DOJ Releases Some Megaupload Evidence; Actually Shows Difficulty Of Running Cloud Service
from the chilling-effects dept
Following the reports of how the DOJ was sharing Megaupload evidence with private companies, the DOJ has now unsealed details of some of the evidence it has against Megaupload. Looking through the details, it’s not surprising that much of it simply repeats things that were in the Megaupload indictment. And, as we noted about the indictment, that seems to include taking a bunch of things out of context, and trying to paint them in the worst possible light, when put back into the context, much of what’s discussed doesn’t seem that bad at all.
For example, the DOJ discusses Skype chats and emails in which Megaupload employees discuss ways in which they might prevent some infringement from happening, and at other times say things like “I have the feeling that Kim tolerates a certain amount of copyright infringement.” While the DOJ seems to think these are damning, it seems like the opposite. It seems clear from a statement like the one quoted that “enabling infringement” wasn’t a focus of the operation. After all, if the company was so focused on profiting from infringement, wouldn’t it be clearly known and wouldn’t it be openly discussed as such? Saying that you think the boss “tolerates a certain amount of copyright infringement” suggests, without any direct evidence, that the company recognizes it needs to deal with the infringement effort, but that there are tradeoffs there. IF the company was really a “piracy conspiracy” as the DOJ and the MPAA like to claim, then you’d think the comments would be much more along the lines of direct quotes about figuring out ways to enable much more infringement. Instead, you get discussions of ways to possibly stop more infringement:
“Maybe we should automatically delete videos on Megavideo that are longer than 30 minutes and have more than XXX views or something because I still see so much piracy that is being embedded.”;
That doesn’t sound like something coming from a company that is interested in building a business around infringement. It sounds like a cloud storage provider struggling with the best way to provide the best service possible, while thinking through ways to limit infringement.
As far as I can tell from these snippets, the DOJ seems to be arguing “well, they knew the service was used for infringement, thus they’re guilty for not stopping it.” But that’s not (at all) how the law works. As was found in the Viacom/YouTube case, company officials need to be aware of specific cases of infringement (such as via a clear and complying takedown notice) rather than general knowledge that the platform is used (even widely) for infringement.
Once again, while you never know how a judge might read these statements out of context when presented in the worst possible light by a DOJ that’s in-bed with the MPAA, the striking thing to me is that the evidence is so weak. Given just how much the MPAA made Kim Dotcom out to be pure evil, I honestly expected real evidence of an operation built around infringement. The DOJ’s case is stunningly weak here. If I were working at the DOJ, honestly, I’d be hoping that the extradition attempt fails, because actually pursuing this case in court runs a very serious risk of a huge embarrassment for the government, bringing a highly questionable case on the weakest of evidence, presented entirely out of context.
Filed Under: doj, evidence, kim dotcom
Companies: megaupload
Comments on “DOJ Releases Some Megaupload Evidence; Actually Shows Difficulty Of Running Cloud Service”
Pirate Mike runs to the defense of Pirate Kim. And in other news, water is wet.
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average_joe just hates it when due process is enforced.
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It should be pretty obvious to one and all, that in this case due process was purposefully abused with the specific intent of making the prosecution the punishment and attempting to for a guilty plea with threats of extreme punishment.
How many years has this gone on for, this case hangs around the neck of the invisible man, Vice President Bidden and the corruption of the separation of powers by Hollywood campaign dollars and it’s control of the department of justice.
Meanwhile New Zealand continues it’s pathetic role as the sheep with it’s hind legs lodged in US gumboots, desperate to end it’s punishment for not allowing US nuclear armed vessels in it’s ports.
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Have you stopped cheating on your exams AJ?
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AC chooses to sling insults at Mike rather than address the topic of the article. In other news, the sky is out_of_the_blue.
Wait, wha-?
Skype chat transcripts
Skype chats are encrypted…. In wonder how the feds got the transcripts in clear. With help of NSA? Parallel case building?
Re: Skype chat transcripts
Just one more illegal act committed by the American Government.
Most corrupt government on Earth.
Re: Re: Skype chat transcripts
Corrupt, yes. The most? No. You’re exaggerating, or really dumb.
Re: Re: Re: Skype chat transcripts
Name a more corrupt government.
