Megaupload Moves To Dismiss Charges Even as the Case Unravels in New Zealand

I'm not sure that I'd hold my breath for the success of Megaupload's motion to dismiss copyright-infringement charges in the United States. Just because the company has no presence in the U.S. and hasn't been formally served with papers is no reason to think that American judges are likely to concede there are limits to the authority of prosecutors doing the bidding of the music and movie industries. More likely to trip up the case against the file-sharing company are serious legal missteps by police and prosecutors in New Zealand, and the growing popularity there of eccentric company-chief, Kim Dotcom.

The case against Megaupload has been a little strange from the beginning. As the New Zealand Herald points out, "the company had agreements allowing major copyright owners direct access to its system to take down any suspect files. Companies which had free access to remove files included the Recording Industry Association of America, Disney, Warner Brothers and Microsoft." Which is to say, the company wasn't exactly hiding in the shadows. But Megaupload was, in technical terms, humongous, as file-sharing services go. That made it a better choice than Western Union for sending a message. And so police in New Zealand, Holland and Hong Kong staged armed raids on a company that made its money storing information — raids the over-the-topness of which might best be depicted by security footage that New Zealand police have … err … misplaced. Says Ars Technica:

Since January, the Dotcom legal team has asked for the footage, but police refused, until finally the agency agreed that an IT expert for DotCom could come and collect a copy of the footage. When the IT expert arrived at the police station, he found the server completely disassembled, and authorities said they could not reassemble it or give him any footage. Now, no one outside the police agency is sure the footage still exists.

That has the local media asking questions, such as a report on 3News that had police ducking, weaving and looking decidedly sleazy.

Journalists aren't the only New Zealanders asking tough questions. The country's high court was curious as to why prosecutors seized Kim Dotcom's assets even though they knew their move was illegal. According to the New Zealand Herald:

Crown lawyers acting for the United States knew before seizing Kim Dotcom's fortune and property that they were using an unlawful court order.

The High Court file has revealed Crown prosecutor Anne Toohey realised there was a paperwork problem on the morning of the January raid.

The Solicitor-General at the time, David Collins, was alerted to the error but told the mistake didn't alter the lawful nature of the order allowing the seizure of Dotcom's wealth.

The advice was wrong - Justice Judith Potter later ruled the restraining order "null and void" and having "no legal effect".

The result left Dotcom without the chance to have his day in court or the money to fund a fight against claims he was behind as international criminal conspiracy in copyright infringement.

The prosecution won more non-fans among the judiciary with revelations that the FBI had been allowed to leave the country with evidence that belonged to local authorities. New Zealand Herald again:

The Government's lawyers have been ordered to explain how the FBI left the country with evidence in the Kim Dotcom case meant to be kept in "secure custody" by New Zealand police.

High Court chief judge Helen Winkelmann has told the Attorney-General's lawyer, Mike Ruffin, he has until Monday to explain why FBI agents were allowed to take 135 cloned computer and data storage devices to the United States.

The government was subsequently ordered to turn over all evidence to Dotcom's defense team.

With Kiwi cops and prosecutors looking and acting like the FBI's bitches, it's little surprise that "man mountain German" Kim Dotcom has become something of a star in his adopted country. Reports Stuff.co.nz:

It seems improbable that there could be so much support for a man who has a list of crimes attached to his name – hacking, computer fraud, handling stolen goods, embezzlement – and now faces copyright infringement charges for which he could face up to 50 years in prison.

Public relations specialist Felicity Anderson said Dotcom has carefully turned the New Zealand public around.

"I think people thought he was just a big rich wanker. Now they are looking at him, and thinking actually 'I quite like him telling the establishment to get stuffed'," Anderson said. She believes Dotcom quickly and shrewdly worked out Kiwis are likely to react to feelings of injustice.

Dotcom has an extradition hearing coming up in August to determine whether he'll be bundled off from New Zealand to the tender mercies of U.S. authorities. Whatever the outcome of the case in American courts, U.S. officials might not want to get too confident that the man-mountain German so closely associated with Megaupload will be dropping by for a visit.

Comments

[R C Dean]

Justice Judith Potter later ruled the restraining order "null and void" and having "no legal effect".

I presume this means he gets all his stuff back, yes?

[Tulpa the White]

Except for the stuff the FBI took.

[robc]

If Im the judge I hold the NZ government in contempt until its returned.

[robc]

specifically the AG. Jail him until he turns over the stuff. Allow him a phone in jail so he can call the FBI.

