pre-existing agreements for exradition exist. Sending the guy to the US at this point isn't convicting him, it's simply forcing him to have to face the court.

I have mixed opinions on the issue itself, but I generally come down as being just as anti-pirate as I am anti-industry.

I'll also say that thumbing your nose at the US isn't the wisest move over something like this, because when the time comes and New Zealand wants our help with a crime (and it will happen given time) we're just as likely to do the same thing now, as New Zealand isn't holding up their end of things. Fears over this "becoming an administrative matter" are ridiculous because that's what it is, there is no need to provide evidence to prove him guilty at the moment as the whole idea is to bring it to trial, he hasn't bene convicted of anything. The evidence isn't needed until the trial begins, and by definition evidence and the circulation there of is kept under wraps before a trial begins. The more that stuff is circulated, the harder it is to get untainted jurors (one way or another) and the last thing we need is New Zealand going to the press and revealing what the evidence is, knowing dang well that with the interest this case ha garnered it's going to feed back into the US media and people will hear about it.

Disclosure rules exist for a reason: to give the defendant's lawyers a chance of preparing their case. Right now it's only known he is accused of copyright infringement (along with a bunch of related legalese), but not whose copyright exactly it was he infringed.
This would be equivalent of you getting charged for robbery, without ever being told whom exactly it is you're supposed to have robbed - leaving you to defend against unknown evidence in an unknown crime in court.

An extradition request indeed does not require a guilty verdict. However, what happened here involved a few serious shortcuts in correct legal proceedings - and Megaupload's lawyers are correct to try and burn the case to the ground on every single missed comma in the veritable deluge of accusations that's been coming their way.

Quite frankly I do hope he wins it. A conviction would set an extremely worrisome precedent in both the legality of this flavour of cowboy justice, and the whole deal with charging data storage / transfer services for the misdeeds of their customers.

All of your points about the case are ones that apply within the US legal system. All the evidence he's entitled to will be presented, the issue right now is for him to enter into the US system, and face trial like anyone else who committed a crime in this country.

As far as the rest goes, I have to say that I disagree with you. For one I think a very strong, and nessicary, statement is being made here by extraditing this guy (or trying to) as it shows the US isn't going to stop just because someone thumbs their nose from IP laws from ouside of the country.

As far as going after service providers, one of the problems with this area of law is that it has few precedents set with it, and that's what putting cases like this on trial is all about. See, right now we (as observers) don't know what that evidence is any more than New Zealand does, all we know is that the goverment thinks it has a direction it can go in. If the guy is right, then by all means he'll win the trial, but we don't know that which is why there needs to be one. New Zealand isn't handing the guy over to be punished, but rather to stand trial. The evidence is being handled like any other case in the US to the best of my knowlege.

However much piracy can use some legal cases; this is not the way to go about it. The US attorney's office literally admitted they threw the book at him in the assumption that some of it would stick. Said impressive legal practice was promptly followed by details such as "jurisdiction" being conveniently overlooked in order to arrest him.

Which, of course, was followed in style by actively trying to deny him legal counsel - as virtually every single lawyer could be objected to as having a client somewhere in that massive heap of files. Not to mention this attempted denial of sharing the evidence. (Not exactly an "he'll get what he needs" there either - not if they could help it.)

If this is how the US normally handles their cases, then you might want to get a minor review in there somewhere.

Not to mention that even though it looks good on paper, convicting him could have rather nasty implications for many other data storage / transfer services. As undoubtedly noted countless times before; if this precedent sticks, then Google can easily be charged with exactly the same offenses, as they don't preview every single Youtube video before it gets uploaded.

Chasing pirates is all very lovely and well, but this particular piece of cowboy justice should get slapped out of court.

Well, see there is a flip side to this. Part of the reason why people engage in crimes over international borders is specifically to make themselves nearly impossible to prosecute for the reasons your pointing out. I don't see it so much as a matter of the US misbehaving, so much as it doing it's job despite the barriers. Like it or not this is exactly the kind of guy that needs to be gone after, and the precedents established. Throwing the book at someone in most cases, likewise is a pretty standard practice for all legal cases, especially when your dealing with someone trying to use the ambigiouity of their position as a defense. Likewise the nature of the situation Mr. Dotcom puts himself into is what makes legal counsel difficult, not being able to find a lawyer to represent you by your own doing is kind of a ridiculous defense.