What other country has legalised bribery?
Re: Skype chat transcripts
It is a very common misuse of encryption, which I have seen many times in many different services: the service is encrypted, true, but the server has the keys. In Skype’s case, the authentication server has the keys, which can be used to decrypt the traffic.
This is good enough to protect against middlemen, but anyone who attacks the server has access to all the keys. In this case, I would guess they used a legal attack: get a subpoena and force the server operator to compromise the system for you. Very few systems are designed to protect against that kind of attack.
Re: Re: Skype chat transcripts
And those that are tend to result in indictments when they inevitably have to say ‘no’ to a court order.
…bringing a highly questionable case on the weakest of evidence, presented entirely out of context.
If however, you say, allow(if not encourage by your actions) the deletion and destruction of any evidence that doesn’t support your position, then proving ‘out of context’ could be rather difficult for the defendant.
You know, I tend to think the reason why the DOJ released this data is that they realize just how weak their case is and they have already done the damage of destroying the company. Not only will they be on the hook for making the company whole again (which can’t be done now but will be expensive) but they have to give the money back while having tons of egg on their face. This is incidentally the last thing that the copywrong forces want to be painted as.
Yet time and again we’ve seen the corruption at work between the government and various private companies as with ICE and the Rojo and Dajaz sites as one example of that wrong doing.
Those copywrong companies are chomping at the bits to get after Kim before the time limitations run out. I wonder how they are going to deal with the illegal gaining of that information from New Zealand, especially after the judge there ruled it was to come back and the US ignored that order. Basically all that info is now illegally gained and will make a court case dicey because of it. No wonder they are trying to paint it badly in public opinion before the case even starts. They are again attempting to try this in the court of public opinion before the case starts. That’s just plain wrong, not to mention the whole event stinks to high heaven.
You do that when you don’t actually have any supporting evidence for your stance. Typically a trademark of ootb and his posting. Too much effort to actually string together that and supporting data. He can’t be bothered with coherency, it gets in the way of his rants. Have another report vote for that post even though it was already buried.
How The Law Works
“But that’s not (at all) how the law works.”
These days it seems the law works however the DOJ wants it to work (or doesn’t want it to, as the case may be). The rule of law has been replaced with the rule of Eric Holder.
Nonsense
[Well, they knew the service was used for infringement, thus they’re guilty for not stopping it]
If that makes sense, all companies that have industrial grade photocopiers should be charged. Afterall, these things store like previous 200 printing jobs in their internal harddisk. It’s not like they’ll have any difficulty in search for infringement usage. (Which companies that employs interns can say they have confidence that noone in their company haven’t used these to copy copyrighted materials?)
Re: Nonsense
Give them time, they will get to those companies too.
Re: Nonsense
Not only industrial and corporations with photocopiers but how about the justice system needing copies of almost anything under the sun as evidence for court cases?
Pirate Mike defends Pirate Kim. In other news, water is wet.
I can’t improve on the concise wit of #1, so since it’s been censored by the kids (or Mike alone: we don’t know), I’ll just repeat it, with my seconding.
But here’s another view by more objective site:
US Department of Justice details Kim Dotcom evidence
MegaUpload labelled ‘Mega Conspiracy’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/23/us_department_of_justice_details_kim_dotcom_evidence/
“The document rambles on with details of numerous email and Skype conversations that the DoJ feels damn the conspirators because they show a clear intent to make money out of material belonging to others.”
Let’s go back to Mike’s “core concept”:
Ya say ya can’t compete with free, Binky? — It’s easy! Just forget about “sunk (or fixed) costs”!!! http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070215/002923/saying-you-cant-compete-with-free-is-saying-you-cant-compete-period.shtml
Read that piece and then answer simple question: is it generally valid to just forget “sunk (or fixed) costs”? Of course it’s not: Mike carefully contrives specific conditions so that he can claim to essentially get content for free.
Now, in the real world, who got valuable studio-produced content for free? — Just off top of head: Pirate Bay, Isohunt, Rojadirect, Napster, Hotfile, Kim Dotcom and Megaupload. — And what do those have in common? All but the last have already been found guilty in court of some kind of grifting off infringed content! Is that coincidence? All were framed by evil copyright maximalists? — NO, kids, Mike’s notions on getting free product are criminal. Sure, not everyone who puts those into practice has been prosecuted yet, but that’s the only reason not found guilty. Case law is now clear: use infringed content to even indirectly get money off advertising and at the least you’ll end up paying heavy fines.
