back to article Megaupload kingpin found in panic room when arrested, say cops

Kim Dotcom has retained and then lost a star-quality US attorney, as debate over the raid and the Megaupload owner’s residency turns political in New Zealand. At issue in the political debate is why Dotcom, who was refused permission to purchase the multi-million dollar mansion he occupied on character grounds, was nonetheless …

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  1. Michael Duke
    Thumb Down

    It came out later that the "Near a firearm" means in the same room as a gun in a gun safe that was not open.

    A real threat to public safety requiring the efforts of 70 police officers and two helicopters!!!!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      And that room was a "panic room", presumably somewhere well inside the house.

      Fits well with the drama though. I recall him as a bit of a drama queen, so he might not even mind all that much that the FBI has been laying it on rather thickly from the outset.

      The thing is of course that it's quite impossible now to give him a fair trial. As an argument in the SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/whatever farce, it could still go either way. And as a distraction it could still backfire. But it certainly doesn't look good for anyone's rights. Except for those of the executives that've apparently bought the legislative AND law enforcement branches of the current USoA administration.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        A fair trial might be even more difficult now they have seized all his assets and he might not be able to pay for his own lawyer. What is interesting is that they have seized all his stuff BEFORE he has had his day in court, so I guess he has been presumed guilty from the outset.

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  2. ElReg!comments!Pierre

    Contempt notwithstanding...

    As much as I despise the guy, chance are that IF I had a panic room I would most probably have in there the nastiest knock-back, close-quarters-friendly weapon that the law and my budget would allow. A short 10-gauge shotgun and a stock of buckshots seems likely.

    Also, if I was a dubious-character millionaire in such a big mansion, chances are that IF my door was rammed down at dawn, I would make my way to the aforementionned saferoom as fast as I could (which, IF I was 140 kg, would not be very fast, probably).

    There's nothing here that modifies my opinion on Kim Dotcom, either in good or bad. He did what anyone would have done in similar circumstances I guess.

    The story does not say whether he contacted the local authorities from the saferoom, and why he did not open fire on the "intruders" when the door went down (although I have a hunch that the local police might not have been notified of the operation. [SRCSM] Why would an US-mandated operation worry about local law enforcement... [/SRCSM])

    1. Mark 65

      I'd want to know how they cut into the panic room and whether this was in contradiction to the sales brochure.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And we feared SOPA could be bad...

    Makes you seriously wonder if the whole SOAP (ok; sopa) thing is actually real or merely a ruse to test public opinion. After all; this clearly shows that if the US feels like it they obviously don't need some soap regulation to warrant their actions. They go in anyway.

    "Who cares about laws when we all know they're guilty". Yeah, very reliable words right there.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It is not SOPA. It is not even DMCA or copyright law.

      The charges were filed after he used artists in a promotional video and after he filed a countersuit against UMG for illegitimate takedown of his promotional videos.

      It is retaliation in a contract dispute - he has managed to get an A-list of "indentured for life" artists "owned" by UMG to participate in his video against the will of their "owner". He has also managed to make youtube reinstate it after a UMG DMCA takedown as he is the rightful copyright owner.

      His guilt is not that he operated a dubious legality business (many others do). It is that he has tried to legitimise it using "assets" owned by the media conglomerates. Wrong idea. It took only two weeks after he has had his videos reinstated by GooTube to file for an indictment and two more weeks to have it issued and acted upon by another country. The wheels of justice sure turn fast if they are being greased by the right people for the right people.

      1. Greg 16
        FAIL

        I agree that the 'megasong' incident probably pushed things along, but I'm pretty sure he was being investigated long before that.

        I'm a great supporter of these file lockers and have used them often, but one thing to note about megaupload, is that apparently when there was a take down request, only the link was deleted - the file remained on the servers and could be given a new link by the owner - megaupload even supported tools to do this automatically. Maybe the deletion of links rather than files has a defence that it might be the owners personal backup of the original content, but that's probably one for Kim's lawyers to argue about for the next couple of years.

        The guys biggest mistake was not keeping his head down. Buying a fleet of Mercs in New Zealand. with number plates like 'Police' 'Stoner' 'Mafia' 'Guilt' 'Hacker' and 'God' wasn't really the best way of staying inconspicuous.

        1. Mad Mike

          @Greg16

          I agree, but the question remains.....'What is takedown'.

          If the material is not still accessible via the method, is this not takedown? If the original uploaded then chooses to make it available again through another method (link), then isn't that the same as him uploading another copy and another link being created automatically? What's the difference? Just saves the upload.

          The whole problem with this is, the laws involved are often pre-computers and therefore don't make sense in a computerised world, or are so badly drafted by people without a clue of the technicals. Either way, you could argue technical points till the cows come home. The only answer is to scrap all existing and start from scratch with sensible laws based on technology and digital content.

          Even if megaupload made life difficult for the copyright holder, that doesn't matter as long as what they did was within the law. All you have to do is stay just the right side of the law, not make the laws life easy!!

          In this case, they are no more guilty of an offence than many other websites and all ISPs. In all cases, you have a service that can be used rightly or wrongly. If someone uses it wrongly, is that the fault of the service provider? ISPs are lucky in that they have a specific law that puts them in the clear. They are explicitly not responsible for what happens across their service. Why should they have a special exemption, but not file repositories? Surely allow the illegal transportation of a 'copyright theft' file is equally as bad as storing it?

          1. Greg 16

            Yes the laws need to catch up, and it will be interesting how this case pans out and what arguments are used.

            Rightly or wrongly ISP's will be safe because they're mainly used legitimately and more importantly are owned by big business.

            I'm pretty sure that megaupload's lawyers won't use the ISP argument much - they'll go for Youtube/Google. Youtube is much more of a household name than megaupload and I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of it's content infringes copyright, they reward uploaders, have searchable content etc etc - but the big difference is that it's owned by google.

            If there was justice, then Youtube would be treated the same as megaupload, but I have zero faith in any kind of justice in the US when the interests of big business are a stake.

            1. Mad Mike

              ISPs in the clear

              Interesting that you should suggest ISPs are mostly used legitimarely. I don't know what the legal/illegal mis is over their links, but according to most reports I've seen, a very large amount is illegal (depending on your definitions of this term). Does it matter how much though? Surely, a crime is a crime?

              As you say, YouTube is probably the best analogy. This whole case is demonstrating more and more how big business owns governments, law enforcement, the judiciary et al. All the more reason to move your business to come nice backwater that doesn't like the USA. Wonder what the Cuban market is like?

          2. david wilson

            @Mad Mike

            >>"I agree, but the question remains.....'What is takedown'."

            Well, I'd have thought that to an honest person, unless they actually had reason to believe the takedown request was illegitimate, 'takedown' would generally involve either deleting the supposedly-offending data, or deleting any other active links to it that existed*.

            Unless they had for some reason designed their system to make finding other links difficult to do, in which case they could still delete the data itself.

            Even if the takedown notice merely requests 'removing access to' infringing material rather than demanding its deletion, someone who knowingly only deleted one of many links to the material wouldn't really seem to be complying with the terms of the request.

            (*Obviously, if uploaders are contactable, then all uploaders of an allegedly-infringing file should be contacted when a takedown request is made. If uploaders are anonymous, then I guess the assumption would have to be that they don't object to deletion, rather than that they do.)

            >>"In this case, they are no more guilty of an offence than many other websites and all ISPs. "

            Well, I guess that depends whether one subscribes to the logic that if you can think of a way in which two operations are similar, that means you can legitimately claim that there are absolutely no differences between them in practice, whatever the law might say.

            >>"ISPs are lucky in that they have a specific law that puts them in the clear. They are explicitly not responsible for what happens across their service. Why should they have a special exemption, but not file repositories? Surely allow the illegal transportation of a 'copyright theft' file is equally as bad as storing it?"