[Tulpa the White]

I don't know how a country could function with its chief law enforcement officer under a contempt citation.

Oh wait, I guess I do.

[tarran]

It appears that the FBI merely imaged the drives.

The fact that they dismantled his servers, OTH...

[joshua corning]

I thought it was the Kiwis who dismantled it.

[tarran]

What are you, the Pronoun Police? 😉

[Paul.]

The case against Megaupload has been a little strange from the beginning. As the New Zealand Herald points out, "the company had agreements allowing major copyright owners direct access to its system to take down any suspect files. Companies which had free access to remove files included the Recording Industry Association of America, Disney, Warner Brothers and Microsoft." Which is to say, the company wasn't exactly hiding in the shadows.

Man, it's like no one at Reason works in IT.

MegaUpload: We want to be on the up-and-up. Here, RIAA, here's access to our servers so you can monitor anything gross or icky and illegal, and take it down.

RIAA: Uhh, yeah thanks.

RIAA At monthly board meeting: How the fuck are we going to monitor this shit? We're going to have to hire a mountain of IT people, and that shit's a bottomless pit of bullshit file management. We're chasing fucking rainbows. Wouldn't it just be easier to, you know, shut the service down?

RIAA Lawyers: Yeah.

[Mo' $parky]

Man, it's like no one at Reason works in IT.

Are you trying to say that a bunch of English and Journalism majors might be shaky on some aspects of IT? Notta chance.

[Paul.]

Of course I'm being Snarky. OF course they don't work in IT... they work at Reason.

I'm just driving home my lack of surprise that the RIAA et al., despite being given carte-blanche to delete copyrighted content wouldn't be interested in such a scheme.

They're not interested in playing whack-a-mole. They want the field completely bulldozed.

[Mo' $parky]

Oh I agree with you completely. I've seen stuff like that firsthand.

[Lost_In_Translation]

They'd sue the internet if they could just find his address.

[GILMORE]

RIAA: "Also, while we're at it, we need to stop these kids from 'downloading' our songs and movies! Its killing CD DVD sales! Call Obama and tell him to turn the internet off."

[R C Dean]

Well, Paul, its not like your account of RIAA actually gives an IT reason for declining to use their access.

Seriously, what more could he have done for them? He gave them pretty much the same deal YouTube gives them, after all. Why isn't YouTube being shut down?

[Paul.]

See my post above. The RIAA isn't going to play whack-a-mole. That's the IT reason.

[Dan Bongard]

But that's not an IT reason. That's a cost-benefit analysis reason: it is easier to bribe the US government into targeting everyone than it is to go after only those people who are engaged in wrongdoing.

[Episiarch]

Because YouTube is owned by Google, which has more money and lawyers than God, let alone the RIAA.

[GILMORE]

GOD: "Of *course* they have more lawyers! No lawyers ever make it to Heaven!? I have to hire them by the hour from Lucifer, but damn if they're not good!"

[Paul.]

YouTube gives them, after all. Why isn't YouTube being shut down?

Youtube polices itself. After being threatened by the RIAA.

MegaUpload asked the RIAA to police MegaUpload. That's untenable.

I haven't read any linked articles to this, so the deal Megaupload had with the RIAA may have been more complex than "here, here's a special RIAA Admin account, log in with that and delete anything you want".

[R C Dean]

Paul, my understanding is that the RIAA polices YouTube by giving YouTube notice when an offending clip is posted, and then YouTube takes it down. The RIAA (or somebody) still has to initiate the request. YouTube isn't policing content, it is implementing requests by those who are.

If anything, DotCom gave the RIAA a better deal, by letting them take down clips directly rather than just asking MegaUpload to do so.

Now, maybe YouTube is taking down clips that it guesses may be in violation, without anyone asking it to. Unless RIAA is just sitting on its hands and being entirely passive about what's on YouTube, it is playing whackamole.

And "Gosh, it will sure cost us a lot to monitor and enforce our rights" isn't an IT reason. An IT reason would be "due to technical limitations, we can't monitor and enforce our rights."

[Paul.]

Paul, my understanding is that the RIAA polices YouTube by giving YouTube notice when an offending clip is posted, and then YouTube takes it down. The RIAA (or somebody) still has to initiate the request. YouTube isn't policing content, it is implementing requests by those who are.

I understand this to be accurate, and that in my opinion is what makes this different.

I admit I'm taking the text in the blogpost literally. My interpretation is Megaupload said, "here, log in and delete what you want". I believe the RIAA wants a more hands-off approach. They want to initiate requests and have them complied with, not be the police.