So with common law (“I made it, therefore I own it”), and statute with actual cases as above totally against Mike, just WHY does he persist in his notions? Is he getting money to put them out? (Beyond what claims for advertising revenue here.) — Is Mike an ideologue who denied law and facts so long that he went crazy? — Those aren’t mutually exclusive, so some combination is my bet.
Where Mike’s “new business model” (file hosts like Megaupload) is to grift on income streams that should go to content creators — and then call the creators greedy!
Mega-grifter Kim Dotcom got millions by hosting infringed content. That’s not even capitalism, that’s THEFT.
Mike’s notions are all get-rich-quick schemes by using products someone else made. His continued defense of Megaupload shows his ideal “business model”: neither pay to produce nor royalties on any of the files hosted so costs are just above bandwidth, and able to avoid legal liability so long as pretend ignorance of infringed content.
13:27:33[o-730-6]
Re: Pirate Mike defends Pirate Kim. In other news, water is wet.
“The document rambles on with details of numerous email and Skype conversations that the DoJ feels damn the conspirators because they show a clear intent to make money out of material belonging to others.”
Wow! That’s some damn solid “evidence” there: a journalist (Simon Sharwood to be precise) speculating on how he supposes the DoJ feels about the document THEY PRODUCED.
Really pinned everyone into a corner there.
I should commend you, though, for at least trying to provide evidence for a change. Keep trying; you’ll get the hang of it someday.
hahahaha
Re: Pirate Mike defends Pirate Kim. In other news, water is wet.
“censored”
You are an idiot.
Re: Pirate Mike defends Pirate Kim. In other news, water is wet.
Uhmm… Actually the common law is once you put it out in the public you lose all rights. Copyright abrogates that principle to promote commerce. There is no such thing as common law copyright.
“I made it, therefore I own it.”
Only if the raw materials you used to make it were your property to begin with. An author cannot say that about the words in the dictionary as they do not belong to him. You have to own the raw materials first.
John Locke put it like this with regards to an apple:
Can count as property –
The stem.
The skin.
The seeds.
The food.
Can not count as property –
The colour.
The shininess.
The weight.
The shape.
What separates them is whether or not they are tangible concepts of an apple. And the reason for making this distinction is because it is obviously futile to call an intangible attribute property let alone dream of being able to enforce it. Guess which category copyright falls into.
Copyright also got to this intangible stage by going against Locke’s principles even further, by pretending that it involves products when it actually involves services. This distortion makes it far harder for the artist to claim what is rightfully his.
Thankfully, because I advocate an economy that DOES go by the principles correctly by treating creativity as a service, an economy in the form of crowdfunding/assurance contracts that is, it works “without that assumption” of copyright and I do not need to believe in it.
MegaUpload would not have been in such an easy position to steal if it wasn’t for copyright. Let me repeat that: the root cause of Kim Dotcom’s theft is copyright. This is because nobody has to answer to anyone when copyright distorts creativity into a product.
If creativity were a service on the other hand, MegaUpload would have had to pay their dues to the artist in order for the creativity, and hence MegaUpload’s advantages, to exist whatsoever.
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Put it this way: someone who works at Subway may “make” sandwiches, but that does not necessarily mean he “owns” the sandwiches. This is because he is being paid for his services, not products. This is why it is important to get the product and service distinctions correct.
You are making a mistake parallel with what the strict Socialists were claiming in terms of “owning the means of production.”
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Goddamnit, I swear I’ve seen you post that before somewhere.
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I no doubt have. But I’m hoping I can get a good rebuttal.
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According to the MPAA, if I buy a sandwich at Subway, I don’t own it. All I’ve purchased is a license to eat it…but that doesn’t mean I own it.
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I’d be happy to give them the sandwich back when I’m done with it.
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I don’t think I follow. If you buy a DVD, you do not own it and must give it back?
