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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

The U.S. does not claim it can prosecute anyone. U.S. courts can and do dismiss suits for lack of personal jurisdiction over non-citizens. Like every country,[1] it reserves the right to prosecute people whose activities have effects in the U.S. A big part of megaupload's business was infringing property rights granted under U.S. law to Americans. If your actions are going to effect people in the U.S., obviously you should have to follow U.S. law.

[1] It's a basic principle of international law that countries can prosecute activity by non-citizens that has effects domestically. Not every country has the power toe exercise this principle, however.

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> A big part of megaupload's business was infringing property rights granted under U.S. law to Americans. If your actions are going to effect people in the U.S., obviously you should have to follow U.S. law.

That is a poor argument.

North Korea could decide to assign patent rights to "online shopping" to one of its citizens. This citizen now has an intellectual property right that every ecommerce website is infringing. Every site owner is failing to pay legally required royalties, depriving this citizen of those funds, using millions of copies of his invention without authorization.

According to your rule of thumb, all these website operators should be required to follow NK law, so it'd be reasonable for them to land a helicopter in your yard and arrest you for violating it.

What actually exists is a web of extradition treaties whereby nations have agreed to voluntarily transfer someone to another nation for prosecution in certain situations. There's almost always an absolute requirement for dual criminality -- that is, that the act is illegal in both nations. That's the test, and the treaties signed by both governments are the source of power, not "domestic effects" and whatever you think makes the US special. The case this article is about is an extradition hearing.

To your reply: No, substituting NK for US in your own proposed system does not make a straw man.

Except in this case, the content is created in America by Americans, and the underlying property rights are widely recognized internationally. So yes, if none of those things were true your example might not be a strawman, but as it stands...

Except that Megaupload was not selling duplicated CDs of albums of US musicians or some other obviously infringing activity.

They provided a file hosting service, like Dropbox or Google Drive or Skydrive.

Judge Mooner, I'm pretty sure, doesn't own rights to Sinead O'Connor's music and yet DOJ is not currently suing YouTube because of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t77DexLMjOU

The rules for determining if a file sharing services like YouTube or DropBox or Megaupload violates copyright are not as clear as you seem to imply which is why e.g. Viacom lost it's case against YouTube (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viacom_International_Inc._v._Yo...)

It's far from clear that Megaupload violated U.S. law, let alone New Zealand's.

MegaUpload did not sell copyrighted material, but they did PAY users for hosting obviously copyright infringing material so that other users would pay MegaUpload to get fast download speeds on those files.

I'm continuously amazed at how the Internet defends a certified scumbag who profited hundreds of millions of dollars off other people's work. Everyone does like free stuff I suppose.

So lets refine the arguments a bit. I could respond to the mudslinging, but that just get boring to read/write.

If I understand you right, then the issues is not with the service that MegaUpload offered, but with the way that they marketed their services and encouraged new users.

And marketing is important. Where I live (Sweden), we have quite strong laws regulating marketing activities. For one, marketing directed at kids (like games) are strictly unlawful, as it is deemed to have a negative impact on society. Same for advertisement regarding alcohol or tobacco. By the early 2000, they considered if they could enforce the same laws against international cable networks that sold and broadcasted inside Sweden, but decided that such enforcing of Swedish law could not be enforced outside the national border.

What he's saying (I think) is that MegaUpload wasn't simply a service provider.

They got their hands dirty and actively participated in paying to "seed" their own service with popular copyright-protected movies, TV shows, etc.

IIRC they also paid for data center services hosted within the U.S. to ensure Americans had quick access to those services (including the deliberately-seeded IP-regime media files).

You'll note that the Feds aren't going after Google Drive, Youtube, Dropbox, iCloud, whatever Microsoft's cloud offering is called, etc., and yet those services are just as capable of uploading media and hosting it publically.

My issue is that I find MegaUpload and Kim Dotcom actions fundamentally immoral. Whether it is or should be illegal is a separate matter.

I am continuously surprised by the number of internet users who are typically opposed to his type of behavior, but support his immorality because he helps them get free things.

>support his immorality because he helps them get free things.

What a terrible argument. I have to support government thuggery, or else I'm a freeloading terrorist? I've never had a MU account, and I definitely don't look to Kim Dotcom's actions for moral guidance; but, I reckon I support the notion that the DOJ ought to follow the law. If that means that Dotcom gets away with something, well then so be it. Fix the law, don't just ignore it or make it up as you go.

It's not "mudslinging". It's spelled out in black-and-white in the company's own emails.

I would assume the "mudslinging" was in regards to the second paragraph.

>obviously copyright infringing material

Are you talking about youtube here?

Are you suggesting YouTube turns a blind eye towards copyright infringement? My experience has been that they aggressively patrol the site for infringing content to the point where they remove many videos that are clearly not infringing.