YouTube has spent god knows how many dollars policing their system. That kind of content intervention isn't free, and it ain't cheap.

Youtube has song-recognition technology which will automatically cut out the audio on a video which has copyright-infringed music content.

This seems to be a case where MegaUpload said, "Yeah, we're not going to do that, but here, RIAA, you can handle it."

The other thing that makes YouTube slightly different from MegaUpload, is that youtube is a destination sight for eyes. It's not a generic data-sharing site. It takes media content (video) and presents it to viewing eyes.

That's much different than a site which allows users to place raw data of any kind, and then have other users make copies of it.

While it's technically possible to do that with YouTube, that's not its central purpose.

[BakedPenguin]

I imagine Megaupload has many, many more files than YouTube.

[Paul.]

I imagine Megaupload has many, many more files than YouTube.

And of different type. Youtube has to worry about video.

Megaupload deals in data. And that data can be encrypted. The data isn't there to be presented to the public, it's there to be presented to an audience the originating uploader chooses.

To the RIAA, this is vastly more scary than YouTube.

[Paul.]

Now, maybe YouTube is taking down clips that it guesses may be in violation, without anyone asking it to.

I have this shitty habit of replying to half your messages.

I believe this is also the case.

And yes, Youtube is playing whack-a-mole, that's my point. The very concept of this is to play whack-a-mole. The RIAA wants the technolgy companies to play whack-a-mole, because they're the only ones suited for it.

The RIAA is an organization of industry lawyers, not engineers.

And "Gosh, it will sure cost us a lot to monitor and enforce our rights" isn't an IT reason. An IT reason would be "due to technical limitations, we can't monitor and enforce our rights."

Due to technical limititations, we can't monitor and enforce our rights.

The RIAA doesn't have the technology or the expertise to perform this. That's an IT reason.

It's no different when I tell a user that she's going to have to manage her own damn distribution lists.

I'm the IT guy, I don't have the time to manage your fucking lists, because then that would become my full-time job, because you're one of 2000 employees who are maintaining distribution lists.

That's an IT reason.

[R C Dean]

Thanks, Paul. I appreciate the thoughtful response.

It seems to me that Mega was giving RIAA exactly the same access Mega had, and telling them that they couldn't give them any more than that. Since Mega was acting as a pure conduit with no responsibility for content, it neither could nor was willing to try to police any of its content.

This is an attack on the idea that any internet organization can be a pure conduit, on the way to requiring everybody (including, ultimately, ISPs) to police all the content they handle, according to a shifting, contradictory, and ambiguous set of standards.

[Paul.]

RC:

Thanks, Paul. I appreciate the thoughtful response

You're a lawyer, I don't respond to you before thinking. 😉

This is an attack on the idea that any internet organization can be a pure conduit, on the way to requiring everybody (including, ultimately, ISPs) to police all the content they handle, according to a shifting, contradictory, and ambiguous set of standards.

As far as I'm concerned, this is the logical conclusion of the RIAA's efforts.

With the way these cases are moving, it seems to me that the RIAA will essentially become the Judicial branch fo the internet.

They will sit upon a throne, point to whatever service/data/content they want and say, "Yes, No, No, Yes, No...No... we'll get back to you on that, until then, shut down"

[R C Dean]

It's no different when I tell a user that she's going to have to manage her own damn distribution lists.

What your saying is that managing lists (or policing content) isn't an IT function. Fair enough.

I don't think that's the same thing, though, as saying that there is an IT reason why someone outside of IT can't manage lists/police content. In fact, I think its a way of saying that there's no technical reason why they can't do it themsleves.

[Paul.]

I don't think that's the same thing, though, as saying that there is an IT reason why someone outside of IT can't manage lists/police content. In fact, I think its a way of saying that there's no technical reason why they can't do it themsleves.

As someone who's spent his little dark corner of the American Experiment in IT, we're just arguing some picayune semantics here.

If someone asks me to do something, and it's technically possible, but weapons grade stupid because of any number of reasons:

It shouldn't be an IT function.
It's a bottomless pit of support.
The user wants therapy, not solutions.
There's no technical reason you can't do this yourself, I'm not your personal secretary
We don't have the staff/training/expertise on the bench to do what you want to do... (my line of thinking on the RIAA)

all become IT reasons because the outcome affects the IT department, it's budget and the employee time within it.

I'm calling this an IT reason because the RIAA doesn't want to become google, and develop a sophisticated IT department.

