Be aware that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Schmitz is missing the bits about how he ran some piracy and carding BBSs back in the days and then tried to sneak his way out of trouble by telling the law all about the users. I would not be surprised if Megaupload kept logs of everything for this purpose as well.
I agree. Personally, the man seems like an ass of the highest caliber but I don't feel the service he provided warranted a raid. A great example of misuse of power and questionable priorities.
His personality might be a bit "problematic", but eccentric entrepreneurs have always been around, from Howard Hughes to Larry Ellison in his best better days.
This article fails to mention that the FBI has illegally copied and extradited out of NZ jurisdiction the vast amount of data gained in the illegal raid on his home.
Not all countries have the same penal system for copyright infringement. This of course does not favor the US. Where is ACTA when we need it? ;)
Even under US law, criminal copyright infringement only carries a maximum of 5 years. Legal experts correct me if I'm wrong. Can we assume that's not 5 years per item?
Now, assuming that's true, what if he does not get the max penalty? A couple of years is not too severe. Why not just sue him for damages? He has assets. He can pay. It makes a lot more sense. The answer is likely because they are trying to send a message. Why do they need to send a message? Isn't getting sued for millions enough of a message?
Let the readers answer that one.
So, what can we do if a sentence of a few years is not scary enough? We can allege a "conspiracy". A "mega conspiracy". Then we can accuse him of racketeering. And the sentence can be much longer.
The whole thing is just a little over the top.
They should have just sued him, taken his assets and left him a broke hacker.
Instead they want to brand him a serious criminal. Not just a petty one. People are not buying it. What they see is overzealousness. The punishment does not match the crime. So he becomes a hero.
“Two helicopters and 76 heavily armed officers to arrest a man alleged of copyright crimes — think about that,” he wrote. “Hollywood is importing their movie scripts into the real world and sends armed forces to protect their outdated business model.”
What were they thinking when they sent such a large force ?
Can't say I like the company, it's good that a lot of their files are legitimate but they really didn't care about pirated files in the slightest. One of my friends ran a company selling physical software and hired outside help to find and serve DMCA notices to sites hosting cracked full versions of the software. Megaupload generally complied with the notices but every single time the file was taken down it was put up again a few days later (the exact same file with the exact same file size). They could have implemented even a very basic md5 check to stop this from happening but they chose not to because they knew it would bring more profits if they didn't.
Given his past and the megaupload business model, you have to fuck up pretty badly to turn Kim into this much of a hero.
If Hollywood had chased a civil case against him, they would have almost certainly won it and shut down his business, which would have then paved the way for them to pursue a criminal investigation (although I am far from convinced that he has done anything explicitly illegal as opposed to merely unlawful).
This way round it looks as though they could lose badly on all counts and make themselves look like malicious and incompetent fools in the process while simultaneously souring US relationships with their political allies.
Perhaps they are just malicious and incompetent fools however. It would certainly seem to be the simplest explanation for the current situation.
I'm a pretty savvy internet user, and I'll confess to having used Mega for the odd video when nothing else was working, but I've never heard much about Kim before this case. Now he's a folk hero. Considering the weakness of Mega's position, this case couldn't have gone much worse for the copyright industry.
K.C's appeal comes from the fact that he quite rightly criticizes the incompetent and heavy-handed actions of some very unlikeable people - DC insiders and lobbyists. His portrayal of events is, if perhaps exaggerated, certainly plausible and more possessing of verisimilitude than the official party line.
As with Assange his appeal comes, not from a reasoned appraisal of the totality of his person, but rather from a shared dislike of his powerful enemies.
What's impressive is that he went from relative obscurity to been known not only from the startup crowd like here but also from the more mainstream tech crowd that populate sites like reddit.
They maybe managed to shutdown and destroy his business but they also involuntarily made sure that his next business venture will have an enormous amount of free publicity by been talked about on all tech blogs and social news web sites.