            It's hard to see how people can't see the difference between:

            a) A carrier which doesn't store copies of the data it carries for longer than necessary for transmission, and a file repository whose whole raison d'etre is the storage of information.

            b) A carrier which typically has some serious obligations with respect to privacy of communications and a file repository which actively rewards people for sharing access to files they upload with as many people as possible, and which is effectively acting more like a publisher than even a regular file storage facility where individuals keep their own data.

            c) (further to a)) A carrier which pretty much unavoidably can only receive allegations of past infringing action, which it may find difficult to confirm or refute even if it wanted to, and a file-hosting site which can receive allegations of *ongoing* infringing activity, which much of the time, if it chooses, it can take some steps to confirm.

            d) A carrier which, short of sanctioning a user, can do nothing regarding past *actions* which have pretty much always finished before a complaint is received, and a file-hosting service which quite clearly can easily take action against continually-infringing *files*, if they have not already been deleted for one or other reason.

            Etc.

            >>"Even if megaupload made life difficult for the copyright holder, that doesn't matter as long as what they did was within the law. All you have to do is stay just the right side of the law, not make the laws life easy!!"

            Well, assuming for the sake of argument that nothing they did was *obviously illegal*, if someone is attempting to stay just on the right side of the law, and *especially* if they're going to be doing that for profit, publicly, and on a large scale, in the absence of good legal precedent* that they really *are* legal, they're taking a pretty big gamble, and if the gamble doesn't work out, they don't obviously have anyone to blame but themselves.

            (*And good legal precedent doesn't include trying to equate activities which really aren't equal.)

            I'm sure there are plenty of people who managed to convince themselves that what *they* were doing was just-barely-legal or even more-than-just-barely-legal, but who found out that their opinion wasn't shared by a jury, and ended up in jail.

            The more profit someone might make out of doing something, the keener they may be to err on the side of recklessness when trying to work out the legality of their actions.

  4. miknik
    Coat

    They should have expected firearms

    After a dotcom bust surely a dotcom boom must follow?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Suicide is the gutless way out

    Mr. Dotcom is in for some slightly different accommodations.

  6. Mikel
    Happy

    Safe room

    It is not unusual for a wealthy person to have a safe room, nor to retreat to it while under attack even by uniformed law officers. Some criminals do, after all, wear costumes or violate the law while officially in uniform.

    The man has been painted as an unsympathetic figure. But if being a wealthy excentric prone to excess were illegal there's a lot of folk in the US on that list to look to before exploring New Zealand.

    It seems unlikely that a man of Mr. Dotcom's means doesn't have sufficient funds in a safe harbor adequate to his defense. But stranger things have happened.

  7. Peladon

    I don't post this to be contentious...

    .. or to express a view. I'm not American. Whether my views - whatever they might be - should in any way have any bearing on American law (whether or not American law believes it should have any impact on me) is not the point.

    And yes. I know expecting or hoping for logic in legislative activity is hoping for far too much.

    However. For those who may wish to consider it, herewith.

    I could have posted this on the original report of the bust. But heck. There's a gun in this one as well.

    Imagine. You're back at school. You have a Philosophy paper. Or, as it might be, a Sociology paper. Or some other ology. And there's a question:

    1: Guns do not kill people. People kill people. To hold those who manufacture or sell firearms liable in any way for the improper actions some take with their product is not a Good Thing(tm).

    2: Filesharing sites do not abuse copyright. People abuse copyright. However, while there are indeed those who use filesharing sites in a proper manner, there are those who do not. To hold the providers of such sites liable for the improper actions of those using their sites is a Good Thing(tm).

    Discuss.

    There. That's it. Discuss. Or do not. Or ignore me. IT's probably better that way. There. I don't exist. This post doesn't exist. It was all a dream. Any moment now, Bobby is going to step out of the shower....

    1. Michael Duke

      TBH I am big on personal responsibility.

      Trying to blame the sites is almost as silly as trying to blame the ISP's for piracy.

      Now if the content providers allowed a decent online experience outside the USA I have a feeling that a significant amount of the piracy that goes on would diminish and we would then have not only a more manageable issue but also a significant lack of excuses why it happens.

      Consider in the US you have Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu+ as options, none of which are available outside of the US and which I am convinced are not available because the networks and media companies do not allow it.

      The media companies need to get into the 21st century and deliver their content in a modern manner for the whole world, not just the USA.

    2. ElReg!comments!Pierre

      Interesting questions

      However half of it is irrelevant. No gun was fired (that I know of). No gunwound is to deplore. It would make for a long fruitless thread. Letś ignore that one.

      Filesharing is technically neutral. Free centralised e-lockers can be used for good, or bad, or goatse. They do not, in my admitedly "small minded and unreasonable" brain, have any intrinsic technical or cultural value. They can be convenient for some, and I would hate to see them disappear, had I been foolish enough to rely on them. But they are little more than convenient ftp replacement for the lazy/cheapstakes/technically challenged. Or for people trying to avoid lawsuits. Decentralised -AKA P2P- protocols, however, do represent a technical improvement, in and by themselves, and THAT is worth fighting for; regardless of the content they convey, they can work around bottlenecks, they deal well with localized catastrophic events, and they trump localized abuse of power (the latest might be why the Recording Industry Ass. of America and friends want to see them dead). Network-wise, they are the solution to a lot -if not most- of the problems in the traditional client-server information transfer model. (-1 point to me for the buzzphrase, I know; sorry, don't know how to express it otherwise).

      So, what's my grade?

      1. Peladon

        I never intended to suggest I had...

        ... any right or ability to 'grade'. It was merely the logical inconsistency suggested by the pairs of statements, and the approach apparently taken to each set of circumstances.

        But as I said. To hope for logic and consistency in legislation is itself likely to be found lacking in logic. Me? I'm used to being found lacking in logic and consistency. I'm married :-).

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Gradewa

        "However half of it is irrelevant. No gun was fired (that I know of). No gunwound is to deplore. It would make for a long fruitless thread. Letś ignore that one."

        I dont think the point of the "discuss" was to discuss the legality or morality of firearms. If it was, I agree that it is irrelevant.

        However, as I read it, the question is given that we are operating off an assumption that ownership of a gun (and therefore the sale and advertising of said firearm) is neutral and its only bad people who kill with guns, doesnt the same reasoning apply to fileshareing.

        Filesharing is done with tools which dont intrinsically breach RIAA copyrights, just like a gun is a tool which doesnt intrinsically kill people.

        Filesharing sites are a place where people can find and share files, but they do not intrinsically breach RIAA copyrights any more than gun shops or gun clubs kill people.

        If a bad person goes to a gun shop, buys a gun and shoots someone you punish the bad person, not the gun shop or manufacturers. (Ideally, I know this isnt always the case).

        However, if a bad person goes to a filesharing site and uses filesharing tools to breach a copyright, the only reason the site is punished is because its a bit difficult to catch the bad person.

        It is, to me, a bit of a double standard.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          But if the gun analogy were broadened to include co-conspirators in an act of terrorism, I think most would agree that such co-conspirators should be pursued for their role even though they did not personally pull the trigger.

          To the extent that copyrights exist and are something we wish to enforce (a position I am not advocating), one needs to look at each party involved in a breach and determine their intention: was the breach incidental to a wider purpose (such as providing a generic internet service) or a deliberate act (such as a service whose primary purpose is to assist/enable/exacerbate such breaches). Were it the latter, I do not feel that such a party is quite analogous to a gun club or gun shop, but perhaps more analogous to a terrorist training camp.

          1. Figgus
            Stop

            "But if the gun analogy were broadened to include co-conspirators in an act of terrorism, I think most would agree that such co-conspirators should be pursued for their role even though they did not personally pull the trigger."

            Did the fertilizer manufacturer or the nitromethane fuel company get sued when McVeigh bombed Oklahoma City in 1995? Did Ryder get sued for renting him the truck?

            There is a gulf of difference between a co-conspirator and a service provider.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              "Did the fertilizer manufacturer or the nitromethane fuel company get sued when McVeigh bombed Oklahoma City in 1995? Did Ryder get sued for renting him the truck?"