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The MPAA’s belief is that if you buy a DVD, all you have bought is the physical media (the disc itself) and a license to watch what’s on it. According to the MPAA, you do not actually “own” it as everyone outside the MPAA understands the meaning of the word, and making a backup copy is a major crime which should subject you to thousands of dollars in fines and jail time to boot. That is how the MPAA thinks.
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John Locke was the smartest guy on the island.
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Not according to the Man in Black.
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What does Johnny Cash have to do with it?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
You’d have to ask Jacob.
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I am having trouble with this concept and find it interesting, Can you explain how a motion picture is a service?
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Intangible part slip through your fingers?
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Guess the recording is the tangible object. Because you can view it via different mediums makes it no less tangible.
[Well, they knew the service was used for infringement, thus they’re guilty for not stopping it]
The list of services/products that fall under that claim would put use back into the stoneage; before the inventions of the wheel and fire.
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if only the wheel had been patented, what a wonderful world we would live in now, everyone would have to just walk, and folks like AJ and ootb would not be so out of (touch) shape.
can you just imagine if knives, spears and arrows were patented, we all would be grass eaters. Peace on earth, see patents and copyright are awesome…..
/s (put it way down here so that AJ and ootb would miss it)
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Fire first. Now make your wheel!
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Including the US government itself. Thanks to the NSA, the feds would have a very hard time proving they don’t know about almost any criminal act committed within the United States telecommunications infrastructure. They certainly know that illegal acts take place.
If you are criminally liable for knowing a crime has been committed and not taking action against it, then quite a few public officials (Eric Holder, perhaps) are just as guilty of a crime as Kim Dotcom…assuming the DOJ case has any validity to it.
READ through just #12 of .pdf to see how the "Abuse" tool was phony.
http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae/victimwitness/mega_files/Mega%20Evidence.pdf
Megaupload generated many URLs to same file. When copyright holders used its “Abuse” tool, only the specified URL was removed: the file remained intact to still be served out from other URLs. — Shows knowledge of infringement and deliberate attempt to evade DMCA.
So, not anywhere near as Mendacious Mike says, lack of evidence: in fact, quite the opposite. If presented to a jury, my bet is Dotcom and others are almost certain to be convicted — and this isn’t just civil, but criminal.
Re: READ through just #12 of .pdf to see how the "Abuse" tool was phony.
Sort of.
If Fred is sharing his own file and Bob rips it off, then you can’t delete Fred’s file just because you delete Bobs.
Not relevant if its Universal making a DMCA take down notice, but relevant for an automated takedown system.
Likewise the private copies problem. If I own the DVD I can rip it to a private folder so I can stream it anywhere and that’s fair use. But if someone else rips it and uploads it to a public folder, and both get taken down, then that’s not correct.
IMHO, dotcom case was damning, but now, all that evidence is tainted by illegal surveillance in New Zealand. It’s effectively a lost case.
Re: READ through just #12 of .pdf to see how the "Abuse" tool was phony.
Are you an idiot?
Infringement only can be done by an individual not the actual intellectual property, those links were created by many different users to one cached file, did they all infringed? had any of those people had permission? are all of them infringers or there is a possibility that some are not?
How will you sift through all that BS?
Re: READ through just #12 of .pdf to see how the "Abuse" tool was phony.
Yeah, the ‘you’ll know it when you see it’ argument, you know that’s complete and utter bunk right?
A given file can be legal, illegal, maybe legal, or in some other state, all depending on circumstances, circumstances a file-locker service can not know.
For example, say you’ve got an mp3.
The legality of this file could be any number of things, depending on circumstances. It could be illegally downloaded, it could be legally downloaded, it could be a legal backup copy, it could be an illegal backup copy, it could be being used in a fair use manner, it could be created and owned by the person who uploaded it, it could be owned by someone else who has given permission to the person who uploaded it… but as far as the computer system can tell, all of these are the same.
The file looks identical in every single one of those circumstances, so assuming all of them are infringing just because one or more might be is very much overkill, and anything but fair to the non-infringing people(though given you don’t care about collateral damage, I suppose you wouldn’t exactly see that as a downside).
Re: READ through just #12 of .pdf to see how the "Abuse" tool was phony.