To be entirely blunt, I'm hardly pro-pirate. I don't like what the goverment is doing with file sharing systems, but at the same time I think this is getting pretty ridiculous at times. A big part of the problem is that large file sharing sites don't even make the pretensions of trying to police themselves, hackers and such use tags specifically to ensure their warez are recognized as being from them to the regular user. If millions of people can recognize a tag like say AXXO, then the guys running a file sharing site can do the same exact thing. A big part of the problem here isn't whether it's practical for these services to police ALL files, but that they don't even make much of an effort, and yeah, that coming back to bite people is a big deal.

Honestly though, while not pro-pirate, I'll also say that I don't think it's as big a deal as the industries victimize it make it out to be, especially when the pirates themselves aren't making any money off of it (which is a whole differant area of discussion). The thing is that guys like Kim Dotcom have been making millions of dollars off of this stuff, granted he persumably gets his money due to advertising and the like through his sites, BUT at the same time the whole reason why he's such a hot property for advertisers is specifically because of all the warez that bring people to him. He might not be cracking games and music, but he is making money off of people doing it, albiet in an indirect fashion. One of the big defenses in terms of this being that nobody profits off of it, but we ARE seeing people profit off of it indirectly, and Kim is living what amounts to a truely epic lifestyle.

Throwing the book might be standard legal practice, throwing the book in a general direction in the vague hope you'll find something that supports it is not.

But pushing the legal delicacies aside: you might consider this kind of criminal enabling to be worthy of legal action; I empathically do not.

Gun stores shouldn't be held responsible whenever a gun they sold is used for crime; Ford shouldn't be charged whenever a pedo uses one of their vans; ski supplies stores shouldn't suddenly have to get a lawyer because they sell ski masks.

It's one thing to try and prevent legal services or goods being used for criminal purposes, but as long as the services or goods themselves are legal, the salesman shouldn't need to fear prosecution.

At the end of the day there isn't even any law explicitly stating that when you run a data storage service you need to check every single file. Point in fact, there are multiple privacy laws hindering you from doing so.
Sure, it's extremely likely he was aware that a decent part of their files were pirated, but he was under no legal obligation to do anything more than remove files when it was brought to his attention they were illegal - and even then arguably only when served with a DMCA takedown request.

Long story short: holding a business owner responsible for his customers' (mis)use of his (legal) goods or services is absurd.

Like most things it depends on context, which is why differant laws exist for differant things. I'd counter by pointing out that when it comes to things like smuggling and trading in illegal goods, the guys owning or controlling the trucks are held accountable, and policed as a whole. The mob got heavily into the teamsters unions and has made a lot of their money for decades now by controlling transport, smuggling through it, skimming cargos, and other assorted things, since pretty much everything that goes anywhere gets put into the back of a truck for distribution. The roads are full of weigh stations where trucks are required to be weighed and oftentimes searched specifically because of this, a transport company caught with say a million dollars of drugs in a truck is going to be held liable for traffiking the goods, since in most states they are held accountable for what goes into their trucks at least to the point of a substantial fine. (ie Sammy The Snake can't say "oh noes, I had no idea" put everything on some schmoe driver who might not even have loaded the truck).

To be honest I see the analogy as being a lot closer to the teamsters and shipping than I do to things like gun shops. Guys like Kim Dotcom are providing the service, and allowing it to be exploited. The defense of "we can't possibly verify every file going through our information transport hub" is just like some gangster saying "hey, I've got 10,000 trucks all over the country, how the hell am I supposed to search them all?" as an excuse. No offense but you can't expect people to be stupid, it's pretty bloody obvious, especially seeing as a complete lack of penelties (criminal or otherwise) doesn't exactly motivate anyone to care. Rule against Kim Dotcom, and make a policy that file sharing services have to pay a fine every time something is caught (much like a truck getting nabbed with contraband at a Weigh Station). That motivates them to at least try, and be innovative. Granted without them making the money off of successes to cover the failures like with actual smuggling, it hurts worse, but I'm not exactly overflowing with sympathy on a lot of levels. I have mixed feelings about file sharing, but let's be honest, even most people here mention they used it to pirate stuff, and even talk about public tags for finding the warez of specific pirates who pass their stuff around with imputiny, it's pretty ridiculous on a lot of levels, and shows no real effort involved.

