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"NZ should offer the US to sue Doctcom in New Zealand or wherever his company resided in."

The US already seized all his assets, and even denied him funds to defend himself, claiming he was a fugitive from justice (even though he hadn't gone anywhere). They also suggested that if funds were used to pay legal expenses, then those reimbursed (even US legal experts) could be considered part of the "criminal conspiracy". Moreover, they seized all the servers the business used to operate their business, not just infringing content, and then refused to maintain those servers, even for the purpose of preserving evidence Dotcom and co could use to defend themselves in the US. They don't want to sue him, because they already have everything. They want him, in a US prison, probably for the rest of his life.

If the US government doesn't win this however, wouldn't they have to return most of his frozen assets?

I imagine Dotcom will actually sue for damages if he wins.

He got extradited on bogus and far-fetched premises, I don't think he's going to win. The US wouldn't pull all these strings to get him extradited just so he could have a fair trial.

After all they've done, you still think they can lose?

Given he didn't have the resources to properly defend himself because they intentionally froze his assets (which in itself, is an unacceptable practice I think), I don't think so.

Maybe a group of 2-3 judges in an appellate court will decide that protecting democracy is more important than "whoring out" (excuse my language) to US interests. It's a slippery slope, and all you need is one precedent.

I don't like the guy at all, but this is just unacceptable in every way. Pathetic performance by the US really, if you can't even take on someone in a correct and ethical way, on equal footing.

> claiming he was a fugitive from justice (even though he hadn't gone anywhere)

IIRC, he was a "fugitive from justice" because he refused to fly to the States to defend himself in court actions there.

Which is a pretty weird definition of "fugitive", but it apparently meets the legal criteria.

> they seized all the servers the business used to operate their business, not just infringing content, and then refused to maintain those servers

I had a friend who had a lot of his thesis research backed up to Megaupload. He ended up losing all of it.

Sure there was a lot of copyrighted material, but there was some legitimate content owned by US customers that's now gone.

>I had a friend who had a lot of his thesis research backed up to Megaupload. He ended up losing all of it.

First, trusting a site that existed primarily to facilitate illegal content exchange to hold your critical data seems really naive. Second, if he lost his data because Megaupload went down, that's not a backup. That's the only copy. This isn't just naive anymore.

As an American, it's disheartening to see other advanced democracies succumbing to the same type of cancers that ruined my country. You either have the rule of law, or you don't.

These farcical legal contortions to allow extradition are an embarrassment to New Zealand. Sadly, though, my American experience suggests that it's something most people will just slowly get used to. Eventually, the idea that the rule of law applies even in cases where powerful corporate lobbies are on one side, and there are none on the other side, starts to seem quaint.

Although I confess I don't fully understand why American corporate interests can throw around such weight in New Zealand -- in this judgement, or in the original paramilitary raid on Dotcom's home, either.

What's the hidden leverage?

Also worth noting how arbitrary the rule of law has become in the U.S. There are a lot of little edge cases that are technically illegal but millions of people do them and they are generally ignored. However, if the government decides to go after you they'll examine every single tiny thing you've done to see if they can find something they can trump up charges for.

The charges are often pretty shaky, by they threaten you with decades of prison time if you don't plead guilty. Most people agree because they're rather the certainty of a few years of probation or a year of house arrest than the possibility 20 years in prison.

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp...

The US is NZ's third-largest trade partner. As of 2012, the US had $44 billion invested in NZ, which is about 30% of the NZ GDP between 2010-2015.

NZ is also the home of Wetta Digital (you'd be surprised how many major Hollywood films are animated in Wellington on the Wetta sound stages. They're not just the LoTR company), tons of mobile game companies (including PikPok, who Adult Swim contracts all their games through) and Rocket Labs (Auckland Rocket startup).

The big one there is Wetta though. That's one reason the MPAA carries so much weight there. (Wetta is a shit shop btw. I wouldn't suggest taking their contracts. They work people 80+ hours a week during a production cycle. Unless you really love your work, it's a terrible environment).

NZ has no chance of opposing US will unless it wants to go completely in opposition and cut off ties. The US is a giant bully, NZ is a tiny isolated island state. The US managed to get Switzerland to give up banking secrecy, there's no chance for NZ.

> Although I confess I don't fully understand why American corporate interests can throw around such weight in New Zealand -- in this judgement, or in the original paramilitary raid on Dotcom's home, either.

> What's the hidden leverage?

Joe Biden is good friends with Chris Dodd[1] who is (was?) the president of the MPAA[2]. Kim Dotcom had this to say previously[3]:

"Best friend of MPAA's Chris Dodd > Joe Biden. Former lawyer of Joe Biden > US Attorney Neil MacBride. Connect the Dodds"

So it seems that a former Senator turned lobbyist used his connection to the former US vice president to pull strings and convince the NZ government that Dotcom deserved a Pablo Escobar style raid on his home.

[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-biden-is-a-big-fan-of-chris-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Dodd

[3] https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/280810245209587712

> On top of that, many federal US prisons violate basic human rights, as even some US experts occasionally admit.