              But they were not co-conspirators. See my previous point re intention.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                I am looking forward to the day when we can prosecute the highways agency for criminals using the road network and pubs for allowing criminals to meet and discuss their nefarious deeds over a few beers.

                Lets stamp out crime everywhere. And keep stamping until nothing is left. Then there will be no criminals.

    3. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Houston, We have more problems. Houston, Come In, Houston. Houston?

      Calm down, Paledon, calm down. It's not all a dream, it is the great game. How are you enjoying its IT Promotions? Still too low key and stealthy? Too SMART and Nerdy to be more simply understood?

      Ok .....that requires just a change to more moderate descriptive language to capture the uneducated and illiterate, who are a massive number.

    4. spatulasnout
      Black Helicopters

      I have altered the analogy...

      ...pray that I do not ..... er........

      Well anyway--

      The original gun shop analogy seems to miss the mark somehow. I'm not sure this reformulation is spot-on either, but here's the idea:

      Not all kinds of firearms can be legally sold, in various jurisdictions.

      If a gun shop wants to stay in business, it needs to make sure it's not stocking its shelves with--or at the very least not letting customers out the door with--firearms that would be illegal for it to distribute in its locality.

      The gun shop may also be required to conduct background checks and/or enforce waiting periods prior to purchase.

      If the gun shop fails in these areas, it's considered the gun shop's fault.

      Could this level of vendor responsibility be seen as analogous to a file upload site being required to put some level of diligence into enforcing takedown requests from copyright holders?

      1. Joe Montana
        WTF?

        Gun shop analogy

        A gun shop is not a good analogy at all, since the gun shop knowingly purchases their stock and directly offers it for sale.

        A closer analogy would be a shopping mall which rents out units to third parties, and those third parties then decide what to stock and sell.

        With the shear volume of content available on megaupload, it was not realistic for them to analyse every file... However they did act upon complaints when such complaints were received.

        Personally i have used megaupload for various legal downloads, in particular i have downloaded linux based firmware images for routers and set top boxes from there. When you are developing a project that is given away for free, you don't exactly have a large budget for hosting services so it makes sense to use a free service like this.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @Joe Montanna

          In the UK many privately owned guns are kept at gun clubs, this may well be a better analogy. The gun club keeps an individual's privately owned weapon, were the individual to own an illegal weapon or a weapon they weren't entitled town (there are different categories of weapon) the club would be breaking the law by holding the weapon for them.

          With regard to your argument about the volume of files uploaded to the service - youtube operate a content holder's system which allows content holders to mark their own files which they want to be uploaded and ones which belong to them which shouldn't have been uploaded. It's not perfect, but it is at least an attempt to prevent copyright infringement.

    5. Danny 5
      Meh

      good analogy

      But imho it falls flat due to the fact that i am yet to see the first casualty of copyright infringement.

      you can't compare facilitating murder with facilitating theft.

    6. david wilson

      >>"1: Guns do not kill people. People kill people. To hold those who manufacture or sell firearms liable in any way for the improper actions some take with their product is not a Good Thing(tm).

      >>"2: Filesharing sites do not abuse copyright. People abuse copyright. However, while there are indeed those who use filesharing sites in a proper manner, there are those who do not. To hold the providers of such sites liable for the improper actions of those using their sites is a Good Thing(tm).

      >>"Discuss.

      I suppose in the gun situation, it might depend how 'responsibly' a seller was acting.

      If one seller repeatedly sold guns to people without keeping any records, or knowingly repeatedly sold guns to people who had used them in ways they shouldn't have, they might be morally/legally open to more action against them than a seller who didn't.

      Likewise, a filesharing site which allowed anonymous uploads, or which didn't take any actions against people who repeatedly uploaded stuff which generated legal complaints might be morally/legally on dodgier ground than one which didn't allow anonymous uploads and which held infringing uploaders to account as much as it could do.

      Clearly, there's a grey area when it comes to identifying people - if people can create Internet identities cheaply, then there may be little to stop a site claiming to take action by closing accounts while people simply create new ones, but that's not obviously a reason to morally justify inaction, any more than a gun-seller continuing to sell to a person of concern on the grounds that if they didn't, the person could just come back in disguise.

      If someone is clearly failing to do things they very easily could do to limit 'bad' activity by their users, and benefiting financially from their inaction, they aren't necessarily doing themselves any favours when it comes to claims of operating legitimately.

    7. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It depends entirely on if the gun manufacturer advertises his product with claims like:

      "Don't like your mother? We have a range of products for up close gore splatter, or long range headshots whilst she is at her bridge club!"

      Providing tools specifically or primarily designed to allow others to engage in illegal activity is itself illegal (in most countries). It's hard to see how toools designed to automate relinking of files that have been the subject of takedown notices does not fit this definition.

      1. Mad Mike

        @anonymous Coward

        "Don't like your mother? We have a range of products for up close gore splatter, or long range headshots whilst she is at her bridge club!

        Providing tools specifically or primarily designed to allow others to engage in illegal activity is itself illegal (in most countries)"

        Not necessarily, although this is somewhat odd. In the UK, the top statement would likely be considered incitement to a crime, which is illegal. However, plenty of people make tools that only or primarily have illegal uses. Take the video recorder for instance. It has never been legal to record a TV program, even for personal use later!! If a film is shown on TV, the license obtained from the copyright holder allows it to be shown once. Taping that is exactly the same as duplicating a tape recording!!

        Totally illogical of course, but the law banned the making of any duplicate!! Another case of the law not catching up. So, in the UK, it is only illegal to make something that has only or primarily illegal uses if the manufacturer doesn't have the ability to stop prosecutions!! Whether the application of the law is logical or not is irrelevant. The law is the law.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @Mad Mike

          In more civilised parts of the world, where the law has somewhat caught up with technology, timeshifting for personal use is (now) legal.

          The old VCR was a bit of an outlier, but the "primary function" of that device was to play tapes ('onest govn'r) and the recording function was secondary. Furthermore there were other sources that you might (conceviably) record from, not just TV and other licensed tapes.

          Which brings up another place the law is slowly catching up. In some countries it is legal to make a personal backup for any media or software you have purchased, er licensed.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    SOS, DD

    It's called DENIAL. Look it up!

    This nonsense about fair pricing and a decent online experience CRAP is well CRAP.

    This is reality: No one is entitled to a damn thing they don't pay for. If you want access to copyright protected works then pay for it or be punished. THAT folks is reality. No civilized country is going to allow the infringement of copyright protected works without punishing those who pirate.

    1. Gordon 10

      Oh really?

      And how does megaupload differ from YouTube oh commentard?

      Same situation lots of copyrighted content but respond to takedown notices but you don't see Eric Schmidt dragged off to court.

      This stinks. Either acting as a middleman is illegal for copyright violation is illegal in which case every ISP and site that supports uploads should be shut down or it's not in which case the guy has done nothing wrong.

      1. david wilson

        @Gordon 10

        >>"And how does megaupload differ from YouTube oh commentard?"

        >>"Same situation lots of copyrighted content but respond to takedown notices but you don't see Eric Schmidt dragged off to court."

        A worthwhile point, but I guess a lot might depend on how damaging copyrighted content on YouTube is taken to be, and hence complained about.

        I guess that someone who had the rights to a music video or song might not be as bothered by a low-res version of the video appearing on YouTube as by a full-resolution version there or on a filehosting site, or by the song being used in low fidelity as the backing to someone's homemade video compared to a high quality MP3 being shared around elsewhere.

        If the argument is (as many seem to argue) that filesharing acts as a publicity engine and sales booster to some subset of people as well as a potential dampener of sales to some other subset of people, maybe there's a point at which a rights-holder might see a low-quality taste of the real thing as being at the very least, not disadvantageous enough to be worth complaining about, and maybe positively useful.

        When it comes to movies, how much threat is Youtube to DVD sales?