[R C Dean]

The RIAA doesn't have the technology or the expertise to perform this.

They aren't willing to spend their own resources, certainly, which isn't an IT reason. And technology and resources are, ultimately, a budget issue.

Now, the inability to police encrypted files would be an IT reason.

[Paul.]

They aren't willing to spend their own resources, certainly, which isn't an IT reason. And technology and resources are, ultimately, a budget issue.

See my post above... it's just semantics. If the director comes to me and wants to do something that the IT dept doesn't have the budget for, it still falls under the umbrella of IT.

Methinks we're arguing something we essentially agree on.

[R C Dean]

C'mon, Paul. I'm trying to split hairs here.

[Paul.]

C'mon, Paul. I'm trying to split hairs here.

If you met me, you'd know you'd have no success on that front. Never try to split hairs with a bald man.

[niobiumstudio]

The RIAA and MPAA have direct access to YouTube to take down offending videos. There are many documented cases of excess where they did keyword searches and bulldozed entire indexes - even though it is against YouTube and RIAA/MPAA Policy to do this - since they have to be physically viewed.

[niobiumstudio]

Pretty much it is an electronic takedown notice to abide by the DMCA to prevent the entire site from being taken down for single files violating the DMCA. Technically, under the law, a single file can have the entire YouTube site taken down until the IP issues a resolved. Look up various DMCA cases or some of the more comical ones at PirateBay.

[Paul.]

Nio,
The RIAA and MPAA have direct access to YouTube to take down offending videos.

I didn't know this but it really doesn't change my opinion.

Youtube presents media to anyone's eyes who requests it. The RIAA can view these videos using the same channels and pathways as anyone else.

The concept of a file sharing site is more complex and has a literally unlimited array of data formats, some of which may or may not be encrypted.

There are many documented cases of excess

I think we all agree on this. The RIAA takes a bulldozer approach to everything they do, which goes back to my original point.

In the megaupload case, the RIAA realized they couldn't keep up, even with direct access, so they took the bulldozer approach.

[niobiumstudio]

I just wanted to add it in there that megaupload and youtube gave the RIAA/MPAA the same type of access to prevent takedown notices to prevent bulldozering. I fully agree with you they were too lazy to deal with the problem so they eliminated it. Only point is that youtube does the same thing and while they DO self-police, they give many companies backend access to remove videos.

[joshua corning]

The RIAA and MPAA have direct access to YouTube to take down offending videos.

Youtube has an insane system. I made a video game video and played music while it recorded (Nick Drake's Pink Moon) and youtube auto-detected it, even though it was a recording not a copy, then notified me, then asked me to allow ads for the video to pay for the use of the song.

[Paul.]

even though it was a recording not a copy, then notified me, then asked me to allow ads for the video to pay for the use of the song.

So wait, if you say "yes" to that, Youtube will allow copyrighted content, but the viewers will get an ad?

That almost seems fair.

[joshua corning]

I think most people understand that there are legitimate uses for a crowbar.

It would have been cool if Reason had expounded on this point....but you got the money quote and were able to piece it together yourself.

Why be all shitty about it?

Youtube is bitching about the same thing. I saw on Drudge that they said it would cost 30+ billion to check all its videos for copyright infringement.

It is odd. I can mail copyrighted material at anytime....under the RIAA's view the US mail service should be required to look through everyone's mail to stop this.

[Paul.]

It would have been cool if Reason had expounded on this point....but you got the money quote and were able to piece it together yourself.

Why be all shitty about it?

Seroiusly? Coming from the guy who picks fights with people who mostly agree with him?

And I say that with the utmost respect.

You must not have caught my admission to snark below that.

I forgive you.

[Tulpa the White]

This is worse than Mordor!

[Episiarch]

One does not simply FTP into Mordor.

[Mo' $parky]

It's too bad too. How much shorter would the books have been if they simply uploaded the ring right into Mt Doom.

[BakedPenguin]

Or just let the eagles bring a flash drive there.

[Pro Libertate]

People are always saying "Why couldn't the eagles just fly the Ring into Mount Doom?" Well, they didn't get in until Sauron was fried by the Ring getting destroyed. When that happened, his whole SAM array went down with him.

[Mo' $parky]

his whole SAM array went down with him.

Central command and control at its finest right there.

[Paul.]

You call Sauron's secretary, tell her there are some server issues you're working on, and you need her password for testing.

Works every time...

[Episiarch]

Ah yes, the old Legion of Doom social engineering method. One of my favorites.