Megaupload generated many URLs to same file. When copyright holders used its “Abuse” tool, only the specified URL was removed: the file remained intact to still be served out from other URLs. — Shows knowledge of infringement and deliberate attempt to evade DMCA.
No. That just show you are a moron.
That type of system makes compete sense. For example, suppose Joe American uploads a movie and Jose Spainard uploads the same move. Mega saved one copy and had separate urls pointing to that file to save disk space. Joe American’s upload was illegal, but Jose Spainard’s was completely legal because personal filesharing was legal in Spain at the time. Why should Mega delete Jose Spainard’s url when it received a DMCA notice for Joe American’s upload?
Re: READ through just #12 of .pdf to see how the "Abuse" tool was phony.
How Symbiotic Piracy Works, and why it's immoral
Where Mike sez: uploader + file host + links site + downloader = perfectly “legal” symbiotic piracy.
) Content doesn’t just appear out of nowhere, someone has to labor to create it. Real $100M movies, unlike the one Mike casually made up for his false example, require thousands of hours of actual physical labor, not least in coordinating the labors of perhaps hundreds. That’s up-front money which must be recovered before profit begins, with carrying costs piling up all the time.
) Then Uploader gets hands on the distribution media, alone decides that the work-product of hundreds of people should be “shared”; he ignores printed and in-content visual statements that it’s a copyrighted work, intentionally strips off measures meant to prevent copying, and uploads it to:
) File Host, which must pretend utter ignorance of content even while using it to attract eyeballs to third-party advertisements on-site. This of course is the key illegality because the least knowledge that data is actually infringed content while distributing it even with indirect income from advertising is commercial infringement, which even Mike and his fanboys acknowledge is criminal.
) So Links Sites (which also get money from advertising with the draw of infringed content for free) are the cut-out between knowledge of data on the drives and knowledge that it’s infringing. Note that Megaupload did not index its own files. That’s to avoid the key connection. — And of course it’s a lie. Had anyone at Megaupload glanced into almost any file hosted, they’d have knowledge of infringed content. — At this point Mike and fanboys yell: “But no one can possibly know!” — No, kids, so strong a presumption can be made that files of an entire recent movie IS infringing content that any file host would be legally obligated to remove it. So complete ignorance is claimed.
) Downloader now feels beyond the reach of legalities, doesn’t worry about the morality, downloads data fully expecting it to be content of that recent $100M movie, and is very rarely disappointed in that expectation.
So long as steps in the chain are separate, all the criminals involved can claim they’re just inside of “legal”. But of course all take care to hide identity (often with proxies) and make various excuses to ease conscience, because they’ve guilty knowledge of removing some income from the actual creators of content. The excuses are immoral. The grifters who didn’t put a cent into creating, but only divert the rightful revenue stream to themselves in this symbiotic piracy, are not only immoral but criminal too.
Re: How Symbiotic Piracy Works, and why it's immoral
TLDR 🙂
Re: How Symbiotic Piracy Works, and why it's immoral
So OOTB, you mean it’s OK for the bank to look in your Safety deposit box, and call the police??
Re: How Symbiotic Piracy Works, and why it's immoral
On what are you basing your “morality”, OOTB?
Re: How Symbiotic Piracy Works, and why it's immoral
a) So how piracy stop anyone from making money? in fact it can be said that it actually improves the changes of making more money.
b) Human beings share experiences is what we do, it is what we always did, there is no law that will change that and honestly if your business depends on it, you should really start searching for a new job, but if your whole business can survive that well, why bug others?
c) File hosting services claim ignorance because they are ignorant, they don’t know who owns what and what deals owners did, they are in no position to police anything that is of others, they don’t have the legal tools, they don’t have the access to any data and they make money from a diverse set of sources one of which is advertisement, what you are sad that others may upload something that was “sold” to them and you are not getting a cut of it? Screw you pal.
d) Linking websites suffer from the same ignorance that afflict file hosting websites, while people could suspect that those things are illegal, one can never know for real if there are no way to check, there are no central control system in place to see if something is legal or not, so yes they are exploiting a grey area right there on the border of legality but still legal no less, target at stupid people who actually go there looking for active links and find lots and lots of dead links to illegal material actually removed, further they save lots of money to copyright holders just crawl the damn site and target all those links, they do basically what the Yellow Pages do, they point people somewhere, do business try to get a cut from the Yellow pages?