This could be an interesting strategy to force the US to abide by international human rights treaties. You may not be able to take the U.S. to court over human rights violations, but the judiciary in other countries could start refusing to extradite people to the U.S., thus getting the U.S. government to take the issue more seriously. Of course, this would require that the judges in other countries kind of all agree to do this.

The UK already refuses to extradite for criminal proceedings where the death penalty is a possibility. It must specifically be denied as an option for sentence prior to extradition being arranged.

Having said that, what I've heard about the federal prison system makes me think that a coupe of injections and a permanent nap might actually be more humane. /s

Should have left the country and moved to Germany while he had the chance. Afaik Germany doesn't extradite its own citizens.

Question to the legal experts here: Assuming he manages to board a German ship and to enter international waters (while officially not allowed to leave NZ). Would this be sufficient, or would international treaties allow NZ or the US to intercept that ship?

Sorry, I'm not up to speed on copyright infringement penalties in the US. Do you have examples of people who have been given life imprisonment for criminal copyright infringement? As I read it, the Wikipedia page says max five years for a first offense and max ten years for a second or subsequent offense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Copyright_Law_in_the_...

Not the example you requested, but the threat of it, from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Arrest_and_prosec...

> federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment adding nine more felony counts, which increased Swartz's maximum criminal exposure to 50 years of imprisonment and $1 million in fines.[13][101][102] During plea negotiations with Swartz's attorneys, the prosecutors offered to recommend a sentence of six months in a low-security prison, if Swartz would plead guilty to 13 federal crimes.

You want to read some of Popehat's articles on sentencing guidelines.

Here's one that walks through the process:

https://www.popehat.com/2013/03/26/cloudy-with-a-chance-of-s...

Here's another, more hyperbolic one, showing how a claimed "facing 67 years" turns out to be more like "facing 24 months, and probably less than that":

https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc...

But the short version is that describing a criminal case as "facing up to 50 years" is like describing a lottery ticket as "worth up to 50 million dollars", and you should probably believe both statements about equally until the sentencing happens (for the criminal case) or the winning numbers are drawn (for the lottery ticket).

It can be 67 years at the whim of the DA. The maximum punishment is very real and they're just itching to use it.

If it was an unbiased roll of the dice that would be one thing, and the average and the distribution would be meaningful. But when it's arbitrary it doesn't matter what anyone else got, only what you'll get. And if you have any complaints about your treatment, etc, you're immediately in the full-penalty group.

It can be 67 years at the whim of the DA.

Everything I've read says the judge is the one who applies the sentencing guidelines. Prosecuting attorneys don't sentence people, as far as I'm aware.

The DA is the one who offers you a plea bargain, or not, and decides how many counts they charge you with. And recommends charges.

But yeah, after that it's all the judge.

So what happens when someone who's actually informed about sentencing guidelines tells a DA they don't believe the whole "if you don't plead you're facing ten million years in prison" thing?

You're the one who thinks you're informed, and that a judge would overrule the DA if they got out of hand, so I suggest you go find out.

I'm pretty much in the camp that the DA would fuck you up and the police and judge would all be in on it. Try telling a cop what the law is, especially if you're right...

The difference is the price of that lottery ticket isn't $2, it's your remaining life.

As you would expect most don't take that gamble.

Really, I was just wondering if there were any examples of Americans being sentenced to decades in prison for copyright infringement. It sounds like the answer is no (?).

Also, I assume the multiple counts issue also applies to Germany and other countries, so the US penalties aren't necessarily that much worse. (Well, 10 years is much worse than 5 years, but it isn't decades worse.)

The German legal system does not simply do multiples. Assuming everything is judged together at a trial the process is roughly as follows: First it is checked whether everything was done in a single criminal act (which is defined pretty broadly)[1]. In that case, it is just one crime with one maximum. If not, the sentence is usually much less than the sum of single sentences would be (rule of thumb is "offense with maximal punishment + 1/2 sum of the rest" but can be even less). Everything is capped at 15 years unless there was a crime demanding lifelong imprisonment.

If there are seperate trials (even for totally seperate crimes), the sentences are also combined as per above at the later trial (unless the former sentence was already executed).

As far as I know this is not unusual worldwide. Certainly other European countries use a similar system.

[1]: Wikipedia tells me that the US system doesn't ask that question at all. I know absolutely nothing about copyright cases in particular but e.g. starting a filesharing client that distributes many files to many people is still a single criminal act in Germany (civil law is different of course).

Right, and it's the multiple "counts" that get you.

I agree that the US prison system has many human rights issues, but Kim's extradition was approved due to the fraud and racketeering charges, not due to the copyright infringement accusations.

No idea how it works if he's extradited and the US tries to prosecute him for the copyright infringement cases though.

The fraud and racketeering charges are a sham, manufactured to work around the non-extraditable copyright infringement charges.

"He [NZ Judge David Harvey] also confirmed that the charges in the indictment relating to money laundering, racketeering and wire fraud are not separate criminal acts but dependent on the claim of criminal secondary copyright infringement."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload_legal_case which links the actual legal documents

It's worth pointing out that such charges can stem from a pretty wide variety of actions. Look at Aaron Schwartz - he had access to JSTOR and tried to download all the files there. So they block his IP, and he spoofed his ID and tried again. They charged him with wire fraud for this.

Money talks, thats why.