Morality and legality are two very different concepts. You can do something that is illegal that is moral and you can do something legal that is immoral..
"Amount of physical violence" is an unreasonable way to measure proportionality of punishment. Someone who destroys $10 million in economic value has probably done much more harm than someone who drags you to a jail cell for a few nights. (Disclaimer: I think Megaupload is creating value, not destroying it.)
What he does is probably illegal, according to copyright laws
My understanding is that what some of the users were doing was possibly illegal under US law, but probably unlawful most everywhere else, and that what he was doing was possibly unlawful but not illegal pretty much everywhere, including in the US. Knowingly facilitating copyright infringement is a charge that can be leveled at every industry that provides consumer equipment or services that copy or transmit data, from ISP's through to the manufacturers of video recorders.
That's too simplistic. Lets take the example of a gun. The gun industry makes a product that can be used for intentional harm or for protection. One company sells a 35mm handgun to the general public and another sells assault rifles to the general public. A reasonable person knows an assault rifle is not for protection (and don't get pedantic and say "well depends where you live", etc. because you know what I mean). That's like what MegaUpload is. Dropbox and Box.net are file locker services. MegaUpload was very obviously a file sharing service - one that was very much all about sharing movies, music, and software with no regard to copyright law. Dropbox and Box.net are the handguns to MegaUpload's assault rifle when you put it into my above example.
Not to get too pedantic, but you might want to amend that to "9mm handgun" or something similar. Apache helicopter gunships shoot 30mm projectiles!
But to address your argument - a large portion of the gun lobby and gun enthusiasts aren't necessarily uncomfortable with just a handgun for defense, but they are uncomfortable with a technically ignorant government deciding what is sufficient and allowable for that purpose. Similarly, what's to say a precedent established with Megaupload cannot be used to hamstring or shut down Dropbox or similar services? Though you can understand and make the distinction between the intents of the two services, can you trust a judge to properly frame why Megaupload is bad and Dropbox is good? Or for prosecutors, lawyers, and the assembled IP industry to not leverage any legal precedent to shut down what they feel like?
You've got a point but I can honestly say I can trust a judge, prosecutor, or a 5 month old to tell the difference between MegaUpload and Dropbox. What MegaUpload was encouraging was too obvious to even argue about.
That said, you are right. My argument was geared more toward MegaUpload defenders who, for some reason, have deluded themselves into thinking they're defending an innocent service and turning Kim Dotcom into some sort of freedom fighting hero. Your stance on copyright law is irrelevant here because what MegaUpload was all about is illegal in most first world countries. If you think MegaUpload was "just a file storage service" you've got to be lying to yourself.
However, your argument is important because not all cases are so cut and dry. So yeah, in the future it is important to keep an eye on the Feds and make sure the law and due process are upheld because I'll concede that if people are lax (like I am in this case with MegaUpload) then in the future it might be a truly innocent Dropbox that's next. You never know.
Dropbox and Box are file syncing/backup services, and MegaUpload is a filesharing service. Both types have different legitimate use-cases. Youtube is also very much about sharing movies and music, but since youtube videos are publicly viewable, it's easier to monitor and take down. How is MegaUpload supposed to monitor a bunch of passworded "VacationPhotos.rar" files? Just because it might be a Hollywood movie doesn't mean they can take it down on suspicion.
There are music artists that have put their own albums on MegaUpload as a central place where anyone can come download. There are people like myself who put a collection of high res photos in an archive and hosted it on MegaUpload for any of my family or friends to download. Analogizing MegaUpload to an assault rifle is saying that there's no reason for civilians to have access to it, where there are actually many legitimate use cases for using a filesharing service for mass distribution.
Just as with megaupload, any person with that link is able to download that file. The paying customer is the person hosting the file, and just as with dropbox, anyone who only has a small volume of files doesn't have to pay anything.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people are using dropbox, google drive, and any number of other companies today for EXACTLY the kind of piracy that megaupload stands accused of. The main difference seems to be that those other companies are not as successful and try very hard to present a public face that emphasizes their other features, like file syncing.