Would you be complaining if others where linking to Hulu bastard blue?
That last part is why copyright is so immoral, it turns everyone slaves to the copyright owner.
Re: How Symbiotic Piracy Works, and why it's immoral
this was in the comment section of the link OOTB put up it rings true
……”Digital copies of creative works have no scarcity. They are intangible and cannot be consumed. My enjoyment of it does not deprive you of the ability to enjoy a copy of it simultaneously, nor to share it with others, also simultaneously. By any rational, moral or ethical argument it is not property”.
and, it goes on to say…
“Let’s posit a scenario:
As a help desk operator I take your call one day. I walk you through changing the ream of paper in your printer. I call this knowledge I have imparted to you “intellectual property” and demand that you pay me $5 every time you change a ream of paper. If you teach someone else to change a ream of paper without my consent then you are committing theft of my intellectual property. If someone else discovered how to change the ream of paper independently, it doesn’t matter, because I taught someone in your company how to make that change first, and thus I get to exact rent for 120 years.
Sounds ridiculous? So does 120 years worth of tithe for Steamboat Willie.”
and yes I Copied and Shared it, thanks OOTB, I would have never found this if you had not infringed on The Register
PRON!
I can’t believe they said ‘XXX hits’. In my paraphrasing, I changed it to “‘x’ hits”, since they were talking about a number.
out_of_the_blue just hates it when due process is enforced.
judges don’t decide juries do.
so the observation “Once again, while you never know how a judge might read these statements” is a big tell on what we all know. There are no courts of justice.
After reading coverage on another site (Ars Technica) I was wondering what stance Techdirt would choose to take. The take on this story is at best naive, and at worst it is hypocrisy.
The author is claiming that the charges against Kim are taken out of context, and then takes his one direct quote COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTEXT. In reality, the follow-up to a suggestion about deleting pirated content is:
“yeah, but 99.999 percent will be deleted then,” said Van Der Kolk.”
Yes, they knew about it, 100%, and profited from it.
What Kim did was bad. What the government did to him to take him down was worse, and he should go free because it would be horrible precedent for our Constitution (or NZ’s). But, if you want a credible review on this topic, read Joe Mullin’s article on Ars Technica, because the Techdirt alternate reality is in full swing here.
Re: Re:
Yes, they knew about it, 100%, and profited from it.
The telephone company knows absolutely that there is communication of criminal (not just unlawful) behaviour on its networks.. Using your logic they too should remove the phone lines & cell towers because they 100% know it’s happening!
See what happens when you don’t understand what the law calls “REASONABLENESS”… It comes from the word REASON something that it seems your lacking
Re: Re: Re:
Whilst this is true, I think that Ars has the right reading of it.
However, what should be of considerable importance is that Skype was believed to be a fully-encrypted service at the time. So, how did the RIAA obtain this evidence to pass over to the Feds?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
So, how did the RIAA obtain this evidence to pass over to the Feds?
Echelon, Five Eyes (FVEY), the UKUSA Agreement… take your pick.
OH and Don’t forget Skype has NEVER really been secure from the beginning. Though this was originally a Criminal investigation and any Skype interception would of been necessary and not unknown (or hard), the passing on of evidence to third parties (espec. if they are alleged victims) is not only frowned upon but can be classified as spoilation of any jury pool and is in some instances (this gets to that bright line) actually an offense under most regimes (NZ/AU). The prosecution has to appear unbiased and not hold any one victim above the actual offices of the court. In this situation your (the US’s) DoJ has gone beyond the pale and shown they are actually prosecuting for nefarious and vindictive purposes on the behest of a third biased party and not due to actual protection of law.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
They appear to be applying the cardinal Richelieu principle, given a few writings by someone, a reason to execute them can be found. This makes it easy to decide someone is guilty, and rake through their life looking for things to twist into proof of guilt.
Re: Re:
I doesn’t matter how good or bad Kim Dotcom was. What matters is that the due process of the law is upheld. If due process is thrown out the window to catch a criminal, it’s thrown out the window for everyone.
