Megaupload Prosecution: Can of Worms
Should self-storage companies be held accountable for illegal property their clients store in self-storage facilities?
Should self-storage companies intrude on their clients' privacy by inspecting the property their clients store in self-storage facilities?
I would have said no to both questions. But the America and New Zealand Governments seem to think differently.
Slashdot: Megauploadcom shut down founder charged with piracy
On 19 January 2012 Megaupload was shut down and it's directors, Kim Dotcom, 37, and three other employees were arrested in New Zealand on request of American authorities for alleged acts committed in New Zealand that are debatable illegal under American law. I am no legal genius myself but I always thought in order to arrest someone they had to first commit a crime in the country prosecuting said crime and if they were in another country an extradition process was necessary.
Megaupload is a facility for storing and uploading and downloading digital information. Some of this information is alleged to be unlawfully copied copyrighted films and music. A Self-storage company is not responsible for the materials its clients store in it's facilities. Neither is it responsible for invading it's clients privacy. How then is Megaupload responsible for its clients actions?
The American entertainment industry claims Megaupload is facilitating the distribution of their alleged copyrite property. Which is sort of ironic because copyrites were originally created to insure a proportion of monies earned from art went to the artists not to the entertainment industry that holds money back from artists and in fact still do so to this day. The entertainment industry has over the years insisted on its copyrites it has no original claim or right to. And has consistently used ambulance chaser tactics to avoid handing over copyrites go to the rightful owners and their heirs.
So why has the American Government seen fit to ignore its own jurisprudence and international law to bring down Megaupload?
Wired: SOPA, Internet Regulation and the Economics of Piracy
The American entertainment industry has brought a lot of pressure to bear on the American Government to prosecute unlawful copying of their said copyrites. It's main leverage Is the millions of claimed revenue lost to unlawfully copied films and music. The figures it has produced are nebulous at best insofar as they have yet to produce, name or quote source statistics from which they get their figures from. These bullying tactics are very reminiscent of the disgraced and bankrupted copyright trolls; Righthaven, who destroyed many small businesses and damaged private individuals lives. The prosecution of Megaupload is unlikely to be successful. It's main purpose is to break the company by suspending its operations during the arrest and prosecution which will take years. This is also a message to the rest of the world: The entertainment industry will do whatever it can do destroy anyone that exchanges films, music and other artwork.
The American Government is presently using the nebulous argument that since the Internet has no borders and is fact everywhere then any act committed in nay country which is against American law is prosecutable by them. With this argument Saudi Arabia is able prosecute Saudi women that choose behave in a lavicious manner in Brooklyn and show it on the Internet. With this argument China is able to prosecute Tibetans and Uihgas that promote anti-Chinese propaganda on their blog in the Paris.
This is not just a tragic farce. These acts; the blatant disregard of justice and flouting of international law and jurisprudence Megaupload's prosecution, the persecution of Assange, Richard O'Dwyer and Gary McKinnon corrupt our laws and bring us that much closer to totalitarianism.