        Is it likely many people could cobble together a complete blockbuster film from Youtube downloads in a quality that they would want to watch on a TV?

        Also, Youtube do seem to take active steps to try to identify infringing uploads, and as far as I'm aware, do seem to act within the spirit of the law when it comes to takedowns.

    2. Mad Mike
      FAIL

      @Anonymous Coward

      'This nonsense about fair pricing and a decent online experience CRAP is well CRAP.'

      Well, the bit about a decent online experience is maybe crap in that the experience is driven by competition and normal business processes. e.g. give a crap experience, nobody buys your product, you (hopefully) go out of business.

      However, the bit about fair pricing is most definitely not crap, at least in the UK. It is actually legal and enshrined in UK law.

    3. Crisp
      Meh

      @AC 03:34

      I agree, no one is entitled to a damn thing they don't pay for.

      Except these copyrights have been extended time and time again so that companies can carry on making money out of a one time performance. No extra work is done after the original performance, for which the performer has already been paid for. So what am I paying for exactly?

    4. Joe Montana
      WTF?

      CRAP

      "This nonsense about fair pricing and a decent online experience CRAP is well CRAP.

      This is reality: No one is entitled to a damn thing they don't pay for. If you want access to copyright protected works then pay for it or be punished."

      While this may be true, it is far from fair... Many countries have unfair laws, but that doesn't mean anyone likes or supports them. For instance in Iran you can face the death penalty for assisting in the distribution of pornography.

      Why should a company be entitled to money for a work someone in their employment performed upwards of 80 years ago?

      The original idea of copyright was to provide artists a means to make money from their performance, in exchange for that work falling into the public domain after a set time, so that yes people would be entitled after that time to make or receive copies wether they paid for them or not. Now the balance has been tipped way too far in one direction.

      As a result of these unfair laws, copyright holders ruthlessly attempt to wring every last penny out of their customers while giving them the bare minimum in return...

      It's also quite telling that the deals offered in places like china and russia (where copyright infringement is very high) are far better than those offered here. Surely a country with lower levels of infringement and tougher enforcement should be awarded with better deals? But it seems the content industry doesn't think so, they see us as suckers and want to keep pushing to see how far they can go.

      I believe in give and take...

      The content industry believes in take take take.

      I simply cannot support organisations that are seeking to screw me over in whatever ways they can, and certainly not when they've proven that the more they get from you, the further they try to screw you over.

  9. JeffyPooh
    Pint

    What about the giraffe?

    In the background of some of the pictures as the exotic wheels were being impounded, is a giraffe.

    Alive or sculpture?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Apparently

      it's 'the giraffe in the room' that nobody wants to talk about.

  10. Spud2go
    Pint

    What's the surprise?

    " (N.Z.) residency was granted under provisions that required him to invest more than $NZ10 million in New Zealand government bonds for a minimum of three years"

    We are talking politics here - it's a universal malady, after all.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Why are you surprised?

      The bribe to become a US cittizen is only 1M (with strings worth about 1M more)- on par with a mortgage on a decent property in New England, California or Florida, dropping down to only 100K with 500K extra strings in the proposed "Startup Visa" (EB5 visa). Well within any tax evader, celebrity or drug dealer budget.

      So kudos to the NZ politicos for asking for a decent bribe. Well done boys and gals.

      1. Spud2go
        Pint

        I'm not surprised...

        ...hence the header.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They came for the big man, I said nothing.

    They came for my neighbor, I said nothing....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: They came for the big man blah blah blah

      Please, say nothing. Or stop making that (and the who watches the watchers one, too,) hackneyed by trotting it out at the least excuse in an attempt to sound worldlt-wise ...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        They came for the commentards...

        and I said nothing, because I was helping out.

  12. Local Group
    Stop

    What are the NZ gun laws?

    Can a foreigner, granted residency, with prior convictions elsewhere, own a gun in NZ?

    I'd like to know before I prejudge this case, if you don't mind.

    1. GrantB
      Big Brother

      NZ gun laws

      From my understanding of NZ law (I live not too far from the mansion concerned), Kim may not have been able to own firearms, as there is requirements to have people vouch for your character and police need to check the gun safes etc. He didnt have any NZ convictions though, so may have been able to apply for a license in due course.

      Thing is, that the story about a gun being near Kim was a lame media angle to begin with. Two shotguns ( not uncommon on NZ farms or lifestyle properties ) were locked up in gun-safes and were apparently owed by a security guard. The guard is being charged on minor firearm

      charges, but not Kim or the other megaupload guys.

      Of course the police sent in a massive well equipped team that would have had guns (NZ police are not normally armed) as well as cutting gear and ability to break through 'electronic locks' according to local reports. Makes you wonder how much info the FBI and local police knew about the house and Kim; and how they knew it?

      1. Michael Heydon

        I got my NZ firearms license early last year and while they do ask about any previous convictions, I got the impression that it wasn't necessarily a deal breaker (I don't have a criminal record so I can't be sure). The interviewer mentioned at one point that you had to screw up fairly severely in several ways before he would automatically reject your application.

    2. Pete 8

      Not much compared to 'shoot-em-up US'...

      http://www.police.govt.nz/services/firearms/arms-code-introduction

      Late last year police were talking about guns in all cars... Uncle Sam is whispering in someone's ear, in Paradise.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is just a test of the further extensions

    the USA has made to your countries laws in secret under closed doors with your politicians for years now. It is not doing anything illegal, in fact fully legal and in line with the secret agreements on copyright enforcement.

    1. Local Group
      Thumb Down

      Terra Incognita

      As you know the world was in serious trouble long before the last quarter of 2008, when we were all let in on the collapse of the global economy.

      I don't believe the economic collapse is the prime cause of what we are seeing today, but a symptom of what we're eventually going to have to face.

      Whatever the case, because the US is the greatest, if not the only superpower, other nations have consented to the US leading them out of this terra incognita. And that includes accepting the long arm of American law. If the US can't persuade another country to charge and try alleged criminals of American laws, it will extradite them to friendlier courtrooms in America or abroad.

  14. This post has been deleted by its author

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    it turns out that panic room meant

    that a cache of retractable batons were discovered in a box in the corner and the officers were in fear of being sodomised with them...

  16. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    All worlds are here ..... as are Other Worldly Assistants

    Things do appear to be somewhat surreal ...... which is verging on the edge of madness. In sanity is the trick to remember and never forget Salvador Dali's direction ..... "The old difference between a crazy and me, is that I am not crazy." ..... Het eigene verschill tussen een gek en mij, is dat ik niet gek ben .... which is dDutch.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    RIP Filesonic - and thanks for all the pron.

  18. Yag
    Mushroom

    "Cloud storage outfit Filesonic disabling file sharing features."

    Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this Battle sta... erm, strong arm of the law.

  19. Mectron

    Nothing make sense.

    HE IS NOT A USA CITIZEN AND WAS NOT IN THE USA WHEN HE WAS ILLEGALLY KIDNAPPED BY THE USA.

    1. Mad Mike
      Meh

      @Mectron

      All this is going to do, is establish the principle that whether something is illegal in your country of residence or not, anybody around the world can apply for your extradition if it's illegal in their country. In other words, local laws are now irrelevant. Obviously, the willingness of local enforcement and judiciary to do this is directly related to their subservience to the requestor for whetever reason. They might have a financial interest or whatever. In the case of the USA, they simply threaten them and as the only superpower, will be obeyed by all but the foolhardy.

      Bang goes justice. If he's committed a crime in NZ, charge him there and prosecute. Should we start extraditing anyone who offends Island or Allah to Iran now? Oh, of course, we don't like them!!

      1. david wilson

        @Mad Mike

        >>"All this is going to do, is establish the principle that whether something is illegal in your country of residence or not, anybody around the world can apply for your extradition if it's illegal in their country."

        So you're claiming that *none* of the alleged offences in the indictment are illegal in NZ law?

        >>Bang goes justice. If he's committed a crime in NZ, charge him there and prosecute.

