Catering to trillion dollar media companies is not exactly my idea of freedom.
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Does their size make the moral situation any different?
Many of these are public companies that anyone can buy shares in. Tons of people have part of their life savings in US stocks - these people all own a slice of the rights to various works of art.
Are you saying if they own a large enough amount of it, it's OK to ignore their rights?
As an aside, here's a list of public companies [0]. 7-8 of them are "trillion dollar companies", and only one (Apple) has a stake in media (that I know of) and that's a very minor part of their business. The media business is not a very good one to be in.
> Are you saying if they own a large enough amount of it, it's OK to ignore their rights?
Let's not pretend these companies give the slightest hint of a shit about morality. They'd destroy the world next year if it meant they could earn a penny more of profit this quarter.
As long as companies like Disney are pulling moves like this [1], I'm not going to sit here and pretend as if these companies are in the right.
The only reason Dotcom (a non-US individual with 0 ties to the US in any way that should matter) is being extradited is because US politicians are pathetically cheap and easy to buy off, and Disney and all the other big media companies have infinite coffers with which to do so, not because of some vague bullshit about morality or property rights.
Are you morally perfect? No? Do you still have legal rights and ownership of things despite that?
It's like that for companies. It doesn't matter if Disney sucks in many ways, if they own something, they own it.
If you think this is vague bullshit, then I'd invite you to read up on how societies tend to work without it. Even communist China instituted reforms and amendments in recent decades cementing the concept of private property ownership.
And Dotcom does have a tie to the US that he willingly and knowingly created: he committed a crime against their citizens and companies.
Most people, not just trillion-dollar media companies, have at least some interest in seeing intellectual property protections enforced.
You can argue that there's too much protection, or that it doesn't afford equal protection under the law for smaller parties.
Do they? I know for sure nobody in my circle of friends cares in the slightest if people pirate media from huge companies.
I don't think anyone other than Disney shareholders gives an iota of a damn if others pirate movies/shows/music from the big guys. And I especially don't think most people would seek extradition for a guy who hosted a piracy website, especially, that's the type of thing psychopathic execs and their ilk seem to be into. Especially someone who's not even a US citizen or has any affiliation with the US.
Also, keep in mind we're talking companies like Disney here, who are currently fighting a legal battle [1] because someone died due to their negligence and using the argument that agreeing to the T&C of their streaming service absolves them of wrongdoing in a person's death.
So yeah, don't expect anyone to feel sorry for the plight of the poor soulless megacorporation here, they'd destroy the earth if it made them half a nickel more in yearly profits.
Nice strawman on the TOC, but there are _plenty_ of people whose jobs rely on intellectual property protections. I know people who have developed recipes and sold the publishing rights to them. Artists copyright their work to prevent it from being copied outright. Even FLOSS is based in intellectual property protections: if someone charges you for access to the Linux kernel source code, they've effectively done the inverse of what Kim Dotcom did, but it's still against the license to do so.
Again, you can make the argument that these protections are too broad or too durable, but it's not in anyone's best interest for intellectual works to be unprotectable under law.
Freedom is in the eye of the beholder, apparently.