[Pro Libertate]

The Mouth of Sauron? Yeah, no problems there. And that's not the only reason they call her "The Mouth", either.

[Pro Libertate]

Sam's a doofus. Worse than Mordor? Come on. Everything got better after Saruman got killed. Think Mordor is all peaches and cream just because Sauron is gone?

[Tulpa the White]

Actually I heard that Isengard suffered from acid rain and erosion for decades after the War of the Ring.

[Paul.]

I thought it was because they destroyed the wetlands around the castle.

[Pro Libertate]

I understand that the Ents restored the wetlands.

[Mo' $parky]

They restored the wetlands but the tree line had been moved back quite a way. With nothing to disperse the rain flow coming down the slope from Fangorn, all kinds of erosion would have taken place.

[Pro Libertate]

Which is why Gandalf and the elves all skedaddled. They didn't want to deal with all of the EPA crap after the war.

[MisterDamage]

Damn hobbits.

[Mo' $parky]

I, for one, am happy to live in the greatest country in this Brave New World.

[Hell's Librarian]

Soma makes it all better.

[Paul.]

Dotcom has an extradition hearing coming up in August to determine whether he'll be bundled off from New Zealand to the tender mercies of U.S. authorities.

Wow, so other countries now extraordinary-rendition... to us.

[AlmightyJB]

Thats cause everyone is a terrorist.

[JW]

Since January, the Dotcom legal team has asked for the footage, but police refused, until finally the agency agreed that an IT expert for DotCom could come and collect a copy of the footage. When the IT expert arrived at the police station, he found the server completely disassembled, and authorities said they could not reassemble it or give him any footage.

"Aw, man! It spontaneously disassembled just moments before you arrived. I hate it when that happens!"

Is there no level of sleaze that police aren't willing to go beyond, just to "win"?

[Episiarch]

Hmm. I can reassemble a server, no problem. Why didn't the IT guy offer to do it for them? Their faces would have been priceless.

[JW]

10 bucks says that the hard drives were "malfunctioning."

[Episiarch]

I doubt the dopes at the police station understand how a RAID array works. Just put it back together.

[JW]

Fucking magnets. How do they work?

[Mo' $parky]

Probably something to do with the time they spent in the machine shop by the drill press. I'm sure the shop worker was sufficiently scolded for accidentally fragging the wrong drives.

[Warty]

For that matter, why wouldn't he just grab an image of the hard drive? You'd think Megaupload could afford a better IT guy.

[Episiarch]

You have to assemble the RAID array or you will only get slices of info, unless you imaged every drive in the array, and even then I don't know if that would work.

[Warty]

I know you only need one of the drives from a RAID-1 array to get everything back, but I guess that might not be true for the higher-numbered arrays. I'll concede to your superior IT knowledge, you eminently replaceable fuck.

[Episiarch]

Anything beyond RAID0 and RAID1 has redundancy and striping, but no one disk will contain all your data. Dumbass.

[Warty]

You're probably stupid enough to use RAID-0, aren't you? Moron.

[Episiarch]

RAID10 all the way, baby.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Cool kids use zfs. No need to have a UPS to deal with write hole issues.

[Paul.]

Anything beyond RAID0 and RAID1 has redundancy and striping, but no one disk will contain all your data. Dumbass.

Nine drives, one drive to rule them all.

[niobiumstudio]

Isn't the purpose of RAID1 full mirroring with no striping - hence the "Mirrored Volume" term for continuous availability?

[R C Dean]

I can reassemble a server, no problem.

I feel quite certain that a bunch of cops can disassemble a server so that it will never, ever, function again. Ever.

[Episiarch]

Servers cost a lot of money, and that method would lose everything they had on it, forever. I would imagine there is a reason it was "disassembled" and not "broken".

[Paul.]

This is all just noise.

They could have had the thing professionally dismantled, not broken, but the real hard drives replaced with blank ones, the real ones in a locked file cabinet in the commissioner's office.

Everything after that is pure strategic incompetence-- one of the most effective tactics in human history.

[joshua corning]

I think what is going on here is that they only had access to the server for a short period and that access was limited.

ie they could not have reassembled them in the time and space they had and maybe even prevented from doing so by the wording of the court order.

[JW]

"The server came at the officer at high speed and was displaying aggressive behavior. The officer feared for his life and his weapon discharged, killing the assailant."

