Marathon Kim Dotcom Megaupload founder’s case back in New Zealand court

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Marathon Kim Dotcom Megaupload founder’s case back in New Zealand court
ultrasurfing.com: Ultrasurf - Top Stories
Feb 11 2018
Dotcom is accused of industrial-scale online piracy via his Megaupload empire

Dotcom is accused of industrial-scale online piracy via his Megaupload empire

Wellington (AFP) - Internet mogul Kim Dotcom’s legal case returns to court in New Zealand Monday for what may be the Megaupload founder’s final chance of avoiding extradition to the United States.
Dotcom’s epic extradition battle has dragged on for more than six years, starting in January 2012 when armed police acting on an FBI request raided his Auckland mansion.
The 44-year-old German national is accused of industrial-scale online piracy via his Megaupload empire, which US authorities shut down when the raid took place.
If sent to the United States he will face charges of racketeering, fraud and money laundering carrying jail terms of up to 20 years.

Dotcom and his three co-accused – Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk – maintain their innocence and will challenge the legitimacy of their arrests this week at the Court of Appeal in Wellington.
If the appeals court rules Dotcom is eligible for extradition, a process that could take months, he will have limited options for overturning the decision.
Theoretically, he could go to the Supreme Court, but his legal team would need compelling new evidence that he was facing a miscarriage of justice.

- Cloud pioneer -

Megaupload was an early example of cloud computing, allowing users to upload large files onto a server so others could easily download them without clogging up their email systems.
At its height in 2011, Megaupload claimed to have 50 million daily users and account for four percent of the world’s internet traffic.
The problem, according to an FBI indictment, was that many of the files shared were copyright-protected films and music.
It alleges Megaupload netted more than $175 million in criminal proceeds and cost copyright owners $500 million-plus by offering pirated content.
While such cloud technology is now commonplace, emerging alternatives such as online streaming means the problem of content piracy remains a live one for US authorities.
As such, a high-profile scalp such as Dotcom would still be viewed as a powerful deterrent by the FBI and US Department of Justice.
Born Kim Schmitz in Kiel, northern Germany in 1974, Dotcom changed his name in 2005, around the same time he established Megaupload.
He used the wealth generated from his website to fund a lavish lifestyle of racing cars and luxury yachts before moving to New Zealand in 2010.
With his penchant for black clothing and Teutonic accent, Dotcom has likened himself to a James Bond villain, arguing that is why he has been pursued so vigorously.

“I’m an easy target, they needed a villain who’s rich, flamboyant and over-the-top like me,” he said on 2013.

He has remained outspoken throughout his legal battle and last month marked the sixth anniversary of the Auckland raid by announcing a multi-billion dollar damages claim against the New Zealand government.

 

[Deleted member 65228]

I don't think this is very fair though, because of course there's going to be copyrighted content on the service's storage... It's a file sharing service. If you take a look at Dropbox, Mediafire, Google Drive, OneDrive (Microsoft), BOX, among many others, you'll find copyrighted content there.

You can't go through every single document uploaded onto your file sharing service, and if you do then you're infringing privacy. You also face a challenge with password protected archives in which you could try and brute-force the password but it likely isn't going to work in a timely fashion.

At-least if he tried to keep it clean from copyrighted material then this should account for something, no? If he knew about it but did nothing then I understand more on why he's facing charges but if he did try to stop it and did take content down to given reports, then why is he facing charges? I don't see the founder's of several other file-sharing websites in court facing these charges.

Copyright infringement can be as so much as uploading a picture online which originated from a source who do not provide permission to make changes and share elsewhere, with a modification to it. So you bet that all the major file-sharing services will have some form of copyright infringing material stored deep and owned by various user accounts.

Edit:
My comment above about not agreeing it is fair only stands if the founder didn't intentionally allow it to happen or assist, only if he did try to stop it but of course you can't stop it 100%

 

[Windows Defender Shill]

Piracy is a term falsely applied to the free spread of information by censorship thugs. All people have the right to share intellectual property they purchased with however many people they choose.

The censorship thugs profit dramatically by selling their content in a digital format but do not accept the inherit distribution risk associated with this format but instead seek to undermine the rights of others to protect their content.

 

[Deleted member 65228]

Piracy is a term falsely applied to the free spread of information by censorship thugs. All people have the right to share intellectual property they purchased with however many people they choose.

lol

You can't just take someone elses work and make up the rules for it. When you "purchase" software, there will be legal contracts regarding the purchase and/or usage and/or local laws regarding the purchase. You don't "own" the creation, you're given permission to use the creation yourself but are restricted from doing X with it, one of them being distribution without permission.

If you made a painting, a really nice painting... A painting of cows flying to the moon and back and stopping at Mars for a picnic on the way... Like a really really nice painting with colours and everything. You start printing copies and selling them to people, however you don't want them to be resold (you want people to purchase them from you and only you hence you own it and want the money instead of other) and the law there allows you to enforce this. Now people come along, purchase, and sell it for 5x more than the original price. Is this still acceptable in your opinion?

Piracy is a term used for when someone else's work is stolen and distributed to others without permission.

You might not care about piracy but obviously people relying on it for income will be.

You do realise that if piracy was not illegal then there would be so many few companies across many departments? Music, film/video, games, software... Money doesn't grow on tree's lol. Piracy is the same as stealing. You're taking something which costs money for free. It's no different to robbing several milkshake from the local corner shop

 

[Windows Defender Shill]

lol

You can't just take someone elses work and make up the rules for it. When you "purchase" software, there will be legal contracts regarding the purchase and/or usage and/or local laws regarding the purchase. You don't "own" the creation, you're given permission to use the creation yourself but are restricted from doing X with it, one of them being distribution without permission.

