Actually, he should indeed start Mega and be transparent about it, arguing that was his intent all the time just before he did not know better. The other way around.
Kim Dotcom
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Actually, he should indeed start Mega and be transparent about it, arguing that was his intent all the time just before he did not know better. The other way around.
I was certain I read it in a post of yours. You didn't edit it out did you? If not, I apologise.
Hard Cheese
Critical Thinker
Ironically, the safest place for him would be back in Germany. German citizens cannot be extradited to a foreign country. His children would qualify for German residency, the US wouldn't be after them anyway. I imagine the basic issue is that he would have surrendered his passport long ago, and can't do a runner now.
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smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Look up two posts above.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
1. Unless he has a Finnish Passport.
2. Unless the German Consulate issues him with a replacement.
3. I have no doubt that a man of his resources could get to Germany without a passport.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Tsukasa Buddha
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It is a cloud storage system with end to end encryption. It is no more a "pirate downloading service" than dropbox, SkyDrive, or Google Drive. It follows takedown requests and bans users.smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Ah. I see the reason for the misunderstanding.
You have your threads sorted so that new posts appear at the bottom of the page and previous posts are above.
UserCP > Edit Options > Thread Display Options > Thread Display Mode > Oldest First
I have mine sorted the other way around
UserCP > Edit Options > Thread Display Options > Thread Display Mode > Newest First
Fair enough. I would have never thought to order posts that way.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
I do it so that as soon I click on the thread, the latest post is right there at the top. If I sort them the other way, I have to wait till the whole page loads and then scroll down to the bottom.
Its the same way that YouTube, Disqus, Facebook etc, and most comments sections of the major newspapers are sorted.
quadraginta
Becoming Beth
You have just hit on one of the biggest reasons why Facebook et al are such inferior platforms for discussion.
Many if not most comment sections (and I think Disqus driven ones are among them) of newspapers have an option to change the sequencing of the posts. I always choose the oldest first option when available.
I feel the same way lk does.
Because of the post-response nature of message boards I'd rather find out what the later posts are referring to (haranguing, whining about, pontificating upon, etc.) before I get to them,
They (often? frequently? occasionally? from time to time?) make more sense that way.
Especially if I'm checking out a thread new to me which has been going on for a while.
To each his own, I guess.
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
Well... political gain, though the distinction may well be academic.
The Atheist
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Nope. In the case of Johnny Combover, it's personal gain he's after. There's no political mileage in it at all. It is all about photo-ops and quiet tete-a-tetes with the big cheese.
You'd need to learn what makes Johnny tick: John Key and only John Key. Nothing else; no policy, no international position, nothing is sacrosanct to our PM apart from his grip on the reins. A beautiful case in point happened two weeks ago. As PM, Johnny is a proud ambassador for White Ribbon, the main anti-violence and anti-sexual violence NGO in the country.
Because he's a man of the people, Johnny appears on a shock-jock radio show. Shows how in touch he is and adds to his cred among the Young Nationals, perched four to a chair around the tables.
On 17 Dec, cue rape jokes, and of course Johnny doesn't want to seem like a killjoy on the blokes' radio by pointing out that rape jokes are despicable, so he jokes and laughs along with the guys. Rape, schmape... Pretty sure these are the same guys he said on radio a while back that someone's shirt was "a bit gay". Some people cried on both occasions, but the few [loony lefty] dissenting voices will be far outweighed by the support he garners from his Putin-lite image that he polishes and kisses each morning.
Nothing. No line is too sacred to cross when it comes to building the myth of John Key.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Yup! His nickname of Shonky Jonky is well earned and well deserved!!
Hard Cheese
Critical Thinker
Given the sudden burst of news coverage, I'm sure someone must have been hired to do PR in the background for his shiftless son, too....trying to become famous for sitting on a beach with his model girlfriend, meanwhile depriving us all of precious oxygen.
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The fall and fall is on indefinite hold for this family. That's how it works. Dotcom will be first.
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
That is in no way evidence of personal gain - all of what you have said has a political motive. You know what? Forget it. This thread doesn't need the derail.
I do not see a political motive at all. I see an important development of the thread, but I personally doubt Obama is watching the case, so Atheist is over reaching. But if I am wrong, Atheist has raised an important point. No derail in my opinion.
The Atheist
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That's all part of Johnny's legacy. Two things for a certainty that would not be the case if Max weren't Johnny's boy:
1 His girlfriend would not be.
2 Media would never have covered a second of his life.
No, I'm not saying Obama has a finger in the mix, but Key would definitely see failure to comply as something which might tarnish his rep with the Bog O, and no way no how was that ever going to be allowed.
Ascribing the Dotcom injustice to political motives is wrong. It is all about Johnny waving his dick to show USA he has one. (while hiding behind bodyguards - I'm waiting for lèse majesté to become a crime here)
In perfect timing for the thread, Johnny will be on Hawaii playing golf with his bestie right about now.