        Was he actually *living* in NZ when the alleged offences in the indictment began?

        If not, would it *really* make much sense to prosecute in NZ for things which might have been done while he was there (where more supposed 'victims' are USA-based than NZ-based), if neither an acquittal nor a conviction would nullify the extradition request with respect to alleged offences dating back to before he moved to NZ?

        >>"Should we start extraditing anyone who offends Islam or Allah to Iran now?"

        At least in the UK, 'offending Islam' isn't a criminal offence, so that would be a silly question to ask here, even ignoring various other factors.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Missing the point

          >>"Should we start extraditing anyone who offends Islam or Allah to Iran now?"

          >At least in the UK, 'offending Islam' isn't a criminal offence, so that would be a silly question to ask here, even ignoring various other factors.

          Exactly. I don't think any NZ law has ever been mentionned, has it? (Not saying it is legal in NZ or illegal in NZ, I don't know)

          He might have done something that is illegal in the US, they ask for extradition, they'll probably get it even though he never went there. The Iran comparison is absolutely relevant.

        2. Mad Mike
          Facepalm

          @David Wilson

          "So you're claiming that *none* of the alleged offences in the indictment are illegal in NZ law?"

          No, I'm not claiming that at all. I've said I don't know if they are or not. However, it is clear from the story that nobody is actually interested in whether it's illegal in NZ or not. And nobody is interested in prosecuting him in NZ.

          "Was he actually *living* in NZ when the alleged offences in the indictment began?

          If not, would it *really* make much sense to prosecute in NZ for things which might have been done while he was there (where more supposed 'victims' are USA-based than NZ-based), if neither an acquittal nor a conviction would nullify the extradition request with respect to alleged offences dating back to before he moved to NZ?"

          Don't know whether they began when he lived in NZ, but this is irrelevant. Was he living in the USA when he committed any of these alleged (notice this, he's innocent until proven guilty) offences? To my knowledge not, but I may stand corrected. If he never lived in the USA whilst committing any of these offences, you point is irrelevant.

          "At least in the UK, 'offending Islam' isn't a criminal offence, so that would be a silly question to ask here, even ignoring various other factors."

          But, that's the whole point. Nobody has suggested he's broken NZ law. I don't know if he has or not, but if he hasn't, then the analogy is perfect. Also, your point is wrong as 'offending Islam' could be a criminal offence in the UK, as it could be considered religious hatred........depends on how it's done. If someone 'offended Islam' in this country and it was considered religious hatred, would you expect an extradition request from Iran to be honoured?

          1. david wilson

            @Mad Mike

            >>"No, I'm not claiming that at all. I've said I don't know if they are or not."

            Well, by saying very explicitly that this case will demonstrate local laws are irrelevant, you *are* effectively claiming that what he's accused of isn't illegal in NZ, since only an idiot could possibly draw a conclusion that local laws were irrelevant *unless they had already concluded that local laws did not support extradition*.

            If someone really didn't know what local laws were, then they couldn't possibly form a rational opinion on whether they were being ignored or not.

            As it is, anyone unsure on the finer points of NZ law (which probably includes most of us) might be better advised not to make assumptions either way about the legality of the actions until they learn more.

            All I'd tend to think is if 'they' waited this long to put a case together, then they'd probably have tried to make sure they thought it had some chance of standing up legally*, and that'd be the case whether I trusted them implicitly, trusted them more than I mistrusted them, or thought they were a bunch of chronically lying arseholes.

            Even if I didn't trust them an inch, unless I was so arrogant to assume I was far smarter than them, I'd at least credit them with probably having the intelligence to fake some decent evidence if they couldn't find any.

            After all, they have had hold of various servers for a while, and could make all kinds of claims that would be pretty hard for anyone else to disprove, if they *really* had no respect for the law.

            (*Unless I was being particularly cynical, and wondering if they might find the *failure* of a high-profile extradition case useful for one or other strategic reason.)

            >>"However, it is clear from the story that nobody is actually interested in whether it's illegal in NZ or not."

            When you say 'nobody', are you talking about the authorities, and if so, what evidence do you actually have that none of them are interested in what is and isn't illegal in NZ?

            Certainly, there are various people /here/ who seem to be claiming that nothing he was accused of doing in the USA is against the law in NZ, but those people seem typically to be doing nothing more than making assertions without actually going any deeper than that.

            >>"And nobody is interested in prosecuting him in NZ."

            Which is basically irrelevant to the issue of whether extradition is justifiable, especially for allegedly historic offences, or alleged offences which effectively 'took place' in the requesting country, as the alleged offences here seem to have done.

            >>"But, that's the whole point. Nobody has suggested he's broken NZ law. I don't know if he has or not, but if he hasn't, then the analogy is perfect."

            Leaving aside the fact that you're clearly writing as if you think he hasn't, surely the extradition request itself is at least an official *suggestion* that what he is accused of doing in USA jurisdiction would be illegal if done in New Zealand?

            Though whether he has actually broken NZ law itself in the strict sense is actually a different matter.

            For instance, if I [allegedly] commit a crime overseas and return to the UK, I may not have broken UK law as such, but all that matters if a request comes in is that what I'm accused of elsewhere would also be illegal in the UK if it had been done here.

            If I [allegedly] do something while in the UK where the main alleged crime happens elsewhere, I might not have broken UK law by what I did, but what matters is whether I'd have broken UK law it if what I had allegedly caused to happen elsewhere, I had caused to happen here.

            >>"Don't know whether they began when he lived in NZ, but this is irrelevant."

            It's certainly not irrelevant to the issue of whether there'd be a chance of prosecuting him there for *all* the alleged offences, or if a prosecution there could at best delay extradition action with respect to any pre-NZ offences, while also failing to deal with offences committed outside NZ jurisdiction at the time he was in NZ.

            >>" Was he living in the USA when he committed any of these alleged (notice this, he's innocent until proven guilty) offences? To my knowledge not, but I may stand corrected. If he never lived in the USA whilst committing any of these offences, you point is irrelevant."

            If he was effectively helping run a business with a meaningful US presence, and profiting from allegedly illegal activities happening there that he had knowledge of and control over, as far as I understand things, whether he was living there or not isn't necessarily of overriding importance (whether or not I or you might think it should be).

            Presumably, that would be an aspect of the extradition arguments on both sides

            And remember, we're not just talking about someone who (like I do, and like many people do) owns a few .com domain names but hosts sites on servers outside the US, doing little or no business in the US. There were vast amounts of US-based storage his company was renting, and US financial companies they were using to get money from US citizens and and pay bills to US service providers.

            >>"Also, your point is wrong as 'offending Islam' could be a criminal offence in the UK, as it could be considered religious hatred........depends on how it's done."

            My point isn't wrong.

            'Racial/religious hatred' simply isn't about whether one or more people choose to take real or synthetic *offence* at something someone says, it's a quite different thing in both severity and nature, requiring threatening words or behaviour with an intent to stir up hatred against the target group.

            So again, you're trying to sidestep away from a claim you can't defend to try and defend a claim you didn't originally make.

            >>"If someone 'offended Islam' in this country and it was considered religious hatred..."

            (Which it couldn't be unless it was stirring up anti-Islamic hatred in other people)

            >>"...would you expect an extradition request from Iran to be honoured?"

            No.

            Since that gets onto *other* stupid aspects of the analogy.

            Even if someone here called for a holy war against Islam and the burning-down of every mosque in the country, the crime would have been committed here, with the principal victims being here, and so would necessarily be a local matter and pretty much sod-all to do with any other country, legally speaking.

            If you honestly don't understand the difference between blatantly local offences and at least arguably-international ones, you're probably best advised not to pontificate on extradition.

            And that's even ignoring various other obstacles to extradition to 'unsuitable' countries.