They certainly seem to let people upload the same video over and over despite takedowns.

YouTube itself does no patrolling. It can't have actual knowledge of specific acts of infringement if it wants to be protected by the DMCA; it's by turning a blind eye to it that they gain legal immunity from the infringement. You can be aware it's happening somewhere (even a lot) as long as you're not aware of the specific instances.

The media companies themselves do the patrolling and their actions, through a special dashboard YouTube provides them, result in the widespread takedowns you see. They can do their own flagging and also review potential matches by a ContentID-type system that checks uploads against signatures of files the media companies upload to claim as theirs.

My channel has had stuff from CNBC, CNN, ABC, you name it - for 2 years.

They do what?

Youtube does not operate with knowledge of actual specific infringement on their site. The DMCA creates a two-pronged obligation on hosting providers: they must respond to takedowns, and they can't operate with knowledge of actual specific unaddressed infringement. Not only did MegaUpload do that, but they (a) paid their users to upload content they knew to be infringing, and (b) themselves used the service to upload and download content they knew to be infringing.

It might not be clear, but if you always needed violations to be perfectly clear to prosecute there would be no point in having trials.

except that the US of A has the military muscle to enforce laws (if its own creation of course). There isn't really any other argument required - might makes right, when speaking on a world stage.

So it's a Yes then, USA is the world police?

"If your actions are going to effect people in the U.S., obviously you should have to follow U.S. law."

So I assume you also think youtube should follow pakistani law and anyone working at youtube should be held accountable if they ever find themself within their borders? How about pretty much anyone exercising free speech on HN from the US, should they face charges in Europe for hate speech or should YC itself?

Don't forget they claim the right without you stepping on US soil ever. So it's more like if Pakistan abducted someone working at Youtube from anywhere in the world, then took them to Pakistan to be tried against their local law. Ditto for Europe.

The word "effect" has more significance in this context than the weakest possible way you could interpret it. It means something more than simply making something accessible. See: http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Effects_test

I'm not necessarily challenging what US law says, but what you think about it.

Maybe you're talking some sense here but remember they came at him with helicopters and automatic weapons. If you ask me, he's just some fat kid with a website who likes pretty girls and video games. I support copyrights as much as anyone and have criticized this "Mega" fool but the way he was treated was outrageous. If RIAA wants any sympathy they need to get with the program.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Megaupload prosecution was a waste of scarce federal resources. I don't even think copyright infringement should be a criminal issue (blame Microsoft and the BSA for turning it into one). I'm just commenting on the U.S.'s right to enforce its laws internationally to the extent the activity is targeted at or has major impact on the U.S.

Megaupload disk service had an major impact on the U.S.?

How exactly can a company that buy and rents out disk space do a major impact on the fourth-largest country in the world?

I could see how such company could be threatening for those currently funding election campaigns, and thus indirectly causing those ruling the U.S. to take notice, but is/should the reaction cause major impact to the U.S.? If it is, then what does that say about a nation ruled by the people for the people?

So the U.S. can only take action against entities who cause a discernable direct major impact against the U.S. now?

Yes. Is that really such a bad thing?

"I'm glad you wrote to your Representative, Ms. Concerned Voter, but I regret to inform you that because the amount of taxpayer fraud you witnessed was less than $5,000,000 that the Department of Justice would be powerless to bring charges even if I referred the case to them. $5,000,000 is a stupendously minor offense in the grand scheme of the budget, and minor offenses no longer warrant charges after the Major Crimes Prioritization Act of 2018."

Of course. That means the U.S. would have no way to protect its citizens against harms from abroad unless they amounted to national harms.

Understanding that HN isn't a hive-mind, I still find it deeply ironic that a website full of people saying that the U.S. is overreaching by prosecuting MegaUpload was in a different context calling for the aggressive prosecution of HSBC (a non-U.S. company who broke U.S. laws not on U.S. soil).

>I still find it deeply ironic that a website full of people saying that the U.S. is overreaching by prosecuting MegaUpload was in a different context calling for the aggressive prosecution of HSBC (a non-U.S. company who broke U.S. laws not on U.S. soil).

What on Earth are you talking about? Some other HSBC?

http://hsbclocations.com/united_states/

>HSBC Bank USA, National Association, an American subsidiary of UK-based HSBC Holdings plc, is a bank with its operational head office in New York City and its nominal head office in McLean, Virginia (as designated on its charter). HSBC Bank USA, N.A. is a national bank chartered under the National Bank Act, which means that it is regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a part of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

HSBC Bank USA was not the entity that laundered the money. The target of the DOJ probe and the organization that paid the fine was HSBC Holdings, the U.K. entity.

