The difficulties of International Policing....Looks Like Kim Dotcom will get off...

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

I have been following this story and we get a different POV on it here in New Zealand compared to the talk back in the USA. Kim Dotcom is celebrating a legal victory this evening after his case is unravelling very quickly.....Goes to show the difficulties of filing Indictments on people in other countries. Here is the article from our news source:

 

http://www.stuff.co....s-ruled-illegal

 

 

Full Judgement Here:

http://static.stuff.co.nz/files/DotCom

 

 

I don't like Piracy however my POV is simple, that people should be tried in their own countries instead. Australia and New Zealand have their own distribution and copyright laws that had been violated, since Kim Dotcom is in this jurisdiction, this should have been approached in a different way, or send him back to his native Germany to stand trial there.

 

Cheers

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

When you rent a DVD in Australia and New Zealand the first thing that you see is this:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KEeGkLzOeI

 

Local Business' and investors purchase the rights from Hollywood to distribute films in Australia and New Zealand. Therefore Copyright Infringements effects those investments in this jurisdiction. He should have been tried locally for copyright infringement, then deported back to Germany to stand trial for more.

 

The FBI has taken the evidence illegally overeseas, that evidence won't stand up in New Zealand, Australia, or German courts anymore.....and extradition to the USA is not likely anymore.

[louiseSEUK 2]

My view is that the FBI/MPAA/RIAA didn't really care one way or the other about extradition. I think the end goal was most likely to shut the business down for long enough that it would eventually see itself wind up.

 

When you rent a DVD in Australia and New Zealand the first thing that you see is this:

 

Find a rip of said DVD, you won't find that at the start...it's always seemed a bit redundant to me, personally. The only people who would see this are the people who source the film legitimately!

 

I don't like Piracy however my POV is simple, that people should be tried in their own countries instead. Australia and New Zealand have their own distribution and copyright laws that had been violated, since Kim Dotcom is in this jurisdiction, this should have been approached in a different way, or send him back to his native Germany to stand trial there.

 

Couldn't agree more. Most western countries now have sufficient legislation to tackle copyright/wrong to deal with this, including us here. I was always under the impression that extradition was designed to deal with serious offences - murder, fraud etc.

 

And I did ponder to myself on the way home this evening. Since the raids were illegal, and thus the confiscation of that data was not legal, does that technically mean that the subsequent cloning and copying of data now puts those law enforcement bodies into the "unlawful copying of copyrighted data" category. IANAL and all that...

[japascoe 98]

And I did ponder to myself on the way home this evening. Since the raids were illegal, and thus the confiscation of that data was not legal, does that technically mean that the subsequent cloning and copying of data now puts those law enforcement bodies into the "unlawful copying of copyrighted data" category. IANAL and all that...

 

I highly doubt it. If a search was illegal it just means that the evidence gathered as a result of that search can't be used against you (at least in most jurisdictions I know of, I'm sure there are variations from country to country), it doesn't make the police guilty of breaking and entering or theft. I'm sure similar exemptions apply in this case. Copying data for legal investigative purposes probably doesn't count as copyright infringement either, regardless of the legality of the data gathering.

[louiseSEUK 2]

Copying data for legal investigative purposes probably doesn't count as copyright infringement either, regardless of the legality of the data gathering.

Even if that data gathering was shown to be no more than a "fishing expedition"? I won't pretend to have expertise in this area (as much as I would love to argue down my wife on such things, he he). It's all just a bit fishy for my comfort. Meh, perhaps I'm just way to cynical about these things.

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

What I am thinking at this point is the FBI was more interested in what was on those hard drives from the MegaUploads community. All Kim Dotcom was doing was managing a server and profiting from the ad revenues. It was the Users that were exchanging the Copyright materials.

 

I highly doubt it. If a search was illegal it just means that the evidence gathered as a result of that search can't be used against you (at least in most jurisdictions I know of, I'm sure there are variations from country to country), it doesn't make the police guilty of breaking and entering or theft. I'm sure similar exemptions apply in this case. Copying data for legal investigative purposes probably doesn't count as copyright infringement either, regardless of the legality of the data gathering.

 

The FBI has those drives in their possession now and you bet they are going through all of it. So the question is, can the FBI prosecute American Citizens from the evidence gathered in the raids on Kim Dotcom by the New Zealand Authorities? The raid was illegal search and seizure in New Zealand but it happened outside the USA.

 

The other case similar to this one is with Richard O'Dwyer in the UK.....Again my POV is he should be tried in the UK instead of the USA. Extradition should be for more serious crimes like Murder (as Leo has said). To start extraditing people for Copyright infractions sets a dangerous precedent in my POV. They should answer for those crimes in their own coutries.

[severniae 78]

The other case similar to this one is with Richard O'Dwyer in the UK.....Again my POV is he should be tried in the UK instead of the USA. Extradition should be for more serious crimes like Murder (as Leo has said). To start extraditing people for Copyright infractions sets a dangerous precedent in my POV. They should answer for those crimes in their own coutries.

