Megaupload Trial May Never Happen, Judge Says
torrentfreak.com
torrentfreak.com
“This Mega takedown was possible because of corruption on the highest political level, serving the interests of the copyright extremists in Hollywood,” he says. “Mega has become a re-election pawn.”
The sad thing is, as flamboyant a character as he is, he's probably right.
[1] http://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-lashes-out-against-corrup...
Procedural errors indicate to me that someone put a "rush" on the case and the results were sloppy.
Mission accomplished.
It seems extremely likely the government could have proved that Megaupload was built on copyright infringement. But instead they're just going to come out discredited, making it harder for such actions to succeed in the future.
All that's happened here is that they've taken down one player among many, and their ability to get the rest is lessened. That's not what they wanted here.
1. the intimidation factor of the US government willing and able to do anything to any company over "intellectual property", including foreign ones, even if it falls well outside the legal jurisidiction of any state.
2. forcing the hand of foreign jurisidictions to expedite US government processes to carry out these types of activities on pain of economic issues, e.g. the infamous trade blacklists, or other on-going diplomatic relations.
3. the acquisition of assets and resources for the federal governments budget (this runs into billions every year that is siezed).
4. minimum total resource usage for highly effective results means that very little political or judicial capital risks being spent. Someone somewhere in government has likely benefitted greatly from this outcome or certainly will in future even just for the potential to recreate the same type of results.
5. the creation of precedent that causes jurisidictions formulating their own domestic rights and justice system around new technology to reconsider what is the norm or what is pragmatic based on global "standards" or actions. This is particularly strong pressure for English-speaking/Anglo countries.
All this without judicial oversight and no domestic political repurcussions because of the accepted plutocratic culture of the US.
If this had been the actions of China or Russia against a US company, e.g. against Google/Youtube, I wonder how people would have felt then...
TL;DR. One could say this is about as "ideal" as it gets: "we, the US government, can get you anytime, anywhere, for anything with little effort or reason - laws are irrelevant".
People who feel themselves sufficiently hidden from the US government, or just don't care, are going to come along and create a raft of similar services to fill the same space.
SOPA has turned into CISPA. So its not like they stopped trying to coerce their way into legislation.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/04/12/expert-new-ci...
Consider that protest has now been classified as a low level form of 'terrorism' according to the DHS. How easy will it become for someone who is sharing a leaked rip of the next upcoming 'blockbuster' a cyber criminal? (It will likely be an issue raised by all the proponents of SOPA and PIPA whose IP/Hollywood lobbyists are wine-dining as we speak.)
You make the deadly assumption that they intend to enforce the letter of the Law as its 'clearly defined,' and nothing more. You also clearly neglect just how tightly bound Corporate and State alliances are, I would argue they are one in the same, you do realize that insider trading is legal for Congress/Senate members, right?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57323527/congress-trad...
Was the more interesting bit for me. This could actually have serious ramifications. Kim seems devoted.
Not in the least. It's a very real possibility.
In other well known laysuits against major publicly traded companies, for example the anti-trust suit against Microsoft or AT&T, the government wasn't able to take any action against the company until a settlement or verdict had taken place.
Even in other torrent lawsuits, like the isohunt.com lawsuit, those sites weren't shut down even after being served the suit. In fact isohunt.com is still operational despite the lawsuit that was filed a number of years ago.
So I wonder under what legal authority the FBI operates to completely shut down an entire business without a court order or ruling?
There's no justice in USA against government abuse except through some gun amendment I hear.
I'm not sure about NZ though. Join your Pirate Party to fight against the anti-Internet American government.
A few law enforcement types are going to lose their jobs soon, I take it. (And if they were connected with this farce of a case, all the better)
This is an outrageous statement.
There are special exceptions to the law, but the 4th Amendment of the Constitution explicitly protects citizens from illegal search and seizure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_...
If you have money, you have some recourse - but if you're an average citizen, the police can with any sort of drug- or terrorism-related charge, even if you are acquitted or the charges are dropped, de facto steal your shit and not reimburse you at all.
It's 'unreasonable' and not 'illegal' by the way - and the latter would be even easier to get around, because you just legislate 'this is legal now', no semantic tricks required.
Yes, exactly. That is why so many outrageous search and seizure laws have been passed, thus making them legal.
I think you are mostly wrong here, and WALoeIII 2 is mostly right, but I wanted to add some detail.
