Monday, February 6, 2012
Kim Dotcom
Megaupload's Kim Dotcom was arrested and is awaiting an extradition hearing in New Zealand for money laundering and piracy of various types of copyrighted media. Kim has made millions of dollars from premium member subscriptions to his file-sharing site Megaupload.com. Allegedly, "Megaupload was fueling the entertainment industry's push for SOPA and PIPA in the US." I do not fully understand all the logistics for SOPA and PIPA in the US, but after hearing about the terrible crimes that Kim has committed, something needs to be done. Whether or not SOPA and PIPA will accomplish this, or if another anti-piracy act could stop people like Kim, it should be apparent that online piracy is a major issue, and is affecting all of our lives. There is an astonishing number of file-sharing sites out there that do the exact same thing that Dotcom's website has been doing for over five years. It is upsetting to consider all the internet sites that violate the United States's copyright laws.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Crimes? I'm sorry but whoever you are, you obviously do not understand things. Kim Dotcom wasn't a US citizen. His company didn't operate in the US. Why should be be subject to US laws? Is the US going to be come the global protector of dying industries unable to innovate? Obviously SOPA and PIPA weren't needed to take down Megaupload, so the content industries and their lobbying groups were quite obviously lying. Read up on what it means to steal. You can't steal digital bits. The owner has lost nothing. Piracy only affects the lives of people who are used to selling a scarce commodity and do not how to make something valuable without making it scarce. I'm sorry that you feel the way that you do. Perhaps you should read the last year of blog posts on techdirt.com. It would help you to learn.
ReplyDeleteYes, he has violated the United States copyright laws, but not his own country's laws. The only reason they were able to nab him was because of a loop hole where part of his company was in Virginia for a time (or something like that). The reason they are called pirates is because they are stealing from those that have no way of pressing charges due to jurisdiction restrictions, just like the pirates of old. The only thing that SOPA and PIPA would have accomplished would be to start censoring the US, which makes us most similar to... China? I'm sorry but I don't want the government to have so much power over the people. We shouldn't be scared into allowing a bill to pass, we should pass laws that protect us and I doubt SOPA would have done anything to stop pirates, because it is placing the restrictions on the american people rather than the people committing the crimes. There is no guarantee that other countries would participate with laws passed in the USA.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, nice article. It was very thought provoking. Its a controversial subject and one that needs a solution for sure. The important thing is that its being thought about and discussed.