[kadavero]

This is ridiculous overreach. It sets a dangerous precedent where any online trader must be mindful of all legislation of all possible jurisdictions on the world.

Otherwise, sell porn, have one customer from Saudi Arabia, go for a vacation in Turkey, and here comes your flogging extradition trip.

At the same time, US has a "Hague invasion act" authorizing military action against international prosecution of their officials.

[Sleeep]

It's extremely common for businesses dealing with money to only accept customers from only the jurisdictions they have compliance with.

[modeless]

You missed the part where he personally transferred stolen money into the US, and hosted his service in the US.

[emn13]

If hosting is enough to be considered present in the US, then the US cloud providers better get ready for some unpleasantly stiff competition.

I'm not sure it's a factor here.

[emodendroket]

> If hosting is enough to be considered present in the US, then the US cloud providers better get ready for some unpleasantly stiff competition.

That has been the case for a really long time, hasn't it?

[djsumdog]

I'm surprised no one here as mentioned Kim Doctcom, who is still trying to fight his extradition from New Zealand. He's a German, who has never set foot in America, was illegally spied on by NZ (which is now retroactively legal thanks to former PM John Key's GCSB law) and for a charge that isn't a crime in NZ.

[cookiecaper]

Kim Dotcom and The Pirate Bay are, essentially, extralegal cases. KD and TPB consistently frustrated interests that are powerful enough to get bureaucrats to supersede the legal system (as long as it's ambiguous and rare enough not to comprise a slam dunk against the bureaucrat). A bit of pressure and the problem gets solved one way or another.

Sweden only moved against TPB after the WTO threatened them with sanctions. It's likely that New Zealand caved in the belief that they'd face similar unpleasantness.

We must understand that underneath the fancy dressings and the formalities that we create to make ourselves feel important, humans are essentially the same; our psychologies are all dictated by the same biological processes. We must not kid ourselves about this. It is always dangerous to upset or frustrate powerful interests. If you taunt someone much more powerful than you, as TPB did, do not expect formalities like law to make a difference.

A lot of starry-eyed entrepreneurs go in thinking that everyone will be pleasant and sportsmanlike, and see their work as a friendly collaborative competition. This is not true! People will skirt and break every rule they can to win, because they see the competition as a matter of survival, not as a fun game.

The copyright cartel is out of control along every axis. Not only do they make use of an artificially-granted, market-destroying monopoly to stifle the creative speech of the public, but in multiple cases now, they've triggered an extralegal override of national sovereignty to persecute a little guy who was frustrating their oppressive business model in ways that were completely legal within his/her jurisdiction.

If our politicians want to get out under these peoples' thumbs, they need to seriously revise copyright law, and tell the fat cats that they're going to have to be productive to make money instead of milking royalties for 100+ years and sending the feds across the world to black bag entrepreneurs.

[megous]

You missed the part where he personally sold porn to someone in Saudi Arabia.

[skj]

Yeah that sounds pretty risky too. Fortunately in that case most countries won't extradite, but I'd avoid visiting Saudi Arabia after that move.

[cookiecaper]

IANAL but the convention in law seems to be to come out of the gate as aggressively as possible, making an initial land grab for every kind of remote, loose, or tenuous allegation, and see what survives. I guess lawyers expect to get push back, so they overreach out of the gate to give something to quibble over and protect the real basis of their claim.