If you made a painting, a really nice painting... A painting of cows flying to the moon and back and stopping at Mars for a picnic on the way... Like a really really nice painting with colours and everything. You start printing copies and selling them to people, however you don't want them to be resold (you want people to purchase them from you and only you hence you own it and want the money instead of other) and the law there allows you to enforce this. Now people come along, purchase, and sell it for 5x more than the original price. Is this still acceptable in your opinion?

Piracy is a term used for when someone else's work is stolen and distributed to others without permission.

You might not care about piracy but obviously people relying on it for income will be.

You do realise that if piracy was not illegal then there would be so many few companies across many departments? Music, film/video, games, software... Money doesn't grow on tree's lol

Wrong, when I purchase intellectual property it's my property. I'm free to do with it whatever i wish. Only through the corrupt DMCA can this legal behavior be prosecuted, and the DMCA is only law by means of corruption not consent of the governed and thus illegal.

 

[Deleted member 65228]

Wrong, when I purchase intellectual property it's my property. I'm free to do with it whatever i wish. Only through the corrupt DMCA can this legal behavior be prosecuted, and the DMCA is only law by means of corruption not consent of the governed and thus illegal.

Lol what

Yeah sorry but it just doesn't work like that. Maybe to you but in the eyes of the law/the agreements you sign and the companies rules it simply doesn't and it'd neither stand up in court.

 

[Windows Defender Shill]

If content providers sale their product in a digital format they accept the distribution risk associated with digital.

 

[Windows Defender Shill]

Lol what

Yeah sorry but it just doesn't work like that. Maybe to you but in the eyes of the law/the agreements you sign and the companies rules it simply doesn't and it'd neither stand up in court.

You are referencing a corrupt system, by which only the wealthy and lobbying class are represented and protected. This is a critical ability in our republic not afforded to the middle or lower class. And thus illegal, because it does not enjoy the consent of the governed.

 

[Windows Defender Shill]

A few ultra wealthy fat cats got together and decided what was legal to share and what wasn't, and then payed politicians to enforce this decision. This is corruption, this is the DMCA!

 

[bribon77]

This man is very smart. But I say that if he is a German citizen,
How will you judge EE, UU? unless you have been nationalized.
I do not understand

 

[Dani Santos]

You are referencing a corrupt system, by which only the wealthy and lobbying class are represented and protected. This is a critical ability in our republic not afforded to the middle or lower class. And thus illegal, because it does not enjoy the consent of the governed.

It doesn't work like that. Imagine you found your own music company, you spend million paying producers, sound engineers, ect. You have a studio people working there, helping you, so you can release your music. And now someone just decides to steal your music and distribute it for free to everyone. So all your time and money invested on your music it's gone, because music, movies and games aren't free, they cost money, time and lot's of people working on it. That's the wrong mentality you have there.

 

[Ink]

This is corruption, this is the DMCA!

Spot on. DMCA is an United States copyright law.

Source: Wikipedia. I'm unarmed.

 

[AtlBo]

I feel Kim has been through enough. He is a showman, and controversy will probably always be around him. However, imo the software makers and creators and distributors of music and movies are to blame for distributing material that wasn't physically protected properly. That was their challenge to handle, and they never came up an answer. Kim didn't create their plague, and he really didn't even benefit from it to speak of (in my view of the realest sense).

Anyway, most of this happened back when music and movie formats were basically junk. Also, the software that was being "pirated" was written for doomed hardware platforms that couldn't support content worthy of the money being asked. Further, there wasn't enough respect for the power of computing in the early years of the PC revolution, so governments didn't respond with concerns about the issues over privacy and piracy. The rules were overbearing if anything (kneejerk responses), and the system for releasing digital content failed to produce a vision that included the place of digital content in the big picture. As a result, many took advantage of what KDC was offering. No questions asked upload and downloads. It was very wild west, and it's good we have gotten beyond the 90s and early 2000s, so I hope this case gets things put into a proper perspective.

Noone lost anything over the actions of KDC. However, there is still a tremendous amount of work to do to establish clean distribution channels for protected digital content. I say, let's just not forget that there could be an argument made that the media content and programs that were pirated in the past (older versions of software too) maybe weren't worth the money being asked for them. This is especially true in the older sorry outdated formats of most of the media content. So, should KDC be extradited? I say no, because he didn't pirate anything himself and also, because the argument that can be made about the value of the content he is accused of conspiring to pirate carries weight with me.

With the proper protections in place, KDC wouldn't have ever been the subject of the kind of scrutiy his activities have come under. I feel it's time to put the issue to rest and just keep working for content that is worthy of protection and then for good protections...

 

[Deleted member 65228]

If content providers sale their product in a digital format they accept the distribution risk associated with digital.

yes of course but saying you own their property and can do whatever you want is fantasy not reality...

and that is evident because of copyright laws.

Feel free to try and do something like distribute pirated content. If it hits enough exposure you will get sued and the court won't rule in your favour

Maybe in your mind you buy software license and can do anything you want with the software itself but mind vs reality is not the same

I don't like DMCA either but it doesn't change anything. Opinions do not override the law

Even if the law is different where you are, if someone from a powerful country with money wants then they can probably enforce change. A small country with less resources is not going to want to fight the EU

I cross the road and accept the risk I mah be ran over by an angry man but that doesn't mean it is acceptable to be ran over... We all accept the risk that a painting of cows flying to Mars can be stolen from your house but that does not make the theft acceptable?

 

[upnorth]

Most of this tragic case is still available at torrentfreak.

Read here : Best and latest kim dotcom info

 

[Deleted member 65228]

Most of this tragic case is still available at torrentfreak.

Read here : Best and latest kim dotcom info

Police Raid 9-Year-Old Pirate Bay Girl, Confiscate Winnie The Pooh Laptop - TorrentFreak

LOL