See, I'm not 100% sold on the idea that the goverment should be so heavily involved in piracy and copyright violations to begin with. If they are going that way though, I don't expect them to be stupid about it, and feel they should be required to ignore the bloody obvious. Kim Dotcom has been pretty much thumbing his nose at the authorities for a long time, I mean even his bloody name makes that clear, he's been so blatent it's not surprising he's a target.

That said, as I've mentioned hundreds of times, I think piracy is an issue that has to start with industry reform. To be honest I think this is a waste of effort and resources (even if they are "right" if they want to go about it this way) since the goverment is basically protecting billion dollar industries that have gotten that big despite piracy, and continue to grow overall, while at the same time operating in fashions that are fundementally corrupt (which is a whole differant discussion). Things like file sharing services and the kingpins that run them aren't that big a deal, there are much bigger criseses to deal with, and really the gaming and music industries fuel this themselves with their own policies, they could ultimatly shut down piracy tomorrow if they modified their own behavior and became a bit less greedy with their product.

 

[Kargathia]

Spoiler: snip for size

Spoiler: snip

Hmmm, well there are a number of problems here.

At it's core the US goverment does have a point. What's more where the US goverment generally has a problem in not really understanding what they are dealing with, in this case there actions are pretty much appropriate. Simply put, there is no other viable way of going after an international, telecommunications based business like Megaupload than the avenue they pursued. Megaupload is more or less hiding behind it's international status to basically argue that no goverment could viably go after them without stepping on something.

Ultimatly the treaties in force for things like extraditions exist for the specific reason of forcing criminals accused of a crime by another country to stand trial in that country. The whole point of the treaty is that it doesn't nessicarly require what someone did to be a crime in the country they are being extradited from. The agreement being that both countries will turn over criminals wanted for crimes in another country.

In this case it's pretty black and white, as I understand things New Zealand does indeed have an extradition treaty with the US (which is why they are not defending it that way), that makes this an administrative matter, not a Judicial one, because the whole idea is to bring the guy to the US to stand trial in the Judicial system to find out if he's guilty or not... and that's in keeping with the agreement. The evidence the US has is more or less irrelevent to the treaty in question, as the whole idea is that it's a simple matter of us wanting to arrest him.

From where I'm sitting, a lot of people are happy to see New Zealand sticking it to the US, and others are pretty much cheering for a file sharing site fighting against the goverment with a degree of sense. The bottom line here is that there is enough evidence to bring this to trial, whether Megaupload is guilty or not, and that's why pre-existing agreements for exradition exist. Sending the guy to the US at this point isn't convicting him, it's simply forcing him to have to face the court.

I have mixed opinions on the issue itself, but I generally come down as being just as anti-pirate as I am anti-industry.

I'll also say that thumbing your nose at the US isn't the wisest move over something like this, because when the time comes and New Zealand wants our help with a crime (and it will happen given time) we're just as likely to do the same thing now, as New Zealand isn't holding up their end of things. Fears over this "becoming an administrative matter" are ridiculous because that's what it is, there is no need to provide evidence to prove him guilty at the moment as the whole idea is to bring it to trial, he hasn't bene convicted of anything. The evidence isn't needed until the trial begins, and by definition evidence and the circulation there of is kept under wraps before a trial begins. The more that stuff is circulated, the harder it is to get untainted jurors (one way or another) and the last thing we need is New Zealand going to the press and revealing what the evidence is, knowing dang well that with the interest this case ha garnered it's going to feed back into the US media and people will hear about it.

Disclosure rules exist for a reason: to give the defendant's lawyers a chance of preparing their case. Right now it's only known he is accused of copyright infringement (along with a bunch of related legalese), but not whose copyright exactly it was he infringed.
This would be equivalent of you getting charged for robbery, without ever being told whom exactly it is you're supposed to have robbed - leaving you to defend against unknown evidence in an unknown crime in court.

An extradition request indeed does not require a guilty verdict. However, what happened here involved a few serious shortcuts in correct legal proceedings - and Megaupload's lawyers are correct to try and burn the case to the ground on every single missed comma in the veritable deluge of accusations that's been coming their way.

