Dotcom: Copyright Charges Not Enough For Extradition

The extradition hearing of Kim Dotcom and former colleagues Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato and Bram van der Kolk, continued in the Auckland District Court today.

The quartet is fighting deportation to the United States on serious charges including conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering, and engaging in a racketeering conspiracy.

However, the court heard from the defense that the offenses don’t meet the criteria for the men to be sent to the United States.

Dotcom’s lawyer Ron Mansfield said the Crown, arguing on behalf of the United States, has been attempting to characterize the charges against the men as fraud, an extraditable offense.

However, he pointed out that the US Supreme Court previously ruled that copyright infringement can not be considered fraud. A key case, Dowling v. United States, is referenced in a white paper published by Kim Dotcom (pdf).

It’s important for Dotcom to make a clear distinction between copyright infringement and fraud. Mansfield says that all of the 13 charges against the Megaupload founder are underpinned by copyright infringement allegations.

Also muddying the waters is the fact under United States law one of the criminal copyright infringement charges brought against Dotcom has already exceeded its time limitations. The others, Mansfield said, are not aimed at his client and are dependent on other charges being proven.

“Categorically there is no case to answer under US law,” he said.

“Unless the United States can show an offense of criminal secondary copyright infringement in the United States as a matter of law, this court must reject this application for surrender.”

But locally there are issues too. Mansfield told the court that New Zealand legislation does not recognize copyright infringement as fraud either and the extradition treaty between the two countries does not hold copyright infringement as being an extraditable offense.

“That’s the end of the story, really,” he told Judge Nevin Dawson.

Further boosting Dotcom’s position, Mansfield argued yesterday that even charges of (non-extraditable) copyright infringement are excessive.

As the operator of a service provider company, Dotcom and his colleagues should’ve enjoyed ‘safe harbor’ and not been held liable for the infringing acts of their users.

Dotcom’s defense is expected to conclude this week but no matter what the outcome, it’s unlikely to be the end of the extradition legal process. Whichever side loses, both are expected to take their case to appeal.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

XE Market Analysis: Europe - Nov 03, 2015

The dollar majors remained within recent ranges while the AUD saw some chop, declining in the initial wake of the RBA's refrain to keep interest rates unchanged, which was accompanied by a statement with both dovish and hawkish takeaways, before rebounding quite strongly. AUD-USD dipped to a 0.7113 low before about turning and clocking a one-week peak of 0.7218. Overall, the RBA's decision not to cut, along with the generally upbeat tone on the Australian economy drove the AUD higher.

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XE Market Analysis: Asia - Nov 02, 2015

The dollar was firmer in N.Y. trade to start November, though trade overall was subdued. A mix of softer U.S. manufacturing ISM, and firmer construction spending had little impact on the greenback, though a firmer risk backdrop, including higher yields and stocks, ultimately supported the buck. EUR-USD started the session at 1.1052, and made its way to 1.1015 lows. USD-JPY found buyers into 120.50, and later peaked at 120.78. USD-CAD followed the vagaries of the oil market, and ranged between 1.3073 and 1.3109.

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Court Orders Shutdown of Libgen, Bookfi and Sci-Hub

With a net income of more than $1 billion Elsevier is one of the largest academic publishers in the world.

Through its ScienceDirect portal the company offers access to millions of scientific articles spread out over 2,200 journals, most of which are behind a paywall.

Websites such as Sci-Hub and The Library Genesis Project, or Libgen for short, have systematically breached this barrier by hosting pirated copies of scientific publications as well as mainstream books.

Earlier this year one of the largest publishers went into action to stop this threat. Elsevier filed a complaint at a New York District Court, accusing the sites’ operators of systematic copyright infringement.

The publisher requested damages and asked for a preliminary injunction to prevent the sites from distributing their articles while the case is ongoing.

Late last week District Court Judge Robert Sweet approved the request (pdf), ordering the operators of Sci-Hub.org, Bookfi.org, Elibgen.org and several sister sites to cease their activities.

In addition, the responsible domain name registries are ordered to suspend the associated domain names until further notice.

Previously the Public Interest Registry (.ORG) refused to do so when Elsevier put in a request, noting that it would require a valid court order to suspend a domain name.

According to the order Elsevier showed that it’s likely to succeed based on its copyright infringement claims. In addition, there’s enough evidence to suggest that the defendants violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

“The balance of hardships clearly tips in favor of the Plaintiffs. Elsevier has shown that it is likely to succeed on the merits, and that it continues to suffer irreparable harm due to the Defendants’ making its copyrighted material available for free,” Judge Sweet writes.

The site’s operators have few grounds on which to fight the injunction, as they don’t have the right to distribute most of the articles in the first place.

“The Defendants cannot be legally harmed by the fact that they cannot continue to steal the Plaintiff’s content, even if they tried to do so for public-spirited reasons,” the order reads.

Alexandra Elbakyan, the founder of Sci-Hub, is the only person who responded to Elsevier’s complaint. In a letter she sent to the court before the injunction hearing, she argued that the publisher is exploiting researchers and blocking access to knowledge.

Judge Sweet agrees that there is a public interest to safeguard broad access to scientific research. However, simply putting all research online without permission is not the answer.

“Elbakyan’s solution to the problems she identifies, simply making copyrighted content available for free via a foreign website, disserves the public interest,” Judge Sweet writes.