Certainly, if the police destroy your property inadvertently while pursuing a criminal, they are under no obligation to compensate you. It's considered tantamount to the criminal having destroyed it (and so you might be able to seek redress from him). But, it looks like if the police commandeer your property, they do in fact have a responsibility to compensate you, a la eminent domain. The Straight Dope article has good details. Choice quote:
> In United States v. Russell the Supreme Court was faced with a claim for three steamers commandeered by military authorities during the Civil War. The Russell court found it obvious that "the taking of such property under such circumstances creates an obligation on the part of the government to reimburse the owner to the full value of the service." The court continued, "private rights, under such extreme and imperious circumstances, must give way for the time to the public good, but the government must make full restitution for the sacrifice." The court concluded that the obligation to make full restitution was based on an implied promise "on the part of the United States to reimburse the owner for the use of the steamboats and for his own services and expenses, and for the services of the crews during the period the steamboats were employed in transporting government freight pursuant to those orders."
That said, things aren't always so clear:
>The Supreme Court hasn't said what happens if equipment is borrowed and returned damaged, but lower courts have been reluctant to award compensation in such cases. In Blackman v. City of Cincinnati, for instance, the Ohio Supreme Court refused to compensate a vehicle owner for a crash that occurred when police ordered him to chase a fleeing suspect. Other courts have followed suit.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2247/can-cops-reall...
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2011/10/11/feds-off-hook-for-...
You could say the same thing about the cops in Russia who raid businesses that have gotten on the wrong side of the state or its business network. Of course it should be the ones who give the orders who get canned. But noone gets canned.
The definition of tyranny is "arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power". That accurately describes the current situation where authorities can, with no risk to themselves, freely take your property and destroy your livelihood even when you've broken no laws. The fact that the US can even do this to people in other countries should be concerning to anyone who values rule of law.
"I merely played my part"
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article...
And the good ole Elevator Experiment:
But all I was saying is try to see things as the other side would. As the guys carrying out orders would. We have a hard time putting ourselves in others' shoes around here. Try it out and maybe what I said will sound just a little more reasonable.
"Doing bad things just because you were told to do so doesn't absolve you of the responsibility for doing bad things"
It applies whether you are a cop, a third reich officer, an employee at a corporation, whatever. The principal still stands.
If if we wanted to give such automatic immunity, the way to do this is simply to assume that an agreement like the one described above has been made: i.e., the government should have to compensate you. If state, acting as a collection of flawed humans, harms an innocent person, the state as a whole should have to compensate that person.
(2) He's living in his house now.
however, wondering if the whole case is thrown out, what options MegaUpload has to sue. He sure seems the kind of guy with the funds to put up a fight
I seriously hope he takes the NZ government for millions for being a bunch of FBI arse kissers.
And maybe he can use the wads of cash he gets to fund a start-up pirate party here.
Now we should all think about how such a case would/will be handled in a few years time based on the changes to civil rights / Internet regulations / totalitarian powers currently in the pipeline across most western societies.
2015:
I guess you will not hear about it other that a few of those who lost their files and were not immediately constraint with gag orders will mentioning it on some low frequented boards. Sites like TorrentFreak will then immediately taken off the net / silenced by gag orders.
A brave new world we are looking forward to - the .... are just practicing in the moment and will eventually get better over time.
But of course, we don't care enough about all of that to bother using censorship-resistant technologies like Freenet or Tor hidden services because The Web is so much more efficient and convenient...
(Not trying to blame you -- I'm guilty of the same laziness myself.)
Personally, I run an hidden Tor bridge and before I ran an exit node. But I have no real reason to use Tor for my daily browsing.
That pretty much sums up what the US Gov intended to do from the start - show that they don't need SOPA or whatever. Hopefully, Megaupload can sue the US Gov and get some money out of them, although that's probably not going to happen...
If so what does this mean for Kim Dotcom going forward? Does that mean he gets back all of the seized assets, and start rebuilding MU?
http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-host-refuses-to-delete-us...
The government's reaction to server host Carpathia refusing to destroy all the evidence that Dotcom claims exonerates him is to announce that they are considering filing criminal indictments against Carpathia.
http://torrentfreak.com/us-megauploads-hosting-company-might...
That is absolutely disgusting.
Let me get this straight - their logic is 'These guys did something illegal, and you have evidence that they didn't commit the crime in your possession. You need to destroy the evidence, because we're planning on charging you as an accomplice to that same crime.'
...I just don't even know where to begin.