ThunderChunky
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No one is reporting it. Even small time copyright holders have no problem getting infringing videos removed from youtube. The big time copyright holders have infringing content removed or monetized in their favor algorithmically. I've even seen live streams of infringing content get shutdown in a matter of minutes.
That is the way we want copyrights to be protected?
Lets say someone on Twitch has copyrighted music playing in backround. Makes recording of such stream, posts it for later viewing, and due the *********** copyright holders Twitch as to mute the whole recording because ... I dunno .. someone would lose money otherwise.
This is ridiculous.
Thousands of Twitch videos silenced as streaming site mutes copyrighted audio - http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/...ed-as-streaming-site-mutes-copyrighted-audio/
Lets say someone on Twitch has copyrighted music playing in backround. Makes recording of such stream, posts it for later viewing, and due the *********** copyright holders Twitch as to mute the whole recording because ... I dunno .. someone would lose money otherwise.
This is ridiculous.
Thousands of Twitch videos silenced as streaming site mutes copyrighted audio - http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/...ed-as-streaming-site-mutes-copyrighted-audio/
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I understand people not liking copyright laws, but laws they remain. Laws which Dotcom has contemptuously ignored for many years while making millions.
Hard Cheese
Critical Thinker
It's really not much to do with copyright. AFAIK there is no US law covering liability for someone else's copyright offence (NZ has the safe harbour law to protect ISP's from exactly this) - hence why they've had to charge KDC with all these nebulous racketeering and wire fraud charges, to make him look responsible for a criminal offence under which he can be extradited.
Lawrence Lessig rubbished the DOJ case, a summary of his analysis is here (the full PDF is worth a read if you have time)
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150916/09395232272/larry-lessig-tells-new-zealand-court-that-dojs-case-against-kim-dotcom-is-sham.shtml
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
In other words, the USDoJ realised that what Dotcom was doing was not a criminal offence and therefore, not an offence for which extradition would legally apply, so they trumped up a whole bunch of extra bogus charges to bootstrap it up to a criminal offence so that they could extradite him.
That smells of the kind of corrupt practices that J. Edgar Hoover was famous for
Yes and no to 'being about copyrights'. Some of what was debated here is mentioned there, for example:
But mostly no. Good stuff. I like the part about 'conspiracy'. Thanks.
PhantomWolf
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It's interesting that everyone is arguing about Copyright infringement, simply because Copyright Infringement is not a criminal action in New Zealand, and it is certainly why not an extraditable action, which is why this is not what Dotcom has been charged with.
The US has instead charged him with fraud and money-laundering, interestingly enough these are crimes specifically noted in the US-NZ extradition treaty. To get a conviction on either of these I suspect that the US is drawing a very long bow, and that neither is a case that they can actually win. So what it this about? It's about getting him to the US where he can be served for private prosecution by the Copyright holders. It is about Private Companies using the judicial system to do their dirty work for them. And that is a serious issue whether you think that what he did in regards to piracy was acceptable or not.
Oh, and Loinking, to your question. When a copyright holder complained about a link, that link was removed, but because of the way MEGA Upload works, the file remained and other links went to it. This is because if the system detected you were uploading a file that already existed, instead of uploading yours it would merely create a new link to the other file. Now say that you uploaded your file legally, and someone else didn't. Would it be fair that you lost your file because the copyright holder complained about the other person's illegal link?
The US has instead charged him with fraud and money-laundering, interestingly enough these are crimes specifically noted in the US-NZ extradition treaty. To get a conviction on either of these I suspect that the US is drawing a very long bow, and that neither is a case that they can actually win. So what it this about? It's about getting him to the US where he can be served for private prosecution by the Copyright holders. It is about Private Companies using the judicial system to do their dirty work for them. And that is a serious issue whether you think that what he did in regards to piracy was acceptable or not.
Oh, and Loinking, to your question. When a copyright holder complained about a link, that link was removed, but because of the way MEGA Upload works, the file remained and other links went to it. This is because if the system detected you were uploading a file that already existed, instead of uploading yours it would merely create a new link to the other file. Now say that you uploaded your file legally, and someone else didn't. Would it be fair that you lost your file because the copyright holder complained about the other person's illegal link?
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
This is a really valid point that some people simply do not understand. With the advent of the internet has come a raft of Indie music companies and even individual musicians and artists, who cut out the greedy, controlling record label middle man companies like EMI and Sony Music and sell direct to their fans. The big companies no longer have the monopoly they once had on music distribution, and they hate it. Effectively, the big labels are dead dogs walking. Their market share diminishes year by year
http://www.indiemusicbands.com/article-major.html
Indie music companies and individuals use online file sharing websites like Megaupload. Limewire and their ilk to distribute their music. They are the legitimate copyright holders of their own product, but copyright infringers also upload infringing copies. Since the infringing links and the legit links connect to the same file, taking the file itself off-line would harm the business of the copyright owner.