            1. ElReg!comments!Pierre

              David, I'm sorry but your point is moot

              It doesn't matter how much you spread it. NZ authorities have made it clear that they WILL NOT SEEK TO PROSECUTE HIM (shouting intended). You contradict yourself several times on whether this is relevant or not in your rather long post (I can understand how you got lost; try and be more concise next time). There is this nugget I found worth responding to, however:

              > If he was effectively helping run a business with a meaningful US presence, and profiting from allegedly illegal activities happening there that he had knowledge of and control over, as far as I understand things, whether he was living there or not isn't necessarily of overriding importance (whether or not I or you might think it should be).

              That is basically the same argument used by some US states to have international gambling sites nuked (and the issue with SOPA that had the Obama administration speak against it). The internet is a global thing. The fact that a US citizen might access a foreign website DOES NOT put said website under US juridiction. Even the PRC got that right: they block their citizens from accessing content they object to -an attitude that has the US' panties in a double-plus knot, quite rightfully, but talk about irony. The internet not being the property of the USA is a concept that a lot of US people fail to understand, especially towards the right side of the political spectrum. You'd better get used to it, because with the rise of China, India etc, alternate hubs will rise and you guys might end up being effectively cut off from the global network.

              Just sayin'

              1. david wilson

                @ElReg!comments!Pierre

                >>"It doesn't matter how much you spread it. NZ authorities have made it clear that they WILL NOT SEEK TO PROSECUTE HIM"

                Which, as I said, is *entirely* irrelevant to whether they would be justified in extraditing him.

                >>"You contradict yourself several times on whether this is relevant or not in your rather long post"

                You're wrong there.

                I never said local-intention-to-prosecute was relevant to whether extradition was justified.

                Possibly you mis-read when I was correcting Mike when he wrongly claimed that the dates of the alleged offences were irrelevant.

                After all, Mike was the one trying to claim that Kim should be charged in NZ, or not at all, whereas I was simply pointing out that that was a flawed argument, and that the dates would make it even more flawed, since there would seem to be no way that even if the will existed, Kim could be charged in NZ for *all* the alleged offences mentioned in the indictment.

                >>"That is basically the same argument used by some US states to have international gambling sites nuked (and the issue with SOPA that had the Obama administration speak against it). The internet is a global thing. The fact that a US citizen might access a foreign website DOES NOT put said website under US juridiction."

                But we're simply not talking about a 'US citizen accessing an overseas website' or some similarly tenuous connection, as I'm sure you're perfectly well aware.

                We're talking about people running a business with a *significant* US presence (servers, financial processing, etc) who some of the time seem to be claiming protection *under US law* for what they were doing.

                If they're claiming that they complied with DMCA requests (albeit that, the indictment alleges, not in good faith), would that not suggest that they thought at least their US operations were supposed to comply with them to stay legal?

                After all, whether people like the MU guys or not, few people seem to be suggesting they did *more* than the minimum they thought they could get away with, or that they would have been likely to do anything if they didn't think they had to.

                That they did anything at all would seem to suggest that they thought they had to do *something*, and if they thought US law simply didn't apply to their activities, why make even a cursory attempt to go along with it?

                At the very least, that does seem to look like a blurry message from the MU guys if they're hoping to argue the US has no jurisdiction over their business.

                >>"That is basically the same argument used by some US states to have international gambling sites nuked "

                Not really.

                While I'd agree that, for example, it looks dubious at best for the USA to blame someone with a business hosted entirely outside the USA for running a gambling site that fails to prevent US citizens taking part, if someone was doing the same thing while choosing to host much of their business in the USA and *still* saying "You can't get me because I live somewhere else!", many people would just think they were just being a twat.

                There may be a grey area when it comes to exactly when a international business is run sufficiently in the USA to come under their laws, but if MU want to claim they're on the non-US side of the line, *that* might be an uphill task, given the various choices which they previously made.

    2. Drew V.

      I used to be a big believer in international law, "justice anywhere", all that.

      But that was before the invasion of Iraq and everything that happened afterwards. It certainly made the scales fall from my eyes.

  20. Pete 8

    When they are working for Hollywood,

    aren't they just actors acting, in a fiction then?

    1. Pete 8
      Childcatcher

      The production hails forth as :

      "SOPA Opera Overta Opus"

      A Day-0 Dazer Hazer Doozy Double Cross Blockbuster Bonds Back Stab Head Job.

      A legal thriller black comedy policy porno, but much, much worse, even in reverse.

      This is the kinda loving you get from Uncle SAM while Nanny is nursing someone else.

      Intro Scene: 70 Goons storm Internet's Mansion, Local hotel & courtier benefit accomodation of FBI & lawyers. Pseudo-kudos for 0ptimus sub-prime from funded friends.

      Trolls burning their bridges - Pants on fire.

  21. min

    f**k off America?

    no, no, please don't say that. where'll i get my cheetos from?

    actually, that said, pron is now bigger in the Czech Republic than in 818, wotsits taste better than cheetos, and Paris has the herp...so you may have a point, but probably not..

    but seriously...this lack of respect for other sovereign territory is uber ridiculous.

    i'm sure Mr. Dotcom has a stash of beads/cowrie shells somewhere that'll help him with his legal hassles. he'll be back on the munch in no time.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm surprised they aren't charging him with possession of extreme porn.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      That'll come in a few days

      and probably count each frame of video as a separate image.

  23. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
    Linux

    @Gradewa

    "However, as I read it, the question is given that we are operating off an assumption that ownership of a gun (and therefore the sale and advertising of said firearm) is neutral and its only bad people who kill with guns, doesnt the same reasoning apply to fileshareing.

    .......

    If a bad person goes to a gun shop, buys a gun and shoots someone you punish the bad person, not the gun shop or manufacturers. (Ideally, I know this isnt always the case).

    However, if a bad person goes to a filesharing site and uses filesharing tools to breach a copyright, the only reason the site is punished is because its a bit difficult to catch the bad person.

    It is, to me, a bit of a double standard."

    An interesting argument. However, you could also view it like this:

    If there is a general rise in some kind of wrongdoing, it is probably a good idea to address it. Take the example of rioting. You can address it directly - eg, by arresting rioters if riots are a problem, or indirectly, such as enforcing a curfew. The second of these punishes innocent and guilty alike, but it is easier for the police to enforce a general clearing of people than to identify individual troublemakers in a crowd.

    In the same way, law-abiding gun owners and gun shops are subject to quite severe restrictions - you could call these punishments - because it is easier to do this than trace every individual who 'misuses' a gun. Sometimes, I am sure, gun shops are closed down if they have a record of providing guns in an illegal way and seem unwilling to change their ways. That is bad for the innocent customers of those shops - but it happens.

    Similarly, people using filesharing techniques may be faced with severe restrictions amounting to punishment, and sites with a record of 'illegal' operation may be closed down, even if many people who use them do not break the law.

    Of course, this assumes that laws upholding copyright are good, moral and necessary laws, like those prohibiting murder. I do not believe this - but if copyright law was an acceptable and valid law, then these actions would not be unreasonable ones for law enforcement agencies.

    What should be being attacked is the very concept of copyright law - the concept that you can own and steal ideas...

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Panic room?

    If it was a half-decent panic room, they would not have got into it this side of christmas, and by the time they did, the occupant should already have been long gone down one of the underground tunnels.

    Just what sort of low-budget bat-cave was he running?

    1. Local Group
      Joke

      As it happened

      Kim was having the moat cleaned and the sharks and alligators were in dry dock.

  25. asiaseen

    What happens to all the files

    legally uploaded by the copyright owners and which have now been illegally sequestrated as a result of the takedown of the sites? That would make a nice class action against the law enforcement authorities and for conspiracy against whomsoever instigated this whole business.

  26. Aggellos

    silly people in large numbers just like a panto at christmass

    dotcom was a greedy gimp, I don't get all this solidarity as if megaupload was anything but a web2.0 warez site.

    @Crisp

    So because you once bought a mcdonald’s burger back in 76 that entitles you to free mcdonalds for life ?

