Hollywood entertainment cartel successfully convinces New Zealand judge to order Kim Dotcom's extrad - Polidicks

[url]http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/12/kim-dotcom-to-be-finally-extradited-to-the-us-new-zealand-judge-rules/[/url] [quote=Ars Technica]A New Zealand judge ordered Tuesday afternoon (Wednesday, Auckland time) that founder Kim Dotcom and his co-defendants should be extradited to the United States to face criminal charges over alleged massive copyright infringement on his now-shuttered site, Megaupload. The judgement, which almost certainly will be appealed, sets the stage for the winding down of Dotcom’s tenacious years-long legal fight against the American judicial system. As Ira Rothken, Dotcom's California-based lawyer, tweeted: [media]https://twitter.com/rothken/status/679479594513072128[/media] American authorities allege that the "Mega Conspiracy…generated more than $175 million in criminal proceeds and caused more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners." For his part, Dotcom has long maintained that Megaupload was no different from any other cloud storage service, like Google or Dropbox, and that he made good faith efforts to remove infringing content.[/quote]

...Entertainment Cartel?

[QUOTE=ZakkShock;49372134]...Entertainment Cartel?[/QUOTE] MPAA, RIAA, and their band of brothers and sisters (Sony, Universal, etc).

[QUOTE=wickedplayer494;49372152]MPAA, RIAA, and their band of brothers and sisters (Sony, Universal, etc).[/QUOTE] Just because the sub forum is called 'sensationalist headlines' doesn't mean you should take it literally. It's obviously satirical. That title is pathetic.

[QUOTE=ZakkShock;49372134]...Entertainment Cartel?[/QUOTE] Cartel is an economics term, a group of companies working together and stroking each others' dicks while fixing the market and working to make everyone more money while fucking the consumer over in every way imaginable. They're illegal as shit, but becoming a pseudo-governmental entity like the RIAA and MPAA makes that not matter.

[QUOTE=Antdawg;49372173]Just because the sub forum is called 'sensationalist headlines' doesn't mean you should take it literally. It's obviously satirical. That title is pathetic.[/QUOTE] They weild incredible legal power regardless. Based on that, them being a cartel isn't out of the ordinary use of that word. In my city we have a "taxi cartel", a bunch of companies of the same variety working together to keep competition down outside of their circle. The word cartel is entirely reasonable and fitting in both uses.

[QUOTE=zombini;49372179]Cartel is an economics term, a group of companies working together and stroking each others' dicks while fixing the market and working to make everyone more money while fucking the consumer over in every way imaginable. They're illegal as shit, but becoming a pseudo-governmental entity like the RIAA and MPAA makes that not matter.[/QUOTE] You are correct. [quote]In economics, a cartel is an agreement between competing firms to control prices or exclude entry of a new competitor in a market. It is a formal organization of sellers or buyers that agree to fix selling prices, purchase prices, or reduce production using a variety of tactics.[/quote] Let's drop the cartel argument since it's pointless and just carry on with a proper discussion. Here's to hoping this entire thing gets thrown out in the High Court, and that Hollywood doesn't win.

He is going to appeal the decision and has two weeks to do so.

whether theyre right or wrong, all i really care is that hollywood loses, tbh. like, im not gonna try to pretend to thats not the case, and i know im not alone. i just want to see the MPAA and RIAA et all lose and make themselves look bad, and waste a lot of money.

As they have commented, this appeal process could take years. So it's not like he's leaving any time soon.

Fucking Hollywood scumbags. [editline]23rd December 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Anti Christ;49372483]whether theyre right or wrong, all i really care is that hollywood loses, tbh. like, im not gonna try to pretend to thats not the case, and i know im not alone. i just want to see the MPAA and RIAA et all lose and make themselves look bad, and waste a lot of money.[/QUOTE] The problem isn't the money directly its more who the money goes to and how its obtained thats the problem.

Was Megaupload really doing anything other then being a host site for downloads with an option for premium membership? Unless Megaupload was endorsing these illegal downloads in some way, this is just batfuck retarded.

Megaupload was where "most" of the Pirated films were hosted, The Pirate Bay was second.

I think they're both scumbags tbh and anyone that thinks Kim is a good person is pretty naive

[QUOTE=TornadoAP;49372964]Was Megaupload really doing anything other then being a host site for downloads with an option for premium membership? Unless Megaupload was endorsing these illegal downloads in some way, this is just batfuck retarded.[/QUOTE] megaupload had a system where if you uploaded a file that had already been uploaded, it would give you a unique link to your upload, but use the same file as before. if someone DMCA'd that upload, they removed the link to said upload, but not the file. thats part of why megaupload was used by pirates so much. if your uploads got taken down, you could very, very easily reupload them (because the files were already uploaded. you just needed a new link to them) i also remember something about behind the scenes deals with certain uploaders, but i dont remember much about that.

[QUOTE=TornadoAP;49372964]Was Megaupload really doing anything other then being a host site for downloads with an option for premium membership? Unless Megaupload was endorsing these illegal downloads in some way, this is just batfuck retarded.[/QUOTE] It's not that different from what other 'premium' file hosts still do. They don't care what you're hosting, you using their service to share your stuff with people is what makes them money. Megaupload was just the biggest flashing target and the most popular. Everyone used them because they offered generous upload limits, easy uploads, and were generally the least shit (remember, this is back around the time Rapidshare was going full merchant with premium pricing and shafting free users) Dotcom's ego didn't help matters, but Megaupload didn't deserve what happened to it at all. The users didn't deserve what happened at all.

[QUOTE=Kuro.;49373507]It's not that different from what other 'premium' file hosts still do. They don't care what you're hosting, you using their service to share your stuff with people is what makes them money. Megaupload was just the biggest flashing target and the most popular. Everyone used them because they offered generous upload limits, easy uploads, and were generally the least shit (remember, this is back around the time Rapidshare was going full merchant with premium pricing and shafting free users) Dotcom's ego didn't help matters, but Megaupload didn't deserve what happened to it at all. The users didn't deserve what happened at all.[/QUOTE] Yeah, that's what I thought.

[QUOTE=Kuro.;49373507]It's not that different from what other 'premium' file hosts still do. They don't care what you're hosting, you using their service to share your stuff with people is what makes them money. Megaupload was just the biggest flashing target and the most popular. Everyone used them because they offered generous upload limits, easy uploads, and were generally the least shit (remember, this is back around the time Rapidshare was going full merchant with premium pricing and shafting free users) Dotcom's ego didn't help matters, but Megaupload didn't deserve what happened to it at all. The users didn't deserve what happened at all.[/QUOTE] Man I remember a lot of mods and shit were hosted on rapidshare for GMOD.

[QUOTE=Saxon;49373071]I think they're both scumbags tbh and anyone that thinks Kim is a good person is pretty naive[/QUOTE] He's ahead of his time. Information with negligible marginal cost shouldn't be priced up and treated like a physical product of old. I don't support piracy, I buy all my games and movies but I do believe a different approach is required and within the next couple of decades we will see that change. Also his advocacy for individual privacy and support for opensource software gives anybody a pretty strong case for him being a good person.