 

Completely agree - I've been watching several of the copyright cases with interest. Richard O'Dwyer in particular as he is a fellow UK national - The US are becoming bullish with their war on copyright theft. Whilst I in no way condone piracy, nor do I believe that it should be a crime that should command a prison sentence! Fine, is... fine. Take back money that was made, fine. However the real question is; should a webmaster be responsible for the use that their website is put to? TVshack only held the links to shows, it did not contain or hold the shows themselves. Yes, it was complicit in the distribution of pirated DVD/TV - No doubt there. But there is a difference in knowing a crime is taking place, and choosing not to intervene, and outright taking part in the offese!

 

The case should be tried in the country that it was comitted - Mr O'Dwyer never even left his home when creating TVSHACK - as far as I'm aware it wasn't even hosted on a US server! It should be tried in the UK, and incidentally, here it wouldn't be a criminal case, but a civil one! This whole copyright mess needs sorting out - It makes a normal person such as myself a little scared of the internet - what if my IP was incorrectly mistaken with one of a pirated software distributor? Would I have to be extradited to the US before my innocence could be proven? Have years of my life taken away for nothing? This is wrong! As I said I do not support piracy, but the world has now gone mad!

 

Anyway, rant over!

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

The US are becoming bullish with their war on copyright theft.

 

I think that it is the current political situation in the USA. You've got a democratic goverment and pressure on them from the Hollywood Film Industry to do something about Copyright Theft. Dems get big support from Hollywood so they need to show support back.

 

Ironic thing is the biggest blockbuster films that are produced in the world are not made in the USA, they are made in New Zealand. Lord of the Rings trilogy, Avatar and the current Hobbit trilogy are made in New Zealand. So you would think the best place to put Kim Dotcom on Trial is in the country where the greatest movies are being made and not the USA. Kim Dotcom is a New Zealand Resident and commited these crimes in New Zealand and not in the USA. He should have stood trial here.

[lthendrix 25]

another example of "the world police" overstepping boundaries, and the death spasams of an ever increasing irrelevant hollywood !

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

Another setback for the FBI.....The reason why each nation should handle Copyright domestically.

 

http://www.stuff.co....dence-dismissed

 

This case just keeps going from bad to worse. New Zealand should have handled it without influence from Biden's election promises.

[xplanery 250]

I can't exactly see how Dotcom is a pirate... All he did was keeping up website which allowed people to upload whatever material they wanted there, probably majority of stuff in that website was completely legally uploaded there, used it couple of times myself too when I had to handle some game server files and such stuff to some of my friends.

 

US should definitely stop playing world police, nothing disgust me than governments who hand their citizen over to US when they should instead sentence their citizen in their own country... And now even Assange is in danger of getting handed over to USA through UK / Sweden, in case of Sweden just by using most likely fake rape accusation to justify it.

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

I can't exactly see how Dotcom is a pirate... All he did was keeping up website which allowed people to upload whatever material they wanted there, probably majority of stuff in that website was completely legally uploaded there, used it couple of times myself too when I had to handle some game server files and such stuff to some of my friends.

 

US should definitely stop playing world police, nothing disgust me than governments who hand their citizen over to US when they should instead sentence their citizen in their own country... And now even Assange is in danger of getting handed over to USA through UK / Sweden, in case of Sweden just by using most likely fake rape accusation to justify it.

 

 

What it comes down to with this case is....Nothing wrong with international police forces working together as that is very good for the common good...

 

The failure in this case is that New Zealand Police was acting on advice from the FBI and did a raid on the Mega Upload Operation....

 

Reason behind this operation is because for Democrats in the USA to gain power had support from the Hollywood Film Industry. Therefore Biden as one of his VP initiatives is to act on election promises, and one of those was to litigate against Kim Dotcom.

 

Therefore as a promise the USA had to pursue an international action against a New Zealand Resident on behalf of Hollywood Execs with the support of the Obama/Biden election campaign...

 

Problem with that is Hollywood is no longer the place on the planet where the greatest films are produced.....NEW ZEALAND is.

New Zealand recently produced Lord Of the Rings, Avatar and the upcoming Hobbit films. Hollywood is acting on a failed industry that would prefer to sue and litigate over its recent failures then try to do better.

 

New Zealand Police acted on behalf of the FBI and overlooked local laws. Many of those actions are now in contrary of local search and seizure laws.

 

This has become a case of fool me once.....The USA won't fool us twice. Biden has really messed up on this one

 

Chances are this will become a failed case on behalf of the original case from the office of Biden.....We have seen this crap before with that useless Tipper Gore crap against the Music Industry on Labeling....LOL...FAILURE and way out of touch.phphphphph

 

Americans don't recognize this damage however it is as bad as the Boston Tea Party when you lot hated the British Empire.....Keep your policies to yourself and stop being what you fought against.

 

This case should have been tried in New Zealand on behalf of the New Zealand Film Industry as it is the best Film Industry in the entire world right now.....This is a sovereignty issue and the USA is just playing politics.

 

The USA had a revolution against the former British Empire for these same reasons....Amazing how they forget.

 

I am not anti-American as I am 1/2 American....it is just amazing to me how much the USA has lost touch with what the fore fathers fought for

 

Cheers