Quite frankly I do hope he wins it. A conviction would set an extremely worrisome precedent in both the legality of this flavour of cowboy justice, and the whole deal with charging data storage / transfer services for the misdeeds of their customers.

All of your points about the case are ones that apply within the US legal system. All the evidence he's entitled to will be presented, the issue right now is for him to enter into the US system, and face trial like anyone else who committed a crime in this country.

As far as the rest goes, I have to say that I disagree with you. For one I think a very strong, and nessicary, statement is being made here by extraditing this guy (or trying to) as it shows the US isn't going to stop just because someone thumbs their nose from IP laws from ouside of the country.

As far as going after service providers, one of the problems with this area of law is that it has few precedents set with it, and that's what putting cases like this on trial is all about. See, right now we (as observers) don't know what that evidence is any more than New Zealand does, all we know is that the goverment thinks it has a direction it can go in. If the guy is right, then by all means he'll win the trial, but we don't know that which is why there needs to be one. New Zealand isn't handing the guy over to be punished, but rather to stand trial. The evidence is being handled like any other case in the US to the best of my knowlege.

However much piracy can use some legal cases; this is not the way to go about it. The US attorney's office literally admitted they threw the book at him in the assumption that some of it would stick. Said impressive legal practice was promptly followed by details such as "jurisdiction" being conveniently overlooked in order to arrest him.

Which, of course, was followed in style by actively trying to deny him legal counsel - as virtually every single lawyer could be objected to as having a client somewhere in that massive heap of files. Not to mention this attempted denial of sharing the evidence. (Not exactly an "he'll get what he needs" there either - not if they could help it.)

If this is how the US normally handles their cases, then you might want to get a minor review in there somewhere.

Not to mention that even though it looks good on paper, convicting him could have rather nasty implications for many other data storage / transfer services. As undoubtedly noted countless times before; if this precedent sticks, then Google can easily be charged with exactly the same offenses, as they don't preview every single Youtube video before it gets uploaded.

Chasing pirates is all very lovely and well, but this particular piece of cowboy justice should get slapped out of court.

Well, see there is a flip side to this. Part of the reason why people engage in crimes over international borders is specifically to make themselves nearly impossible to prosecute for the reasons your pointing out. I don't see it so much as a matter of the US misbehaving, so much as it doing it's job despite the barriers. Like it or not this is exactly the kind of guy that needs to be gone after, and the precedents established. Throwing the book at someone in most cases, likewise is a pretty standard practice for all legal cases, especially when your dealing with someone trying to use the ambigiouity of their position as a defense. Likewise the nature of the situation Mr. Dotcom puts himself into is what makes legal counsel difficult, not being able to find a lawyer to represent you by your own doing is kind of a ridiculous defense.

To be entirely blunt, I'm hardly pro-pirate. I don't like what the goverment is doing with file sharing systems, but at the same time I think this is getting pretty ridiculous at times. A big part of the problem is that large file sharing sites don't even make the pretensions of trying to police themselves, hackers and such use tags specifically to ensure their warez are recognized as being from them to the regular user. If millions of people can recognize a tag like say AXXO, then the guys running a file sharing site can do the same exact thing. A big part of the problem here isn't whether it's practical for these services to police ALL files, but that they don't even make much of an effort, and yeah, that coming back to bite people is a big deal.

Honestly though, while not pro-pirate, I'll also say that I don't think it's as big a deal as the industries victimize it make it out to be, especially when the pirates themselves aren't making any money off of it (which is a whole differant area of discussion). The thing is that guys like Kim Dotcom have been making millions of dollars off of this stuff, granted he persumably gets his money due to advertising and the like through his sites, BUT at the same time the whole reason why he's such a hot property for advertisers is specifically because of all the warez that bring people to him. He might not be cracking games and music, but he is making money off of people doing it, albiet in an indirect fashion. One of the big defenses in terms of this being that nobody profits off of it, but we ARE seeing people profit off of it indirectly, and Kim is living what amounts to a truely epic lifestyle.

Throwing the book might be standard legal practice, throwing the book in a general direction in the vague hope you'll find something that supports it is not.

But pushing the legal delicacies aside: you might consider this kind of criminal enabling to be worthy of legal action; I empathically do not.