If you want to argue that HSBC the larger entity had a presence in the U.S., even though the problems did not arise out of that U.S. presence, how do you deal with the fact that Megaupload had U.S. servers?

Oh come off it. For one, that's a patronizing insultingly idiotic argument, it's a farcical shell game of transactions through various subsidiaries the whole point of which was to avoid scrutiny of the US authorities. For two, HSBC Holdings the parent company does have offices in the US, as well as other subsidiaries (HSBC North America Holdings Inc.) which were involved. For three, you expect me to believe that you'd buy it if MU had used a US subsidiary and pretended that the business units were separate?

>If you want to argue that HSBC the larger entity had a presence in the U.S.

No, I don't need to (they do), the purpose of HSBC's US subsidiaries is so that the parent may operate in the US.

>how do you deal with the fact that Megaupload had U.S. servers?

I guess if MU wants to have servers in the US and serve US-based customers, then the federales ought to be able to go and confiscate the servers (so long as they follow due process) if they have cause to do so. But this seizing foreign-based property is right out. I wonder why the DOJ hasn't raided HSBC and siezed a lot of their office equipment.

@rayiner I can't reply to you directly for whatever reason. Maybe we're not getting the whole story. Reminds me of the McAfee story, some nut building what looks like a meth lab in the jungle, is he nuts or just trying to impress his girlfriend? Why does he have a safe room? Anyway, at least he lived to tell the story! Rad helicopter footage!

>remember they came at him with helicopters and automatic weapons

That was the New Zealand police, not the fucking FBI. Why is there no outrage at the government that actually arrested him? Was the minister held at gunpoint? If you read torrent freak you probably think so.

> Why is there no outrage at the government that actually arrested him?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/27/new_zealand_kim_dotc... and http://abovethelaw.com/2012/09/megameltdown-new-zealands-pri...

"If they had been more thorough in what they had done, they would have worked out that Mr. Dotcom had a residence class visa, and therefore was protected by the law,"

"Frankly, I’m pretty appalled by what I’ve seen because these are basic errors."

"This is really a matter of mistake and human error, not one of a great conspiracy,"

"the agency has let itself down very badly."

> That was the New Zealand police, not the fucking FBI

The attack against Kim Dotcom cascaded through many intermediaries. Although the NZ police were performing the raid, the FBI were observing and involved in the planning. Their involvement and NZ govt approval were commissioned (deniably, of course) by US politicians such as Joe Biden, ultimately sourcing back to big money in Hollywood.

I'm also the subject of that type of cascading attack, sourcing back to someone in Silicon Valley (http://groovy.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Blog04#8).

> "A big part of megaupload's business was infringing property rights"

Objection. Hearsay, your Honor.

Hearsay is when you repeat someone else's testimony that you (supposedly) heard. Instead that person should make their testimony directly, in their own words.

The assertion you replied to is a simple assertion, not hearsay. Just look at the income MegaUpload received from each file hosted and correlate to whether it is infringing or not and you can prove or disprove the assertion.

It would depend on how rayiner formed that opinion.

I would argue it depends more on your definition of "big part of". :)

He could be accidentally correct, after all, if you happen to agree with his definition.

Objection. Bullshit, your Honor.

Better?

I don't think it's too much to ask that if you go and use legal terms as if you're pitching a legal defense, that those terms are actually used correctly. Especially when the objection is about the form of a response and not the actual content.

You could certainly argue that rayiner hasn't provided justification with his comment, but unless you've been through MegaUpload's books you saying "BULLSHIT" has just as much (and as little) meaning as what rayiner said.

If it was that clear cut, the judge wouldn't have anything to worry about.

Let's preface our discussion with the assumption that the DOJ lawyers are 1) not totally incompetent, 2) not complete idiots. I think we can all agree on this, right?

Now, look at the legal limbo that the MU has been stuck in for absolutely ages now, where their lawyers continue to press for case dismissal and all kinds of other things.

Is not that the judge is just flipping them off is it?

You think, perhaps, the situation is a little bit more complicated than you give it credit for?

Or maybe the guys at the DOJ are actually just complete idiots? really?

Come on.

Have you noticed the cases they've been pursuing lately? The jury's out, I'd say.

>A big part of megaupload's business was infringing property rights granted under U.S. law to Americans.

No, perhaps that's what MU's users were up to, but not MU. What if this case were about banking? Would you also argue that Swiss banks should ignore Swiss banking laws and rat out Americans who lie about their assets to avoid taxes?

>If your actions are going to effect people in the U.S., obviously you should have to follow U.S. law.

No, it isn't obvious at all, and it implies that we should all behave in ways that do not affect people in other countries lest we be extradited for prosecution in some foreign jurisdiction if we break some foreign law.

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