    And knowing of dotcom’s loves he is more likely to have had a picnic room the a panic room, it is sites like Megathiefs that allow governments to create draconic internet and copyright laws that will affect us all, of course dotcom was just a bedroom warrior fighting for the freedom of expression against the tyranny of corporate repression, or maybe he was just a greedy gimp in a mansion with a pile of fast cars trying to make money out of other peoples hard work who wouldn’t care if the whole net crashed so as long he gets his penny’s from his so legit site.

    I just don't see why people are defending MU it did everything it could to promote the fact is was pushing copyrigthed material and making huge amount of cash out....did they give any to you ....no, where doing they doing if for the people..no for the cash.

    Wake up the enemy is not in front of you he's "Behind you"....

    1. Mad Mike
      Thumb Down

      @Agellos

      Nobody is defending this man because of who he is. I would pretty much guess he's a 'greedy gimp' or similar as you've pointed out, but that is not the point at issue.

      I've said several times that if he's broken the law in NZ, them prosecute him in NZ. One issue here is that the USA seems to think it's laws apply across the world and has the ability to drive this through force as the only superpower. Another issue is that copyright holders and governments are choosing when to enforce copyright rather than enforce it all the time. Copying music to a MP3 player.......we'll turn a blind eye to that as we manufacture, sell and make a tidy profit on the MP3 player. However, copy for another reason and you're prosecuted? Why? Both are copyright violations and therefore should be treated the same. If you can't sell your MP3 player as the law makes it's use illegal, get the law changed.

      Finally, there is the issue of morality here. Yes, copying copyright material is morally wrong. However, dropping a rootkit on the PCs of a large part of the world is equally wrong, known as hacking and illegal in most countries. Individual who violates copyright get's prosecuted, fined etc.etc. Hacker (I'll call them Sony) gets away with it!! How does that work? Which is the greater crime?

      Unless the legal system is seem to treat everyone the same, it becomes morally bankrupt in its own right. That's where the USA is at the moment and other countries (including the UK) are following rapidly behind.

      1. david wilson

        >>"Another issue is that copyright holders and governments are choosing when to enforce copyright rather than enforce it all the time. Copying music to a MP3 player.......we'll turn a blind eye to that as we manufacture, sell and make a tidy profit on the MP3 player. However, copy for another reason and you're prosecuted? Why? Both are copyright violations and therefore should be treated the same."

        To me, it seems pretty clear that if I have certain rights, I'm not under any moral obligation to exercise those rights all the time in order to keep them, and I'm only under a legal obligation to exercise them if that has been established by law or precedent.

        If, for example, I owned land, then within the limit of what the law allows, I could grant or deny access to it to anyone for any activity at my discretion.

        It would be pretty dumb for someone to argue that because I normally allowed people to walk across a field where there was no right of way that I should necessarily allow people to ride horses across it, or ride trail bikes across it, or camp on it.

        Even if the reasoning behind my decision to allow X but not Y was actually flawed, that's nobody else's business. If I hold the rights, then within the law, I have the right to exercise them illogically, and even to my own detriment, and it's not up to some other person to ignore me because they think they're Right.

        If someone is claiming that they're so confuzzled by it all that they have no idea which things they can do without any fear of comeback from the landowner, or someone is the kind of person who would self-servingly argue that it was 'unfair' or 'inconsistent' for me to stop them driving a 4x4 across my land if I was allowing walkers, then someone like that should probably stay away from other people's land altogether, just as someone who claimed they honestly can't see any difference between copying an MP3 for their own use and publishing the MP3s on a website either morally or in terms of what fairly obviously is and fairly obviously isn't tolerated probably isn't competent to be allowed on the internet without having Mummy around to chaperone them.

        >>"Finally, there is the issue of morality here. Yes, copying copyright material is morally wrong. However, dropping a rootkit on the PCs of a large part of the world is equally wrong, known as hacking and illegal in most countries. Individual who violates copyright get's prosecuted, fined etc.etc. Hacker (I'll call them Sony) gets away with it!! How does that work?"

        This'll be the Sony that *despite* being a Huge Corporation which can clearly buy politicians at will

        a) fairly quickly backtracked

        b) lost money and goodwill as a result

        c) is unlikely to try the same thing again

        and

        d) acted as an obvious example to stop other people trying the same thing

        e) presumably wasn't acting in the expectation that no-one would notice, but more in the flawed expectation that hardly anyone would mind.

        As far as I can see, the main point of the law isn't revenge, the ultimate aim is to stop people doing things that they shouldn't be doing, and maybe to make amends for transgressions.

        Seems that in the Sony case, them doing what they could to undo things and them acting as an example to others didn't n4ecessarily require extra sanctions.

        With a low-end copyright violator (like someone uploading a few tracks to a filesharing site), expecting that they wouldn't get caught, the comparable question there seems to be what the minimum sanction would be that would be highly likely to put them off doing it again, and put other people off doing it in future.

        While huge damages claims or fines seem ridiculous (and likely counterproductive), I'd guess that the minimum meaningful sanction would maybe be some kind of charge that was not a huge burden, but which was more than trivial.

        Something that would make most people tempted to behave similarly look at and laugh probably wouldn't be enough, especially given the low chance of getting caught.

        >>"Which is the greater crime?"

        Well, *you've* already decided up front that they're both equally morally wrong, without explaining why, without paying any attention to the fact that 'copying copyright material' covers a huge range of activities from the industry-tolerated to the worst cases of commercial parasitism, and without paying any attention to the fact that the Sony thing was pretty rapidly reversed, at meaningful cost to them.

        >>"Unless the legal system is seem to treat everyone the same, it becomes morally bankrupt in its own right. That's where the USA is at the moment and other countries (including the UK) are following rapidly behind."

        Your point is only relevant if you can reasonably argue that everyone *is* the same. When it comes to different actions, equality is something that has to be argued, not merely asserted.

        As it is, the legal system is /supposed/ to look at every case on its merits, and to treat people differently based on not only what they did, but on their reasons for doing it.

        Equality only comes into it in the sense that decisions about guilt aren't supposed to depend on who someone is. Even then, though it's a slippery, grey area, it might be that who someone is would influence people's judgements about what their reasons were for doing something.

        A retired vicar might have an easier time convincing people that him clouting a burglar on the back of the head with a baseball bat was self defence than a martial arts instructor would.

  27. Aggellos
    Facepalm

    mad is a good opener for you name

    @mad mike

    he has broken laws in all countries and sony got away with nothing they got caught, if you think copyright holders using DRM questionable or not is anyhting less than a counter action to things like MU then you are far from reality.

    Without one we dont need the other, i have spent 25 years of my life building up a business through uni, high intrest loan for startup, years of late nights and no holidays to create software and applications only to have a fat gimp like dotcom create a platfrom for distributing my products for free and making a ton of cash from products that rightfully belong to me, and to rub salt it the wounds i have to read all this " them and us" rubbish just another excuse for freetards.

    This crap about US or Big Business or other goverments pushing big brother on us is a somkescreen most companies hurt by piracy and copyright theft are small to mid size companies unable to fight any fight against it because they don't have the resources, some have to watch their lifes work collapase before their eyes because of theft they can't do anything about.

    and it is not the US goverment or Big business that is crippiling these businesses it is YOU and sites like MU.

    the only person morally bankrupt is you, which do you choose the hard working coder, programmer or Media company that produce the product you use, listen to or watch...or some greedy fat criminal who thinks he can make a huge profit selling other peoples hard work.

    1. ElReg!comments!Pierre

      @ Aggellos

      Sorry to hear that you went bust because of Tim Dotcom. The guy IS indeed a con artist, and wholly a despisable person (and he has the convictions to prove it).

      Where can we legitimately get your products from?

  28. This post has been deleted by its author

  29. ElReg!comments!Pierre
    Mushroom

    You wouldn't believe the number of -mainly US-based, but not only- companies which just take open-source code, make a few minor adjustments and sell it as an executable binary; then claim the result as their own. Open-source means it's open to pilfering, right?