The Judge notes that under current law researchers and the public are allowed to publicly share “ideas and insights” from the articles without restrictions. People can also freely use the copyrighted articles for research or educational purposes under the fair use doctrine.

“Under this doctrine, Elsevier’s articles themselves may be taken and used, but only for legitimate purposes, and not for wholesale infringement,” the order reads.

At the time of writing several of the websites, including Sci-hub.org and Bookfi.org, are still online. It is expected that they will be suspended by the registry in a matter of days.

Time will tell whether the site operators will also stop offering copyrighted articles, or if they will simply move to a new domain name and continue business as usual.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

New Arrow Episode Leaks Online Before it Airs

With millions of downloads per episode, Arrow is one of the most pirated TV-series of the year.

Featuring the DC Comic character Green Arrow the show is currently in its fourth season.

Many fans of the show are looking forward to the next episode later this week, where another DC Comic character will make his appearance. After a failed series on NBC, John Constantine will join the Arrow storyline.

Interestingly, not all fans will have to wait this long as thousands just jumped on a leaked copy that appeared online earlier today. Even though TV-show leaks are relatively rare, the fifth episode of Arrow was uploaded to public and private torrent sites a few hours ago.

The source of the leak is unknown but a warning screen at the starts shows that it originates from a preview copy, which was sent out for review by Warner Bros. Television.

The message warns the viewer not to distribute the video to third parties and suggests that the leaked version is not the final cut.

“The episode contained on this DVD is a rough cut and is not final. It may be missing key special visual effects, and additional sound effects and music are temporary,” it reads.

However, judging from the comments online the copy is fairly complete.

“Good copy, great episode, will grab the episode this week to see the changes but it doesn’t look like there will be much,” one commenter notes.

The video quality isn’t particularly great, which is usually the case with these type of leaks. Still, that won’t deter many from having a sneak peek.

Whether the leak will hurt the ratings, or if it will serve as a promotion for the “most important” episode of the season remains up for debate.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

XE Market Analysis: North America - Nov 02, 2015

The dollar was mixed in overnight trade, falling some versus the euro, as the ECB's Draghi downplayed the prospects of December stimulus easing measures in an Italian magazine interview. USD-JPY sits near Friday's closing levels, but above Asian session lows, as the market eyes prospects for a special Japan government stimulus budget. USD-CAD is back over 1.311, supported by softer oil prices, which were the result of soft China PMI data. Cable firmed up after U.K. PMI handily beat expectations. The U.S. calendar reveals October manufacturing ISM.

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Kim Dotcom Finally Launches Extradition Defense

Two-thirds through September Kim Dotcom’s long-awaited extradition hearing finally got underway.

Expected to last just four weeks, progress was hindered by legal argument, much of it centered around claims that Dotcom and former colleagues Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato and Bram van der Kolk, weren’t getting a fair hearing.

Attempts to delay the extradition on those grounds ultimately failed last week and today Kim Dotcom’s defense finally got underway. As expected, lawyer Ron Mansfield immediately began painting a negative picture of U.S. prosecutors, highlighting selective use of evidence and subtle attempts at twisting discussion transcripts in their favor.

Much had previously been made of apparently incriminating Skype calls Dotcom had placed with his former business partners, but today Mansfield said the U.S. had knowingly translated those from German to suit their cause.

One, in which Dotcom allegedly said: “At some point a judge will be convinced how evil we are and then we are in trouble,” was corrected by Mansfield to state: “Because at some stage a judge will be talked into how bad we allegedly are – and then we will be a mess.”

Another instance, seen in the 3News image below, shows a Dotcom reference to individuals who uploaded large amounts of content to the site. For both sides in this fight the differences between the two translations are small but significant.

“It’s not only a misrepresentation which was known by the United States, it is one which it has exploited for its own benefit,” Mansfield told the court.

The U.S. had cherry-picked evidence sampled over several years, he said, discarding everything that contradicted their case and retaining anything that didn’t.

“What the United States have done here is simply bundle up years of selective or ‘cherry-picked’ conversations where those conversations [appear to show] an awareness or knowledge of copyright infringement,” Mansfield said.

While actual knowledge of copyright infringement is indeed a serious matter, Mansfield argued that there are limits on how far a company like Megaupload can be held liable for the actions of its users.

He said that in both New Zealand and the United States laws exist to protect people like Dotcom and the service provider companies they create, and the U.S. is attempting to create criminal liability where non exists.

“What the US is effectively saying to Internet service providers is: ‘You need to actively investigate copyright infringement and stop it, because if you don’t you’ll not only be civilly liable but criminally liable’,” Mansfield said.

“Internet giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter are immune from prosecution and to indict them would result in unprecedented public outrage.”

Of course, U.S. prosecutors aren’t placing Megaupload in the same category as the companies listed above. However, Dotcom’s lawyer said that Megaupload was not only legitimate, but also had the backing of some of America’s biggest stars.

To prove his point, Mansfield began playing the controversial ‘Mega Song‘, an advert that gained so much traction late 2011, just weeks before the raid on Dotcom.

Starring P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg and Kanye West, among others, Mega Song showed that Megaupload was mainstream and ‘up front’. Judge Nevin Dawson apparently didn’t see the video’s relevance, however, and ordered it to be switched off part way through.

Dotcom’s defense is expected to run for the remainder of the week. If extradited to the U.S. and subsequently found guilty, both he and his former colleagues face several decades in jail.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.