Roger Ramjets
Philosopher
That was a risk they took when they decided to incorporate pirate web services into their business model.
Because people have discovered a risk-free way to take stuff without paying for it.
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
No, and no
First you say they took a risk, then then you say it was risk free. Can you see the inconsistency there?
Firstly, ALL online file sharing services, without exception could potentially be used for copyright infringement.. even Dropbox, or One Drive or iCloud.
Secondly, Indie musicians and Indie labels are not taking anything, they are creating their own music, and selling it privately using subscriptioned file sharing. Its a perfectly legitimate and legal way to distribute their music.
How many people on Mega were accessing legal content? How many went there with that intention? Denial is strong in this thread.
quadraginta
Becoming Beth
Do you know the answers to those questions?
Or to the flip side of that coin?
What was the proportion of legitimate to illegitimate users?
Where does a provider cross a line? At what ratio?
Can you demonstrate that (by way of example) YouTube is actually significantly better?
Are you 100% certain that Dotcom is being treated exactly the same as providers of other such services, and that his transgressions are simply that much more egregious?
You seem to be saying it was designed to allow crimes to be committed. I fail to see how this is exculpatory. If you get a copyright violation, you remove all instances, unless the copyright holder grants permission.
If I have a hundred links to some material, 99 are "bad" if one is. At least, that ought to be the default for a legitimate business. The default for a legitimate business would be to remove suspect content, not put up an insurmountable structural barrier.
Want to see it done right? Check out YouTube's policy on copyrighted material.
The sensible way to progress this is to take decades, or any jail time, off the table. That is partly why this is a vile process. Decades in jail should be highly predictable when a crime is in commission, not a quirk of the American thugs. I am frankly disgusted again by the NZ judiciary.
PhantomWolf
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I fail to see why you would suggest that a measure designed to save storage space by not duplicating files is a design to commit crimes..
And in doing so you run the risk of removing legitimate copies as well, something that can open you up to legal action from those that hold valid copies on the system.
The "if one is bad, the rest must be too," is a bad way to enact policy. For instance, even in US Law it is permissible to create a copy of a computer program for backup purposes. It does not specify what format that must be in, so if I upload a computer program to a storage site as my backup, I am in compliance with US Law. If you then upload that program and start distributing it and the copyright holder requests that removed, why should my legitimate and legal backup also be removed?
Having a look through their FAQ it seems pretty much the same, each link has to be challenged, there is nothing I could see that indicates they YouTube will search their systems for every possible violation of a challenged URL, though I would be interested to see this if they do say it somewhere.
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Except the system as described does not make a copy, it merely links to existing content to save space. And, I gather, to sell access to others.
The model you have outlined is immune to copyright violations if the logic is sound. Why? Because the link isn't a copyright offense, it's a unique string of characters. The stuff linked to isn't a copyright violation unless it can be shown that all links to it are copyright violations.
If I agree with your model, the "copyright" has no actual copy to point to. This is unworkable. When I make a backup of software, there is a physical copy (albeit in bits in some computer) which I have custody and control over (or should). It can be deleted. This is true even if I put in on "the cloud." But it isn't true in the model you describe. By co-mingling, the site is erasing an essential chain of custody and responsibility - they are taking it upon themselves to hold a copy and distribute it as needed, something they don't have permission from the copyright holder to do.
quadraginta
Becoming Beth
You're saying that if I store my legally acquired copy of some copyrighted material on cloud storage service it becomes the proprietor's responsibility to guard that copyright.
But regardless of how it is stored ... multiple copies or multiple links to a single copy ... for someone else to access my storage they have to get my link.
Unless the cloud service provides my link to some unlicensed third party with the intent to allow them to illegally download my storage then I fail to see why they are culpable anymore than if I made a copy of a disk and then told the same third party where they could go to get that disk.
If I left it in a safe deposit box and gave them the key to the box would the bank be culpable?
If I leave it at the train station in a self-service locker will Amtrak be the guilty party?
This 'chain of responsibility' you speak of would begin with me, when I uploaded the material, and end with me if I then provided some unlicensed third party access to it through my link.
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Good points.
I think the reasoning goes like this:
1) People are doing illegal stuff on a site I control
2) I know they are doing it but have structured my site so I can claim "hands off."
3) My profits are directly tied to them doing it.
Now, these elements would have to be proven in court, but if they were, I think a conspiracy to infringe charge would apply.
Suppose, instead of copyright infringement, we were talking about something more illegal, like kiddie porn. Should I be able to host a website and store child porn on the theory that some parties (most notably law enforcement) have a legal right to store it? Can I safely say "I don't know if it's legal or not," or, should the onus be on me to determine if it is legal in this case?
What if I use a disclaimer: "All child pornography on this site must be legally obtained and stored - we do not check who you give or sell the link to, but we will be taking a fee for downloads. We just assume you are legit until informed otherwise."
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