    When you are used to work with the open source version, and an equivalent "enhanced" product is suddently offered to you for trial, (as happens to me quite often), it is really obvious. The worst part of it is that these are often the exact same people who claim that [insert fashionable file distribution method here] is stealing their rightful property and causing their family to starve (cue the no vacation, 37 hours a day work etc argument). So yes, IP rights should be enforced. That would mean instant death for a lot of the SMB currently defending IP-"protecting" laws, though.

    Heads up guys, if you're gonna claim damage from file-sharing, make sure that your pilfering of open-source material doesn't show too much.

    1. david wilson

      Rather grey area

      While I might share your view that it /feels/ wrong in some ways for someone to be seemingly selling what is largely the work of others, if a buyer knows about both versions and thinks that whatever differences there were, however small, were worth paying for (or was also paying for support, etc), that does seem like their choice to effectively pay for the difference between the versions, and if it's within the terms of the open source licence, I'm not sure on what grounds anyone could really object.

      On the other hand, if the commercial and free versions are effectively equally good from some objective standpoint but the customer doesn't know about the free one, has at least some value not been added by whatever advertising had been done to make them aware of the commercial one?

      As long as the sellers are not making false claims that the work is all theirs, or unfairly badmouthing the free version to get a sale, it's hard to say they're necessarily wrong as such even if I might not entirely like the general idea, at least without knowing more details of a particular case.

      But then, where *do* you draw the line?

      Someone could write an embedded program by grabbing any number of free library routines and linking them with a relatively tiny amount of code.

      In many ways, the 'work' in the end result is almost all someone else's, but if the end result is what someone wants to buy, you could look at it as someone making a saleable product largely from a load of free code that wasn't any use to the customer without the last bit of work pulling it together.

      Now, it'd certainly seem different from that example if it was a case of two competing complete pieces of software which were *similarly* functional, but it might still come down to the commercial one being perceived as being worth paying for for some reason.

      As long as the customer isn't actually being deceived, it is still their call.

      Unless a licence is being breached, it's not obviously trampling on the work of the free code writers - if they wished to make what they wrote unusable in commercial spin-offs, or get paid (or have some charity paid) if there were spin-offs, they should have released the code under different conditions.

      It's also *not* obviously comparable to a copyright situation, assuming everything was explicitly done within the rules of the licences.

      Even assuming for the moment that everything MU itself was doing *was* actually legal, they're still undeniably profiting as a result of facilitating illicit acts in the sense that much of their business would have evaporated if it had been forced to happen in the full light of day, with rights-holders able to see who uploaded/downloaded what.

      With the commercial-modified-open-source situation, it's not obvious that anything at all is being done under-the-counter, or that full openness would be any threat to operations being ongoing, except to the extent that the business *might* be profiting from ignorance of a free version.

      1. ElReg!comments!Pierre

        Not so gray

        Not so gray as you might think. A lot of that happens in willful violation of the original license; rather obvious when the original is under the GPL, less so with the more moneygrabber-friendly licenses.

        Note that I don't defend Kim Dotcom. Also, I think the 2000-character limit for comments has been lifted.

        1. david wilson

          >>"Not so gray as you might think. A lot of that happens in willful violation of the original license; rather obvious when the original is under the GPL, less so with the more moneygrabber-friendly licenses."

          So none of these people doing this effectively openly ever get taken to task for it?

          And how do they generally break the licence?

          Presumably it's not necessarily the charging money aspect, since the GPL seems to allow that, but that they fail to give a GPL licence with the software, or fail to provide/offer to provide source code, or something like that?

          Even then, it seems somewhat different to the effects of legal or illegal involvement in actual copyright violation since there's not obviously anything being potentially lost by the original code writers beyond a trampling on some of their moral rights, even if those moral rights are in practice theoretically defensible by using copyright law.

          If I publish a photo on the web, and tell everyone they're perfectly free to print it out as a poster and stick as many copies as they want on their wall or give them away to friends, with or without altering the image, if someone starts printing barely altered copies and selling them, it'd piss me off that they were making money for little work, and potentially passing my work off as theirs, but however many they sold they wouldn't obviously be depriving me of income unless I had some cash-generating sideline which their operations were interfering with.

          Whereas if I was selling copies of the image, directly or even via some freeware-but-donations-welcome arrangement and someone was interfering with /that/ income, it would add a quite different layer of damage to the situation.

          1. ElReg!comments!Pierre

            No. Just no.

            Because someone makes it available for free doesn't mean you can steal it, claim it your own and make money out of it. The idea behind Open Source is that you contribute some code, often for free (but it doesn't have to), and let people re-use it, modify it and make it better so that you can benefit from the improvements they made (them benefitting from the initial effort you put in). It is *NOT* OK to steal it and run away with it, contrarily to what you a lot of "close-sourcers" think -and do.

            1. ElReg!comments!Pierre

              although you CAN make money out of it of course, as long as you respect the terms of the license.

            2. david wilson

              >>"Because someone makes it available for free doesn't mean you can steal it, claim it your own and make money out of it. "

              Indeed, but as you say in your second post, it's not necessarily the making money, but any associated deception and withholding of the source that is often the real issue (though the smaller their changes were, presumably the less useful their source code might be?)

              I understood that at least some action gets taken against licence-breakers?.

              Is breaking the licence (and failing to correct things when pointed out) actually much more common than the legal actions would suggest, and do the offenders tend to have anything in common (type of application, etc?)

              Maybe some such rip-off merchants do also whine about 'their' software being stolen, but how representative are they really of closed-source developers as a whole?

              At the very least, what they're doing is kind-of visible, to the extent that they're not generally hiding their product or who they are, and so their activities are at least open to comparisons being made and rats being smelled - if they were a decent-sized target, would they not generally attract some meaningful negative attention?

              These days, you'd have thought that if sufficient people noticed and got annoyed, someone searching for the commercial version would find lots of comments about how much of a rip-off it was.

              1. ElReg!comments!Pierre

                > These days, you'd have thought that if sufficient people noticed and got annoyed, someone searching for the commercial version would find lots of comments about how much of a rip-off it was.

                Ha. You're thinking 30-lines-of-code "smartphone" applications. I'm talking real code, and real wide-spread use. Once in a while the EFF sicks their (few) lawyers at a high-profile case, to try and keep the rest of the landsharks at bay (ask Google for details). But they don't have the time or money to go after the small fish (and it wouldn't make sense anyway, either for money or creds).

                My point was (and still is) that a lot of the SMB whining about how filesharing stole their lunch are actually pilfering open-source code and think it's Ok because "it's available for free anyway". So when THEY steal code it's a victimless crime, but when someone else makes "their" stolen stuff available for free, suddently it's starving their kids to death and thus a major crime comparable to murder. Ha fucking ha.

                1. ElReg!comments!Pierre

                  Disclaimer

                  I might have missed a few subtlties in your several thousands lines worth of post. If that's the case, sorry. As an exercise, you might want to try and make your point in a more compact format (yes, it's possible).

                2. david wilson

                  >>"Ha. You're thinking 30-lines-of-code "smartphone" applications. I'm talking real code, and real wide-spread use"

                  I'm certainly not thinking of smartphone apps.

                  In fact, small smartphone apps would have been one of the last things I would have thought of, given the scenario you were describing.

                  I guess a few examples of the rampant hypocrisy you describe might help, so we could get a better idea of the situation.

                  Since there must be lots of examples, I'm sure any list you gave would only be the tip of the iceberg compared to all the ones you're already aware of, but I'm sure people would take that into account.

                  >>"My point was (and still is) that a lot of the SMB whining about how filesharing stole their lunch are actually pilfering open-source code and think it's Ok because "it's available for free anyway". "

                  Roughly what do you mean by 'a lot'?

                  5%? 10%? 25% 50%

                  and what do you base your estimate on?

                  Even if half the complaints came from hypocrites, that doesn't make the complaints coming from people who aren't hypocrites any less valid by some warped process of association, even if some people might wish it did.

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