Your presenting a straw man. I used MegaUpload many times over the course of playing World of Warcraft, because one of the better known players had put his configuration files and some of his videos on the site for others to download. I also used it myself as storage for several (non-important) pictures. MegaUpload is very much a file sharing service. It is also used for sharing copyrighted files. It is nothing like an assault rifle.
I heard about someone back in the 1970s who replaced the barrel of an old .38 Special revolver with a piece of pipe (about an inch-and-a-half or 40 mm) and used .38 blank cartridges to shoot golf balls about a hundred yards.
and you just _know_ some people would be ordering them 6 months before they were available.. .. never mind that to avoid damaging yourself you'd have to load it so light the bullet would be visible in flight - I am sure it would sell.
The problem with this analogy is that it's actually the wrong way around. The problem firearms are the handguns - the US has 17k murders per year, 13k of them are with firearms, 11k of those are with handguns. Much as people like debating about rifles, it's handguns that do the work.
You politely ask people not to get pedantic then the majority of the discussion becomes pedantry. Instead of replying one by one I'll lump a lot of responses here.
1. The millimeters on my defensive gun were very off. I don't know about guns. Just imagine a typical handgun.
2. The handgun analogy is not about how much damage one causes over the other nor is it about the severity of the consequences. The point is that we can all relate to the average homeowner buying a handgun for protection and most people can understand that and trust that your neighbor isn't buying it to commit crimes. But when your neighbor buys an assault rifle and claims its for self defense you start to wonder because we all know, on average, most of the time, it's common sense, stop being fucking pedantic, that assault rifles are not for self defense and when someone claims that it should set off alarm bells just like when someone says "I only used MegaUpload to share Excel spreadsheets with my coworkers and so did everyone else I know or have ever heard of" you've got to wonder if that person is living in a bubble or just straight up delusional.
The point is that we can all relate to the average homeowner buying a handgun for protection
Can we? Where I live, buying a pistol or an assault rifle for self-defence would get you viewed the same by your neighbours. I'd actually be more concerned if I heard someone on the street brag about their pistol because it's much easier to carry about secretely than a rifle.
This reminds me of the term 'security theatre', which is why I think the analogy is a bad analogy.
It might well have obviously been a file sharing service, but by your metaphor, every hi-fi featuring tape to tape recording was at the very least a Browning Automatic Rifle.
[edit] Also, in a hell of a lot of cultures around the world possession of a handgun is not considered defensive, but lets ignore that point as it would break your metaphor, and not only did you politely ask me not to, but you also probably have a handgun. < whistles innocently while slowly sidling out of range >
He has played the media at least as well as his lawyers have done in court, but you also have to factor in that people are pretty fucking tired of the copyright industry being so heavy handed.
Breaking copyright is so normal, at least among those younger than 40 that almost any reponse would be seen as too heavy handed. Choppers and armed police, however are completely of the scale.
NZ is being oppressed by the US? Like the whole pirate revolution fantasy, there is no basis in reality. IP is not going away anytime soon, at least in free countries. The pirate party would have to be, at least in the US, one of the two major parties and even then it would be difficult. Either people can choose how to license their work or there are no licenses. I don't see a middle ground.
Of course it is. What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership if it isn't the latest attempt to bludgeon other countries in toeing the USA's (i.e. the MAFIAA's) line in IP?
> Like the whole pirate revolution fantasy, there is no basis in reality.
There are currently Pirates elected in 7 countries, which is good going for a movement that's only been in existance for 6 years. Other politicians, for example in the EU, are already modifying their policies to take account of the Pirates' popularity, which they wouldn't be doing if it was just a "fantasy".
> IP is not going away anytime soon, at least in free countries.
IP in its present form is clearly going away. Consider shows like Game of Thrones which more people downloaded than legally watched. While IP law will change slower than IP reality (because law is a trailing indicator), it too is likely to change as Pirates win power in Europe.