Gun stores shouldn't be held responsible whenever a gun they sold is used for crime; Ford shouldn't be charged whenever a pedo uses one of their vans; ski supplies stores shouldn't suddenly have to get a lawyer because they sell ski masks.

It's one thing to try and prevent legal services or goods being used for criminal purposes, but as long as the services or goods themselves are legal, the salesman shouldn't need to fear prosecution.

At the end of the day there isn't even any law explicitly stating that when you run a data storage service you need to check every single file. Point in fact, there are multiple privacy laws hindering you from doing so.
Sure, it's extremely likely he was aware that a decent part of their files were pirated, but he was under no legal obligation to do anything more than remove files when it was brought to his attention they were illegal - and even then arguably only when served with a DMCA takedown request.

Long story short: holding a business owner responsible for his customers' (mis)use of his (legal) goods or services is absurd.

Like most things it depends on context, which is why differant laws exist for differant things. I'd counter by pointing out that when it comes to things like smuggling and trading in illegal goods, the guys owning or controlling the trucks are held accountable, and policed as a whole. The mob got heavily into the teamsters unions and has made a lot of their money for decades now by controlling transport, smuggling through it, skimming cargos, and other assorted things, since pretty much everything that goes anywhere gets put into the back of a truck for distribution. The roads are full of weigh stations where trucks are required to be weighed and oftentimes searched specifically because of this, a transport company caught with say a million dollars of drugs in a truck is going to be held liable for traffiking the goods, since in most states they are held accountable for what goes into their trucks at least to the point of a substantial fine. (ie Sammy The Snake can't say "oh noes, I had no idea" put everything on some schmoe driver who might not even have loaded the truck).

To be honest I see the analogy as being a lot closer to the teamsters and shipping than I do to things like gun shops. Guys like Kim Dotcom are providing the service, and allowing it to be exploited. The defense of "we can't possibly verify every file going through our information transport hub" is just like some gangster saying "hey, I've got 10,000 trucks all over the country, how the hell am I supposed to search them all?" as an excuse. No offense but you can't expect people to be stupid, it's pretty bloody obvious, especially seeing as a complete lack of penelties (criminal or otherwise) doesn't exactly motivate anyone to care. Rule against Kim Dotcom, and make a policy that file sharing services have to pay a fine every time something is caught (much like a truck getting nabbed with contraband at a Weigh Station). That motivates them to at least try, and be innovative. Granted without them making the money off of successes to cover the failures like with actual smuggling, it hurts worse, but I'm not exactly overflowing with sympathy on a lot of levels. I have mixed feelings about file sharing, but let's be honest, even most people here mention they used it to pirate stuff, and even talk about public tags for finding the warez of specific pirates who pass their stuff around with imputiny, it's pretty ridiculous on a lot of levels, and shows no real effort involved.

See, I'm not 100% sold on the idea that the goverment should be so heavily involved in piracy and copyright violations to begin with. If they are going that way though, I don't expect them to be stupid about it, and feel they should be required to ignore the bloody obvious. Kim Dotcom has been pretty much thumbing his nose at the authorities for a long time, I mean even his bloody name makes that clear, he's been so blatent it's not surprising he's a target.

That said, as I've mentioned hundreds of times, I think piracy is an issue that has to start with industry reform. To be honest I think this is a waste of effort and resources (even if they are "right" if they want to go about it this way) since the goverment is basically protecting billion dollar industries that have gotten that big despite piracy, and continue to grow overall, while at the same time operating in fashions that are fundementally corrupt (which is a whole differant discussion). Things like file sharing services and the kingpins that run them aren't that big a deal, there are much bigger criseses to deal with, and really the gaming and music industries fuel this themselves with their own policies, they could ultimatly shut down piracy tomorrow if they modified their own behavior and became a bit less greedy with their product.

I'd think there's a bit of an obvious difference between personally shipping goods, and offering the tools to ship goods. If a company provides the driver and the actual service of shipping, then they'll be held liable. If all they did was hire out the truck, then they can't be held responsible for criminal use of the truck.(Unless, of course, it can be proven they were complicit in the smuggling)

As to piracy being nothing more than a indicator of the need for industry reform: agreed. By now it's so much a part of the digital landscape you can't eradicate it without drastically curtailing the internet. The only real long-term option is to adapt, and use it to your advantage.

