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An excellent read from Stanford Law:
The recent Department of Justice decision to indict Megaupload for copyright infringement and related offenses raises some very thorny questions from a criminal law perspective.
Megaupload: A Lot Less Guilty Than You Think | Stanford Center for Internet and Society
Seeded on Tue Jan 31, 2012 10:24 AM EST
Article Source: Stanford Knowledgebase- Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.
- Public Discussion (8)
Fantastic read, I also enjoyed some of the comments at the bottom, especially:
Bottom line question is this: should companies like Megaupload that are based outside of the U.S. be aware of and conform to U.S. laws as they pertain to copyrights?
It seems US law is spreading further and further into other countries, for example, a few years ago, a Canadian in BC was extradited to the US and jailed for 5 years for shipping Mary Jane seeds to the US, yet he had a legitimate business here in Canada!
- 5 votes
#1 - Tue Jan 31, 2012 10:35 AM ESTBottom line question is this: should companies like Megaupload that are based outside of the U.S. be aware of and conform to U.S. laws as they pertain to copyrights?
Depends. Are they located outside the U.S. in an effort to later claim that they weren't aware of U.S. copyright law?
At any rate, legally, they're not yet guilty of anything. With that said, there's no rule against the court of public opinion making up its mind on what little it knows. My take is that this guy is smart enough to know what he was doing, and also smart enough to act as though he didn't.
The idea, to me, that a company can, in effect, put up a "no swimming allowed" sign and then turn a blind eye to all the swimming going on -- "wink, wink" -- but later say that they're not responsible for a bunch of swimming-related deaths is, well, kind of weak.
Maybe that's not what happened, but that's what evidence is for. If evidence exists that they were willing to look the other way or subtly encourage illegal sharing, well: Why defend that behavior?
- 2 votes
How exactly is Mega Upload different than Carbonite, for example?
Couldn't you just backup a bunch of copyrighted material to Carbonite, then give someone your password to 'restore' it to their machine?
Yes, you could.
- 2 votes
#2 - Tue Jan 31, 2012 12:19 PM ESTThe trouble Religious is that you could also be using Carbonite to back up a bunch of copyrighted material from your computer that you purchased and own and be legitimately restoring your computer after your hard-drive died/a virus attack/a power-surge destroyed your computer......
Yes, you can do that too.
So, short of actually going into someone's house or searching their computer- how can you tell what their doing is illegal or a legitimate attempt to recover their data?
It's like drugs on the bus, Religious. On any filled bus of people, a certain number of them are going to have drugs in their purses and bags and pockets.
While, it's true that some of those are going to be illegal, it's also true that a fair portion of those drugs are going to be legitimate prescriptions that those people are taking for their health.
So, the trouble is: how are you going to tell who has what without strip searching everyone?
And, worse than that- how in the heck do these companies come up with the logic that it's the bus company's responsibility to be doing it?
By that logic- we should be arresting the CEO of Greyhound for drug smuggling.
- 1 vote
@Brian
OK, then let's look at it another way. In Canada, it is NOT illegal to download music/movies from the Internet, but it IS illegal to upload music/movies. Lets say I open a website with the host in Canada with links to "free" music/movie downloads and I am a Canadian. According to Canadian law, I have done nothing wrong but in US law, I might as well have been a murder, I would go to jail for a LONG time in other words.
Again, I have none nothing wrong in my country but should the US be allowed to extradite me?
BTW... Music, software and especially DVD pirating is rampant up here, almost every corner store sells the DVDs, the penilty is almost nonexsistant so the cops do not bother wasting their time and I have got some of the best pirated DVDs from cops.
#3 - Tue Jan 31, 2012 12:31 PM ESTOK, then let's look at it another way. In Canada, it is NOT illegal to download music/movies from the Internet, but it IS illegal to upload music/movies. Lets say I open a website with the host in Canada with links to "free" music/movie downloads and I am a Canadian.
What does hosting copyrighted content (and facilitating BOTH uploading and downloading) have to do with individual users who upload or download content? I'm not sure the Canadian laws you're citing have anything at all to do with the scenario you've presented.
At any rate, I don't pretend to be an expert on extradition or even copyright law, but presumably, this all has something to do with the Berne Convention, to which NZ is a signatory.
- 2 votes
I guess my point was covering your point of:
Are they located outside the U.S. in an effort to later claim that they weren't aware of U.S. copyright law?
Even if I or an American that moved up here specifically to create a site for allowing users to upload and download copy protected content, I/they should be tried in a Canadian court (and get a slap on the wrist) not extridited to the US; if US law is starting to over rule ones own country's laws, what is the point of Canadian law, why not just make US law cover the whole world?
#4 - Tue Jan 31, 2012 1:13 PM ESTI honestly don't know the specifics of the law, here. And, it's possible that this will test the limits of the law. Perhaps he'll walk because of an overstepping of the law. We'll have to wait and see.
- 2 votes
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