Pretty much. The US makes other countries adopt laws that are similar to their own via trade agreements. The whole purpose of doing that is to make it easier for american businesses to sell stuff in other countries. The whole world is economically forced to converge into the same set of general laws that just happen to be very friendly to the interests of american corporations. Intellectual property laws are included in the package.
There are countries in the world where governments struggle to provide basic infrastructure to their populations. Why would anyone in such a miserable situation even care about protecting american copyright industry interests by prosecuting copyright infringement?
An MPAA official once visited my country to lobby politicians and push their agenda. Journalists asked him point blank: do you think copyright is a priority in a country where people do not have basic sanitation? I wish I had saved the article where I read that...
> Megaupload wasn't even a US company, why should it “enforce” some foreign legislation on non-concerned parties?
Good question... The US can probably just do whatever it wants though. If they hate you enough, they'll just kidnap you and fly you to wherever it is they need you to be. They call it extraordinary rendition.
Nothing he or his company did was illegal in NZ.
Put it like this: if a Pakistani courts tried to extradite Zuckerburg for blasphemy because some of Facebook's users said bad things about islam, then they'd be rightfully laughed at.
But a US court trying to extradite a NZ CEO for something the company's users did... different story. Because America.
Yes, because we all live in America... right? Megaupload wasn't even a US company, why should it “enforce” some foreign legislation on non-concerned parties?