On the short term it's rather hard to believe that pirates are busy ruining the entire industry. Unless, of course, record profits and revenue are a sign of imminent bankruptcy.

 

[Baresark]

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Not really, the problem with the case situation is goverments like New Zealand not going through with it.

The idea of such treaties is to prevent people from using international borders to commit crimes against the people of other nations with imputiny, or to flee accross borders to escape prosecution. As I said, the entire point of such treaties and even the existance of entire organizations like Interpol is specifically to handle international crimes without getting bogged down by differant laws. The idea being that if someone does something wrong, they will be held accountable for it no matter where they decide to go to hide or try and shield themselves. There is nothing wrong with that in principle.

By your arguement your basically saying that if someone commits crimes against the citizens of another country they should be able to get away with it, with imputiny, unless they can be convicted in their home country which may not even have laws against whatever they are doing, and most definalty doesn't have any direct, vested interest.

In general extradition treaties exist between countries that generally respect each other's standards of justice. For example you generally don't see them between first and third world countries in a form where say someone can be extradited to The Middle East and tortured to death for drawing a picture of Mohammad or whatever. You do however see them between more civilized nations specifically because of things like fraud, organized crime, hacking, and similar things that by their nature can't be resolved entirely within one country.

In this case New Zealand agreed to the treaty with the US, an given that Kim commited crimes against the US, we have the right to try him for them. The same would apply if a US citizen did the same thing against the people of New Zealand. The bottom line is accountability. In this case evidence doesn't much matter, because the guy is just being pulled for trial, he's not actually being tossed in prison for years or whatever, just being made to answer the accusations. In some countries that would be a joke (China, The Middle East) but not in the US (despite what you might think) especially in a high profile case. What's more there is also the entire embassy system and the diplomatic game, which has it's own rules, agreements, and policies. If someone is extradited for trial and it's a touchy subject, in general the nation sending the guy is probably going to have guys from their Embassy present to watch it, and step in through those channels if need be. In general extradition treaties don't happen between nations that don't have diplomatic relations to begin with... this is something people are also overlooking.

Among other things there is a general agreement that if the embassy requests someone be cleared of a crime, it happens, and they are deported. This is one of the reasons why nations like China have such a bad reputation, they tend to thumb their nose at things like that when requested, and thus get noses thumbed back at them (the David Faye incident for example). In he case of New Zealand however, if Mr. Dotcom was convicted, and New Zealand asked for him to be released, chances are it would happen for purposes of the ruling and policy, but he'd be handed over, probably with certain conditions involving his computer activities and how they might touch on the US... of course that's neither here nor there.

Basically the Kiwis are being buttheads, and when the time comes that they need these kinds of international law enforcement policies, people aren't going to be inclined to cooperate with them. Almost guaranteed a lot of people are looking at this, and whether they agree with the incident or not, the bottom line is going to be that they aren't going to want to play ball with New Zealand if they are going to play games whenever they need something in return.

You misunderstand me sir. I never made the argument that they should have to be proven guilty at home to be extradited. That is the second time you did that. I am simply saying that it doesn't seem unreasonable that a judge would want to see actual evidence of the crime as part of the administrative process rather than the claim of evidence. I'm not saying he shouldn't be extradited or even that judge is necessarily in the right. But if this judge can stop the process based on him not seeing a single shred of evidence, clearly there was some sort of administrative process that is not being followed through on here if that is truly the case. If he is acting outside the process then why hasn't a higher government official come out and said that he will be extradited? To me that clearly says that maybe there is an error in the process somewhere along the lines.

From a personal perspective, I would not want to be extradited to NZ at their word without someone domestically seeing evidence that I committed any crime at all. Just as proof that evidence exists and it's not at the word of a group of people who may have other interests. I will say this though, if this case was just about piracy I would see no reason to extradite him. Since there are actual criminal charges attached to this and the potential for imprisonment, I would say that proof of actual evidence is even more important.

 

[SpAc3man]

Everyone realises the extradition hearing starts in August right? All he has been doing so far is getting back personal belongings, his house and disclosure of evidence gathered against him to help him make his case for not being extradited in August.