That's because it had servers in the U.S. SOPA is aimed at companies that keep their ops outside the U.S.
So as long as there are some operations based in U.S., they can get to all these folks?
MegaUpload was cited a number of times during the Judiciary Committee Hearing. But they mispoke more often than not.
If the allegations in the indictment are true, then MegaUpload was likely violating the law in those countries to.
Contrary to widespread belief, the US is not the only country with copyright laws that criminalize commercial piracy.
If every website suddenly has to obey the laws of every country, it will be an interesting time.
If every website suddenly has to obey the laws of every country
The DMCA was the US implementation of two international treaties.
I'm sure those kidnapped will be glad to hear this.
Not really a new or particularly controversial legal construct. The host country can refuse to extradite if they disagree with the charges.
If there are extradition agreements, sure.
Meaning: If they were MegaUpload.ch, they would have needed to SOPA to take the domain down. But they still would not have been able to seize the servers and arrest the operators.
tl;dr: Relating this to SOPA is a bit of a stretch.
Further, I know it was definitely not the case with the online pokersites [PokerStars, FullTilt, and UltimateBet/Absolute] being shut down in April. AFAIK, ICANN is based in the US and oversees .com [among other] address. Because of this, with a court order, the US gov't can seize a domain name, with or without SOPA and they have already done this with online poker sites that have no physical presence in the United States.
Megaupload is in the same spot as those sites; they violated US law, a case was filed against them, and the US gov't seized their domain, servers, etc. Due process was followed. It is a little far-reaching the the US can so easily seize .com domains, and that is why you now will see very few online poker sites that serve the US use a .com [instead they use .eu or .ag, primarily]. If a company break US laws, the US gov't can pursue them, regardless of where they are. Whether or not they should be able to do that so easily is another question.
Do you really mean that as broadly as it's written? Shouldn't it be "If a company break US laws on US soil, the US gov't can pursue them, regardless of where they are." while the Internet has made the world smaller, nations are still sovereign and should be treated as such. Frankly, I'm really tired of my government feeling like it has to police the world.
For the poker sites, they do not [and did not] have a physical presence in the US, but still involve US citizens in their business and it was argued that US banks were involved in money laundering and other crimes that took place "on US soil." So it is pretty similar to the megaupload case; if you dance around the word of the law and profit from US customers, the US gov't will likely pursue you if you are a big enough target
These cases are not all the same. Different criminal laws are being violated, by people in different places, involving different US-based businesses.