In short, there's nothing wrong here. Not in the slightest.
It's not just this case obviously. I used to be proud to be a New Zealander, but the last 5-10 years have made it dreadfully obvious we're actually being operated by foreign and commercial interests, and local/national leaders have no interest in changing that.
Sure, it's probably not as bad as certain other places, but it no longer fills me with pride. I'm tired of this country :(
I imagine it's waned a bit by now, though.
I have no doubt that he knew the system was being used for illegal file sharing. And no doubt he probably turned a blind eye to a lot of it because it generated money.
But he should have been tried and convicted in NZ without the influence of America.
That's not the issue here.
People commit crimes in every country. They should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. No one is arguing that.
The issue is that you're suggesting that everyone should obey american law, which has been shown to be corrupt and driven entirely by campaign donations; while the locals are arguing that, perhaps, their own government should say...
...use its own laws, to prosecute its own citizens, rather than the laws from another country.
Do you think women should be punished in America for not wearing a hijab in public? That the tenants of Sharia law should be upheld in your country, because they are the laws of another country?
No? Right then, like I said...
Here's another possible angle: Hollywood might actually be contributing favorably to New Zealand's economy, either directly or indirectly (e.g. through increasing tourism), when it films movies like Avatar, LOTR and The Hobbit. See, for instance http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2012/12/14/the-i.... In 2014, the screen industry revenue was NZ$3 billion (see http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/f...).
This guy was directly undermining Hollywood's business, which meant it could also undermine New Zealand's movie industry, implying it was also in New Zealand's interests to bring him to justice.
Riiiiight.... Not conflating at all....
You're free to disagree with me. You may hold a different opinion. That's perfectly fine. However a dissenting opinion does not mean I conflated the situation. It does not mean that I'm acting irrationally. It's simple a different opinion.
I don't mind downvotes for disagreeing with the HN HiveMind.
When you have to hedge your comments like this, it's generally because your arguments are weak.
So NZ has laws and treaties. Great. Should they? What's the tradeoff? Is the prosecution of someone who is clearly guilty allowing a greater evil to occur? Is the copyright system and corporate influence of governments a problem?
I would have loved to hear the answers to any of these questions, but what I got was essentially "he is a criminal" and "laws shouldn't be broken". Sure.
Unfortunately, to many on HN, when people freely take the information created by content creators it's "disruption of outdated business models", but when the NSA freely takes their own information it's an "invasion of privacy". They simply don't realize that everybody would like to control the spread of information that is significant to themselves. This is why certain laws exist, yet they denounce some laws (such as copyright) as "wrong". The cognitive dissonance is astounding.
The problem is he is getting extradited on these parts of the treaty:
Receiving and transporting any money, valuable securities, or other property knowing the same to have been unlawfully obtained.
…
Obtaining property, money, or valuable securities by false pretenses or by conspiracy to defraud the public or any person by deceit or falsehood or other fraudulent means, whether such deceit or falsehood or any fraudulent means would or would not amount to a false pretense.
I'm not sure you can argue that he did that, and if that is the case, you have to ask what is going on here?
Of course, there is much to this that I don't know, but still it's a bit fishy.