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Comment by DennisP | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand this. Megaupload is based in Hong Kong. How does the DMCA apply to them?

The site operators were arrested in New Zealand. Most aren't even U.S. citizens: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/megaupload-indicted...

Now they're being charged by the FBI. How did it happen that the entire world is supposed to comply with U.S. law?

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Trips - http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/trips_e.htm

Trips -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreement_on_Trade-Related_Aspe...

WIPO - http://www.wipo.int/copyright/en/

WIPO - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Org...

"The arrests were carried out by Organised & Financial Crime Agency New Zealand (OFCANZ) and police, following a mutual legal assistance request from the United States"

NZ Herald has more: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&obj...

Your link says the state of Virginia is claiming jurisdiction because some of the servers were there. The lesson I guess is if you're going to run a site like this, don't host it in America.

There's no indication that any laws of New Zealand were broken. The NZ cops simply cooperated in enforcing U.S. law.

The Berne Convention stipulates that the laws of where the copyright is registered takes precedent.

So you're saying if 100 countries each have their own DMCA-like requirements for notification and takedown, each a little different, then if I have any kind of site where users post content, under Berne I have to implement 100 different systems?

And then somehow I have to figure out where each item was originally created (not posted from), and apply the appropriate system for that file?

Can you quote me Berne on that one - it seems strange because copyright is an unregistered right. USA as one of the last countries to accede to Berne retains some registration systems as a way for rights holders to get access to greater fines in court. But this is not a widespread system.

Do you mean the country of origination of the copied work?

Yes it is origination. Your are correct that registering is an outdated concept and Berne actually insist on automatic copyright in the origin country.

It's a good thing that common carriers are well-protected in the United States, then.

I keep wanting to see some one fight extradition to the US on the grounds that water boarding is torture and that the country can't legally extradite to countries that use torture.

Watch the EU.

I believe that the money laundering charges significantly ease extradition matters.

I don't quite get this either. They weren't that stupid to have their servers in the US where everything is illegal, were they? And what about similar sites like Rapidshare? How do they get to be still up and running, yet doing quite the same thing for decades?

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