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Comment by mayanksinghal | Hacker News Reader

I think it is only fair in this particular scenario. Indian laws for free speech are quite weak and their application largely political and opportunistic. While I would love the companies to be more responsible in all jurisdictions that they are involved in, I certainly hope that Govt. of India and Indian courts stop issuing frequently and often absurd take-down (and if I am not wrong, even arrest) orders for user generated content.

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How is this at all different from the MegaUpload situation? Company, operating in a different country, not appearing to follow the local laws in the country that is using it's services, and the country wants to do something about it?

If I understand the Megaupload situation correctly, the crimes Megaupload and its executives were accused of were also illegal in the countries in which they were arrested. India's free speech laws are different from the US's though, so the same argument doesn't apply.

New Zealand also has a criminal copyright violation statute.

Which they might not have been violating.

And even if they were violating it, if New Zealand didn't want to pursue a case, why should America get the right to "World Police"?

Don't play daft. Mega was operating a business aimed squarely at the US market and built off the intellectual property of American companies. The US interest in seeing that case prosecuted is clear.

If NZ wants to alienate one of the world's largest markets, their largest military ally (and the guarantor of their security, particularly in their shipping lanes) to stick up for a foreign national running a criminal copyright conspiracy on their soil, they're free to do so. Don't get all huffy when they decide not to let that happen.

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