Smh to all of you
You honestly just have to look at the safe harbor in dmca which protected youtube from the viacom lawsuit. The site/entity has to be willfully infringing on the content. They are not guilty because of way of their services infringement occurs. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viacom_International_Inc._v._YouTube,_Inc.
Secondary copyright infringement is not a crime now matter how many times they guttered ill prepared smaller companies by citing bullshit and making the gov do their bidding (mpaa)
american idiots
all americans are idiots and american government is stupid twit. i hate all americans and hope they all die now. go to hell all stupid americans you will all die soon twits.
go to hell all stupid americans especially stupid government americans like idiot obama stupid moron american. die obama die you stuid american idiot.
Re: american idiots
Thou shalt not type comments whilst drunk or stoned out of thy gourd!
Re: american idiots
Perhaps I am an idiot, but who are you to decide? Learn proper grammar and punctuation before you go deciding others are of lesser intelligence than yourself.
Mike’s pirate apologism 101: Whatever you do, don’t discuss the evidence that is actually damning. For example, the part about how Kimmy and the Gang committed direct criminal copyright infringement with the movie “Taken.” Whatever you do, never discuss that. Just spread the FUD and then run away when the detractors start pouring in. Never, ever, admit that Kimmy did anything wrong. And, yeah, keep pretending like you’re not *really* anti-copyright. It helps to run away from discussing your beliefs about copyright whenever challenged. That’ll convince them! Plausible deniability, baby!
Mike’s pirate apologism 101: Whatever you do, don’t discuss the evidence that is actually damning. For example, the part about how Kimmy and the Gang committed direct criminal copyright infringement with the movie “Taken.” Whatever you do, never discuss that. Just spread the FUD and then run away when the detractors start pouring in. Never, ever, admit that Kimmy did anything wrong. And, yeah, keep pretending like you’re not *really* anti-copyright. It helps to run away from discussing your beliefs about copyright whenever challenged. That’ll convince them! Plausible deniability, baby!
Re: Re:
Uhh, we’re not arguing over the evidence, for the most part – we’re arguing over whether the evidence is tainted. Again – whilst I believe that Mike has the wrong reading of this, I cannot in any faith countenance thew actions of the US and NZ governments in this matter.
Doy ou know why? Because the vidence was not obtained legally according to a court of law.
Re: Re:
“Whatever you do, don’t discuss the evidence that is actually damning.”
And the DOJ are only showing and pointing out from those emails and skype conversations where Dotcom knew of the copyright infringement and piracy etc. Anything in those emails and skype conversations where it states that Dotcom insisted on doing something to combat the piracy and infringement now that it was aware that piracy and infringment existed has been totally ignored and not at all mentioned in the indictment against Dotcom.
Without reading the WHOLE emails and listening to the WHOLE skype conversations (and not just what the the DOJ has copied and pasted from) then no one can ever prove that what the DOJ states is the truth regarding these emails or skype conversations and until then what the DOJ has therefore been taken out context.
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There’s never been anything plausible about any of Masnick’s denials.
That’s why he’s a laughingstock and not taken seriously.
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And you’re taken seriously how? Like a damp piece of tissue paper?
The DOJ’s case is stunningly weak here. If I were working at the DOJ, honestly, I’d be hoping that the extradition attempt fails, because actually pursuing this case in court runs a very serious risk of a huge embarrassment for the government, bringing a highly questionable case on the weakest of evidence, presented entirely out of context.
It is precisely because of this that the the case needs to go forward to trial if for no other reason but that of the huge smackdown the government would get.
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Maybe this is out of context
one user, who was paid $5,500 in rewards from 2009 to 2011, uploaded popular TV programs like 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights, and True Blood and had been subject to more than 300,000 takedown requests.
Interesting to see the contrast in the reporting.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/us-unveils-the-case-against-kim-dotcom-revealing-e-mails-and-financial-data/
Guilty unless proven innocent
Is it normal practice in the USA to publicise so-called “evidence” for the prosecution and let it be dragged through the media or let it escape into the wild before any due process (such as a “proper” court case – perish the thought)? I reckon I might be biassed after reading all this and surely a court and/or jurors would also? Mind you, good ol’ tricky troll OOTB would have Dotcom put before a firing squad without so much as a sniff of due process.
I knew Kim Dotcom was innocent of all the trumped up charges.