> The pirate party would have to be, at least in the US, one of the two major parties and even then it would be difficult.
The Pirate Party wouldn't have to win in the US at all. If it gains power in Europe, it'll have the clout of the world's largest economy behind it, and the USA will no longer be able to impose its IP laws on the rest of the world.
Nor will the USA be able to prevent unauthorised copying via websites in other countries, unless it disconnects its internet from the rest of the world's, which isn't practical.
> Either people can choose how to license their work or there are no licenses.
Once a work is published, it will increasingly be out of the control of the creator. Savvy creators, such as Amanda Palmer or Cory Doctorow, already realise that and have adapted to the new reality. Those who refuse to adapt will go excinct.
The exception to this is works that are programs, which will be able to use DRM systems running on the internet, such as Valve's Steam.
Other savvy people realize that the way things are going, making any kind of living at creating information goods is going to be increasingly difficult, so they go do other things. In some cases, that's no great loss, in other cases, we are the poorer for it in terms of never getting to see what they may have created.
> Other savvy people realize that the way things are going, making any kind of living at creating information goods is going to be increasingly difficult, so they go do other things.
That's true. When goods are both non-rivalrous and non-excludable, they tend to be underproduced in a market economy. One solution would be for the state to produce such goods (e.g. in the UK, the BBC). Another possible solution would be my proposal for a broadband tax -- http://cabalamat.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/a-broadband-tax-fo...
> See: "that which is not seen"
On the subject of things not seen, how much innovation has the current IP regime destroyed? I can think of several websites that ought to exist, but which don't, due to copyright law.
Whatever PR firm has been advising him has been doing a superb job. See the framing of his newfound love of social media:
"Asked why he had become so active online, Mr. Dotcom said he was using the most efficient way to respond to all the good-will messages he had received."
Well, the FBI hasn't been entirely honest about Megaupload's business model. They claimed that it was based around paying people to upload copyright-infringing model when actually it relyed on reducing the amount they had to pay out by enforcing the clause that allowed them to reject payouts if they suspected copyright infringement.
He's a hero because he let people warez and they lost their favorite source for warez when his system was shut down.
Everything else -- the FBI fuckups, the legitimate users losing data, and so on -- is a secondary justification for supporting a warez site. Those issues can be opposed on their own without making the warezer-in-chief into a hero.
Actually, from my perspective (and from someone who only knew about megaupload through their music video), he is a hero because he's actually fighting the egregious injustices brought on by the US.
I could not have cared less about the man until I read about how little due process had been involved leading up to the raid on his home. There is something fundamentally wrong when one of the most powerful countries in the world can't use due process to arrest someone violating a copyright law.
That's certainly an important part, but I think it ignores the natural tendency for considering "the enemy of my enemy, my friend".
He is (not by choice, but still) fighting the US government, particularly in an area where many perceive the latter to be bound by lobbies. That's enough to make him seem like a knight in shiny armor.
No, he's a hero because he's standing up to illegal practices by the US government and entertainment industry that can go as far as strong-arming another nation into breaking their own laws at their behest.
Of course there is pirated stuff on MegaUpload, there's pirated stuff on every cloud hosting service.. every single one of them. Anecdotally, I use Google Docs and Dropbox to share music with people, should the government raid them and take all of their servers?
Whether or not you feel this is a piracy hub is beside the point, because if there was a reason to shut the site down, the people responsible should be able to present evidence of criminal activity in order to justify their actions.
The fact that they undertook a military raid, and tried to collect evidence after the fact is a clear sign that they did not have a strong case to begin with.
More than anything he's becoming a hero because the RIAA and MPAA have been using lawsuits to demand hundreds of thousands of dollars from middle-class parents, the elderly, and many others who are often innocent of crimes they are accused of. This has become a rallying point for many to stand up to these organizations tactics, because it's only been a one-sided battle using questionable practices for the past decade.