[MisterDamage]

10 Points for use of passive language

[niobiumstudio]

Hard Drives are very cheap. Most servers use RAID configurations (to mirror data in case of hard disk failure) - pull one of the mirror drives and store it out of the office, destroy the other hard drive, and leave the rest of the server intact. Problem with pesky defense attorneys getting your videos/files is solved. When the case goes away, find the "misplaced" mirror drive and get all your data back.

[Episiarch]

SATA drives are cheap. SAS drives are not. SAS drives deliver performance that SATA drives cannot. We have two SAS DASes and one SATA, and the SATA is for things where performance is not an issue.

[niobiumstudio]

General Web/Storage do not use SAS drives though and you know that. Most police stations are most likely using OTS Dell, HP, etc. servers.

[niobiumstudio]

How many local police stations are going to have enough concurrent users/specific bandwidth requirements to need SAS? Chances are if they have a SINGLE server that can be quickly disassembled, with no offsite, they are using SATA :-p

[Episiarch]

Dude, seriously, take a pill. I merely pointed out that SAS drives are expensive. Nitpicking me about what drives a police station might have is stupid.

[Paul.]

Dude, seriously, take a pill. I merely pointed out that SAS drives are expensive. Nitpicking me about what drives a police station might have is stupid.

It's geek cred, dude. There's no bottom to that well. Even after no one else is paying attention.

[Ska]

The real question is whether you can farm Whimsyshire on inferno with 100% MF gear.

[Episiarch]

I haven't had enough time to play that far, asshole! I've only gotten in about 7 hours so far. It sucks.

[Ska]

Seven hours? You're not even trying. May four vile swarm champions wall you into a long and miserable drawn out death that you can't kite from.

[Episiarch]

Oh, I'm trying, but work and life won't let me. Soon, though. Soon.

[BakedPenguin]

Soon...

[Ska]

Did that picture make anyone else think of Cavendish trying to leave the tunnel with that package of loose metal parts?

[Gojira]

Fags.

[Ska]

Did you post that before or after seeing a screenshot of Whimsyshire?

[Warty]

OK, now I'm getting much too excited for my new desktop to come so I can play Diablo. Goodbye, summer of 2012.

[Gojira]

Afterwards. But I forget that while "fags" is a go-to insult here in Texas, up in Seattle it's probably more like something of a compliment.

[Episiarch]

Your insults cannot affect me, Jimbo, for I do not own a Harley with a straight pipe.

[Warty]

You protest too loud, fag.

[Episiarch]

That's not my bike! It's a friend's!

[joshua corning]

Should have got Dragon's Dogma.

[Paul.]

Is that any good? I'm hearing some good things about it. To me, it struck me maybe as Skyrim without the bugs?

[joshua corning]

And without the well timed epic music. (though the main story events do have thier moments)

But yeah without the bugs. (note: i did have my first bug last night. My party NPC spell caster stopped healing or casting spells. I just saved and restarted and it went away)

Also it is less open. It is sand box but some areas you just cannot pass.

It is also harder. Shit kills you all the time and it is not obvious on how to win the harder monsters/encounters.

Also it has a party system like Diablo III with excellent ai. So your NPC party members are not only helpful and not a burden but they often save your ass and teach you how to win.

[buntpunt]

This makes a lot of sense dude, I think Fat boy needs to have another pizza!

http://www.Privacy-Apps.tk

[Alack]

Well, this is officially the best comment I've seen in weeks

[Lord Humungus]

Skynet has finally been born.

[Hell's Librarian]

I feel privileged to have witnessed the birth of our new overlord.

[sage]

Why did they disappear that? It was funny.

[NotSure]

New Zealand is easy to bully around by America, the problem is that countries such as China and Russia have tons of sites offering the same stuff that Megaupload had. I fail to see how Hollywood would manage to bully those countries authorities to shut down all those websites, without risking the start of WW3.

[Old Mexican]

The result left Dotcom without the chance to have his day in court or the money to fund a fight against claims he was behind as international criminal conspiracy in copyright infringement.

Serves them right because, without IP, people would not invent things; chaos would insue; people would stop blinking their eyes and even stop breathing.

Yes, IP (which is an undue and forced transfer of title towards someone who claims to be the "originator") is what gives breath to Progress, even when it doesn't at all.

[Old Mexican]

The Government's lawyers have been ordered to explain how the FBI left the country with evidence in the Kim Dotcom case meant to be kept in "secure custody" by New Zealand police.

"Because, let's be barney-frank about it - we kiss their ass all the time."

[Raston Bot]

I hear that place has a solid sheep to orc ratio. Something like 3 to 1. Suck it, Australia.